Amazing Spider-Man #47 Preview

[JustLuke]

She'll be in a blood hunt tie in.. take that with what you will in regards to her and Ben

[Refrax5]

Why would Ben care if some guy gets hurt when he unleashed a demon horde on New York?

Bad writing, but I guess the in-universe explanation is that Ben is brain damaged/confused/forgetful/insane because of what Beyond did to him. I don't think even Ben knows what he's doing anymore.

[Kurolegacy]

You know, sad thing is, if Wells wanted to be clever about this, the one Ben brought would turn out to be Kafka since it would have things come full circle in a twisted manner since both are as twisted as they are now. Sadly, I don’t see Wells being that clever.

[JustLuke]

Bad writing, but I guess the in-universe explanation is that Ben is brain damaged/confused/forgetful/insane because of what Beyond did to him. I don't think even Ben knows what he's doing anymore.

Imo the less evil/villainous Ben is portrayed the better so I don't really care about that not being consistent with his previous appearances lol

[Sr. Bungle]

You know, sad thing is, if Wells wanted to be clever about this, the one Ben brought would turn out to be Kafka since it would have things come full circle in a twisted manner since both are as twisted as they are now. Sadly, I don’t see Wells being that clever.

I still think that's Kafka

[Refrax5]

Imo the less evil/villainous Ben is portrayed the better so I don't really care about that not being consistent with his previous appearances lol

Yeah, but I'm just riding it out with a shrug because they scrambled his brain so badly he was hallucinating and forgetting his own name, so he's just out of his mind at the moment. He'll eventually bounce back. I can't think of many "let's turn this beloved hero into a villain" ideas that actually lasted.

[JustLuke]

Yeah, but I'm just riding it out with a shrug because they scrambled his brain so badly he was hallucinating and forgetting his own name, so he's just out of his mind at the moment. He'll eventually bounce back. I can't think of many "let's turn this beloved hero into a villain" ideas that actually lasted.

I think comic writers and editors should realize that turning heroes into villains generally just doesn't work out 99% of the time. I don't know why it isn't just obvious by now

[Lukmendes]

I think comic writers and editors should realize that turning heroes into villains generally just doesn't work out 99% of the time. I don't know why it isn't just obvious by now

Look man, I know it failed 100 times out of 99, but what if?

Jokes aside I think the few times it works it's generally because a character wasn't that popular to begin with, like Maxwell Lord.

Like, I think even Ultimate Reed becoming Maker was only accepted more so because Ultimate Reed wasn't that popular to begin with lol.

Though the idea of a hero becoming a villain can work, but in comic books it's less likely to work because it's not a planned story, mostly it's just an annoying gimmick, while the opposite, a villain becoming a hero, tends to be better developed, and in Ben's case, well, just a gimmick... Zeb Wells just wanted to change him so Ben can relate with Madelyne (Whose own turn into villainy had issues, but she's more well known as the "batshit crazy Jean clone" anyways), and then make him into eviler than her for some reason...

[Malachi]

Look man, I know it failed 100 times out of 99, but what if?

Jokes aside I think the few times it works it's generally because a character wasn't that popular to begin with, like Maxwell Lord.

Like, I think even Ultimate Reed becoming Maker was only accepted more so because Ultimate Reed wasn't that popular to begin with lol.

Though the idea of a hero becoming a villain can work, but in comic books it's less likely to work because it's not a planned story, mostly it's just an annoying gimmick, while the opposite, a villain becoming a hero, tends to be better developed, and in Ben's case, well, just a gimmick... Zeb Wells just wanted to change him so Ben can relate with Madelyne (Whose own turn into villainy had issues, but she's more well known as the "batshit crazy Jean clone" anyways), and then make him into eviler than her for some reason...

I wasn’t hot on turning Max evil. Early JL/JLI he was a capitalist but the longer the run went the more they humanized him. But I can accept being in the minority on that one.

It doesn’t feel like whatever happens to Ben is anchored into the stories. His turn to Chasm was explained with “he has brain damage”. In dark web it was brain damage+goo. None of these were explained further, there were no definitions of what he had so we couldn’t understand why he did what he did. It seems to shift with no internal logic. It’s hard to care for a character like that. What he is has devolved in my eyes to just shock value. Shock value put into print.

[Refrax5]

Look man, I know it failed 100 times out of 99, but what if?

Jokes aside I think the few times it works it's generally because a character wasn't that popular to begin with, like Maxwell Lord.

Like, I think even Ultimate Reed becoming Maker was only accepted more so because Ultimate Reed wasn't that popular to begin with lol.

Though the idea of a hero becoming a villain can work, but in comic books it's less likely to work because it's not a planned story, mostly it's just an annoying gimmick, while the opposite, a villain becoming a hero, tends to be better developed, and in Ben's case, well, just a gimmick... Zeb Wells just wanted to change him so Ben can relate with Madelyne (Whose own turn into villainy had issues, but she's more well known as the "batshit crazy Jean clone" anyways), and then make him into eviler than her for some reason...

Yeah and Ultimate Reed was not only from one of the less popular Ultimate books (I kinda liked him, myself), but it's an alternate version of the character already who was written evil by Hickman to great effect. Him being such a memorable villain is the only reason he's still around and not tossed aside like most of the old Ultimate characters.

Nobody likes what happened to Ben. I'm only taking it in stride because A) I'm glad to see my favorite Marvel character still being published and getting action figures and movie appearances, because it further cements him as a part of Spider-Man's mythos, as opposed to being forgotten for 20 years like he was and B) I don't think it'll last. If you fix Ben's mind, have him seek redemption as Scarlet Spider, and give him to a writer like Dematteis or Foxe who actually like the character, there's a lot of interesting stuff you can do with the character dealing with the guilt over his spiral into madness and his road back to being a hero.

Also, we've already seen there are other Bens running around the multiverse in Scarlet Spider or Spider-Man costumes, so we know thats he's his old self somewhere out there.

I'm also a big fan of Wally West, Hal Jordan, Jason Todd, Bishop, Beast, Cyclops, etc....I'm so used to my favorites getting dragged through the mud and they've always bounced back.

[IamnotJudasTraveller]

I still think that's Kafka

You might have hit the nail in the head, what with "keep an OPEN MIND" and whatnot.

[Sr. Bungle]

You might have hit the nail in the head, what with "keep an OPEN MIND" and whatnot.

Also it should be someone Janine knows and makes her react that way. Remember that Kafka went after Janine for stealing that Beyond drive she's also using her memory device to brainwash people and she's expert in clone memory problems. It all fits IMHO

[SturdyMike89]

Yeah and Ultimate Reed was not only from one of the less popular Ultimate books (I kinda liked him, myself), but it's an alternate version of the character already who was written evil by Hickman to great effect. Him being such a memorable villain is the only reason he's still around and not tossed aside like most of the old Ultimate characters.

Nobody likes what happened to Ben. I'm only taking it in stride because A) I'm glad to see my favorite Marvel character still being published and getting action figures and movie appearances, because it further cements him as a part of Spider-Man's mythos, as opposed to being forgotten for 20 years like he was and B) I don't think it'll last. If you fix Ben's mind, have him seek redemption as Scarlet Spider, and give him to a writer like Dematteis or Foxe who actually like the character, there's a lot of interesting stuff you can do with the character dealing with the guilt over his spiral into madness and his road back to being a hero.

Also, we've already seen there are other Bens running around the multiverse in Scarlet Spider or Spider-Man costumes, so we know thats he's his old self somewhere out there.

I'm also a big fan of Wally West, Hal Jordan, Jason Todd, Bishop, Beast, Cyclops, etc....I'm so used to my favorites getting dragged through the mud and they've always bounced back.

My problem with Chasm as a concept is this: he exists in a universe where finding a solution to his problem should not have been that hard or take that long. Peter was at the 2022 Hellfire Gala. Sure, there was a more pressing concern at the time, but he could have gone over to Jean Grey and said "after we save the world AGAIN, I am going to need your help with something" or ask Dr. Strange for assistance or Clea depending on who was sorcerer at the time. I get why Peter went to extremes to rescue MJ from that horrible alternate earth even if he did it in the stupidest way possible. But he didn't seem interested in helping Ben who is essentially his brother out at all.

[Refrax5]

My problem with Chasm as a concept is this: he exists in a universe where finding a solution to his problem should not have been that hard or take that long. Peter was at the 2022 Hellfire Gala. Sure, there was a more pressing concern at the time, but he could have gone over to Jean Grey and said "after we save the world AGAIN, I am going to need your help with something" or ask Dr. Strange for assistance or Clea depending on who was sorcerer at the time. I get why Peter went to extremes to rescue MJ from that horrible alternate earth even if he did it in the stupidest way possible. But he didn't seem interested in helping Ben who is essentially his brother out at all.

I think he did want to help him and you see him crying over what happened, but Ben was obviously unstable and erratic and trying to force a piece of potentially dangerous memory tampering technology on his head without even a conversation. And the other problem is that they already said that Warren's clones like Ben didn't have normal memories like everyone else. It's a complex structure of artificial implants and messing with them can cause catastrophic damage to the mind. Ben isn't just missing his memories. His entire brain was messed up from Beyond's memory tampering and it made him delusional and confused. He was seeing things that weren't there. What they did to his memories did serious damage to his entire mind and trying to shove a different kind of memory into his mess of a brain might not work or might do even further damage.

I agree that it's possible someone could help Ben, it's hard to help someone that hostile and untrusting. I think there is a solution, but Ben keeps vanishing or attacking and when Peter tried to check on him, Ben wasn't listening.

[Tuck]

I think comic writers and editors should realize that turning heroes into villains generally just doesn't work out 99% of the time. I don't know why it isn't just obvious by now

It works if it's baked into a character's origin story as a tragic background (Darth Vader).

But a hero that's been around turning bad is sort of antithetical to what superhero stories generally are.