REVIEW: Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider #1

Writer: Peter David
Penciler: Mark Bagley
Inker: John Dell
Color Artist: Jason Keith
Review: Madman

Rumor has it something big pertaining to a certain star-spangled guy is going down at Marvel in their new “Mega Event”… I wouldn’t know. I elected to bow out before “it” happened. I’m just so burned out with Marvels reboots, redoes, and “Mega Events”. I could care less about the whole current Secret What-not.
I’m not on either side.

Instead, I’m going to blab on about something I wanted to read even less.
Oh yeah, I hated this book as soon as I saw its first advertisement. I hate its very idea. In my misspent youth I was a Ben Reilly fan but not so much these days. I enjoyed the previous Scarlet Spider run because back in the days of the Clone Saga, Kaine was my favorite thing, so him being the Scarlet Spider was worth checking out. The series was pretty good, definitely got worse as it went, and the ending was pretty meh. So, I don’t know, maybe the novelty wore off… I had no intentions of ever forking over the cash for this book, but the staff of the LCS snuck it into my folder and here we are.  

The Spidey-event that just ended was of course all about clones…but not just other Spidey-clones. Ben Reilly was resurrected by the Jackal and tortured until he went mad. He ends up breaking out, assuming the Jackal mantle, and taking over the sciencey stuff. He brings back every person killed as a result of Spider-Man’s actions or inactions, then starts up a global pharmaceutical company, and takes his cloning global. Of course, Spidey shuts him down and Ben goes on the run. That’s where this issue picks up, more or less.

Ben has set up shop in Las Vegas, of all places, and shows up with a brand new costume… It’s super lame. I hate his new look, That’s fine, because I hate him anyway. Seriously though, he has one of those hood things like Spider-Gwen (also not a fan) and I hate it. It seems Ben really has gone bat-shit crazy as he has conversations with the OG blue hoodie Scarlet Spider, as well has himself as the Jackal. At first I was like “ok that’s…neat”, but by the end of the issue I hated it. I hated pretty much everything from cover to cover.

Why? Why do we need more Ben Reilly? We don’t… Maybe Marvel thought they could sneak this by us while everyone was on their knees all butt-hurt crying for Nazi-Cap…
Chris Evans wept…no idea if that’s true, I made that part up. unfortunately this series is happening whether we like it or not and by buying issue #1 I am now enabling, and I really hate that. The moral here is just ignore it and hopefully it’ll go away sooner then later…