(Spoilers
for Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy and suchlike tie-in
stuffs)
Nostalgia is
a funny thing. I realise, intellectually, that the Clone Saga was
crap. It was an incestuous, over-extended, poorly edited mess. By the
end it was so confused that Marvel even published a parody one-shot
about how desperate they were to end the thing.
And yet I
started reading comics around the time of the Clone Saga. There is a
part of me that will always feel, deep down in my gut, that
Spider-Man is a blond guy called Ben who works in a coffeeshop not
this Parker guy with his science and his journalism. I know I'm
wrong, I know that I just happened to start reading during a
replacement hero storyline but part of me will always believe (as I
was, originally, meant to) that Ben Reilly is the one, true
Spider-Man.
He also had
the best Spider-Man costume. You can keep your classic look and your
black costume, this is the
best design.
True, he was
only Spider-Man for a year but back then that meant four monthly
series, team-up books, crossovers and the quarterly Spider-Man
Unlimited oversized specials. There was, quite simply, a lot of
material where Ben was Spider-Man and once he died he was just sort
of forgotten. He just wasn't mentioned for about ten years, the
forgotten Spider-Man.
Then, at
some point, enough time had passed and suddenly Ben Reilly was a
nostalgia object. He got a mention here and there; there was a Brand
New Day storyline about his wilderness years; his nemesis Kaine made
a comeback and even started using Ben's Scarlet Spider identity; and,
an alternate universe version made an appearance in Spider-Verse.
He was a legitimate part of the franchise's history and, as a fan of
the character, that was kind of satisfying.
Plus, those
appearances were really good. The Brand New Day storyline treated
Ben's years as a homeless drifter with seriousness, looking into what
a Spider-Man with a hell of a lot less privilege would look like as
the Clone Saga-era stuff only managed on its best day. The
Spider-Verse version took a different tac, examining the renewed
optimism of Ben's time in the Spidey suit, a Ben reclaiming a life
that wasn't Peter's but was a full and fulfilling life after his
years on the road. Even the Kaine version of Scarlet Spider
was pretty entertaining.
So, as much
as I'm sure Ben will be a very different character after The Clone
Conspiracy, I feel confident Marvel has a plan to honour the past
and origins of the character. Plus, writing duties on this thing are
with Peter David, a man basically known these days for coming up with
innovative angles on existing properties that take them in different
directions that still feel like natural progressions of past eras
(X-Factor, Spider-Man 2099, Young Justice, to
name a few).
Though I'm
not entirely sold on the built-in hoodie. I know where they're coming
from, referencing the original Scarlet Spider costume but... meh.
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