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Did you see what I saw? Is it Ben Riley? Is it his triumphant return or is he an uninvited party guest?

I was reading the comic book news websites when I came across an article about Ben Riley. The name conjures up a not-so-proud time for Marvel comics and comic-medium in general. I wasn’t reading comics regularly during that time that Ben Riley’s made his publishing appearance, but his impact can still be felt today, even to non-spider-man readers like me.

When I think of Ben Riley, a lot of things pop into my mind. The first thing is “Clone Saga”. The “Clone Saga” was the story arc that ran through multiple issues of Spider-man. We learned that there was a clone of Peter Parker who lived his life as Ben Riley. He had spider powers but took on a different moniker than Spider-man, he was titled the Scarlet Spider. That’s the second thing that comes to mind when I think of Ben Riley, his time as the Scarlet Spider and cool but simple costume. As the Scarlet Spider he had certain advantages that Peter Parker did not have. Ben’s spider-sense could detect the presence of the evil villain Venom, while Peter Parker could not. Ben also developed impact webbing which was later adopted by Spider-man. All this was great but yet the Scarlet Spider was pushed beyond his means and pushed into failure.

The original idea of Ben Riley was that he was the real Peter Parker and the Peter Parker we had been reading was a clone. The idea was going to be that the well-known Peter Parker would go away and have life with his wife and child and readers would get Ben Riley a single guy and a fresh Spider-man (does this sound familiar?). What ended up happening was the ‘Clone Saga’ became the story-well that Marvel went back too even after it went dry. Fans got sick of it. The story-arc had run significantly longer than originally planned and the story made less sense as it went on. All of this culminated with Ben Riley’s death and the body melting away as a puddle of ooze certifying him as the real clone.

For me, Ben Riley always represented a good idea that was handled wrong. The big-ups at Marvel assumed that it would it single-handily turn around the 90’s for them and it did not. Because of that he’s become an icon of negativity in comics. Ben Riley was a hero and shouldn’t be remembered as a mistake. That’s why I look fondly to the news of his return, whether real or not. Ben Riley left a hero and should return as one. Not as the black-mark that fans have given him but another welcome addition to the spider-family. Every Spider-man needs a Ben.