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Spider-Man Clone Saga: The Exile Returns
51 Plays2 years ago
Corinne takes the wheel as we learn what Ben Reilly has been up to since returning to New York. Venom and Scream step in to give him trouble, as does a whole cadre of other mysterious villains.
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Transcript
Introduction and Casual Banter
00:00:13
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Comically Pedantic, where we take a detailed look at the complicated concepts, characters, and history of comic book culture. I'm your host, Derek L. Chase, and joining me on this episode, as always, is the wonderful Corinne Levy. It's me, Corinne, the person who doesn't know how to do the intro. This opportunity was offered to me, and I very quickly declined. I don't think it's too hard. It's just one of those things where, like, you got to get into a rhythm,
00:00:42
Speaker
I can do a spiel on like how a wine tasting works at my job, like in five to 10 seconds.
00:00:52
Speaker
My brain explodes every time you start doing an episode. So I'm just like, I can't do it. My mouth doesn't work. Well, okay. So I didn't today, but this is, in full disclosure, I'm recovering from being sick. We were actually going to record much earlier than we did. And that had to be postponed due to a very high fever on my part.
00:01:18
Speaker
Yeah, and I was the one who forced us to postpone. Derek was like, I hacked up a lung and I said, okay, that means we're not doing it. Well, I normally, when I go into record, I make myself a bunch of iced coffee and I down it right before we record. This is true. So that I can actually like have the energy going through it. I mean, also, usually I'm up from like four in the morning
00:01:48
Speaker
Uh, and then he recorded like later in the afternoon. So like, I need a little bit of, of pick me up before we get going.
Beverage Preferences and Nostalgia
00:01:55
Speaker
You need a straight shot of caffeine to the veins. I just have a mug of bubbly water in it and I'm just going to sip that throughout. Is it flavored bubbly water?
00:02:09
Speaker
It is flavored bubble water. Um, cause I don't like to call it sparkling water. I just like the word bubble more. It's raspberry lemonade flavored. Oh, that sounds good. We have, uh, lime and like black cherry, I think. Ooh, that's fun. Do you get the Shop Right brand one? I, yes. That's what I get. Maybe.
00:02:33
Speaker
I think she goes back and forth, which I think that polar and bubbly. The black cherry one is one that I was like, oh, that sounds like it would be too sweet, too strong.
00:02:51
Speaker
Uh, for me to really, no, it's really good. It's good. It's a good time. I like, um, the bowl and basket. This is just going to be a whole podcast on us talking about flavored sparkle. We're going to keep procrastinating my episode to just talk about random foods and drinks that I like.
Spider-Man and Ben Riley's Identity Crisis
00:03:11
Speaker
Um, no, but I really like the bowl and basket, bubbly orange water.
00:03:15
Speaker
Oh, that sounds really good too. It's mandarin orange because they just had to add. For some reason, it's like my old boss used to say like, yeah, one word flavors are classics, but two word flavors, those are the sexy flavors. And you know what? I think it's the only correct thing he ever said.
00:03:36
Speaker
I guess, so before we get too deep into talking about our favorite waters or Spider-Man, I should ask what your bright spot is? This water? No, I'm just kidding. No, I don't know. I've spent a lot of time with my cat. I feel like progressively as we do this episode, it's more and more cat in depth in my life. No, I just got five guys and I haven't had five guys in like years. So I've torn down a burger.
00:04:04
Speaker
about two hours ago and it was delightful. Oh, and I've also been playing Undertale. I've been playing a lot of Undertale recently. This sounds familiar. I don't know if you know that. Yeah, if you were like a kid who liked Hot Topic and like Arctic Monkeys, you probably in like 2013 played Undertale.
00:04:28
Speaker
Oh, now that I Google it, I know exactly what it is. Yeah, it's fun. It's really cute. It's a good time. And it's like, it's kind of different from most video games that I play, because it's like, there's actually like a story and I have to like be somewhat coordinated. And I don't really know like,
00:04:48
Speaker
what's ahead, because it's not like a Lego like Indiana Jones game where I've seen all the movies so I know exactly what the plot points are supposed to be. Like, you know, it's fun to not know where I'm going. In terms of the clone saga Spider-Man, I don't really know how I feel about him yet. Well, I think I've told you at the the the more I read, the more I'm actually enjoying it.
00:05:16
Speaker
I'm being harsh on it. I did have a fine time reading this. So this section, it's like the exile returns. Right. Yes. So that's what I read. And I think, well, I'll get to how I feel about it overall as a story, but it does like focus very much on like Ben Riley. Spider-Man, like our good old Tobey Maguire, Peter Parker is definitely just Peter Parker. You like barely see him. Actually, you really, you technically don't.
00:05:45
Speaker
So yeah. This is starting to sound like a bad comic book plot. Do you want to like recap really quick what like we did last week? Just like. Yeah, so I mean like two sentence like what what mostly happened? Essentially, Ben shows up.
00:06:05
Speaker
Peter and he get into an argument slash fight over several issues while dealing with Judas Traveler who has crazy powers that really don't amount to anything. And then at the end, Ben is like seemingly killed, but really isn't and just wanders off into what would actually be Westchester, New York, not even New York City. Just wanders off.
00:06:34
Speaker
So we're gonna pick up here right now. This is the first issue I read. It was Web of Spider-Man, the issue 118. He's not in Westchester. Ben Wright is not in Westchester. He's in New York. He's at the Museum of Natural History. That's where it starts. Yeah, that's where it all starts. And he's basically just internally monologuing.
00:07:01
Speaker
And- As most Spider-men do. Yes. And he's really mad that he's a clone. He's like, God damn it. I'm not a person, but I have all these memories. I don't know if they really mentioned it in the parts that you read, but like shared memories, very much a big part of Ben Riley. And he kind of is constantly debating like, are these my own? Or like,
00:07:30
Speaker
Are they just Peter Parker's and I should just accept them as like, they're his, not mine. And like, who am I? So he's having an existential crisis inside the Natural History Museum.
Introduction of Cardiac and Ethical Conflicts
00:07:40
Speaker
And eventually like he gets asked to leave because it's almost closing time by a maintenance man. As he's like leaving, he's walking the streets. He's going to see like a robbery is happening.
00:07:55
Speaker
And because his spidey senses go off, because he also has spidey senses. And he's like, oh no, this robbery. What am I going to do? Like, do I like take over this? Because I'm not this world's like Spider-Man. Or is like, should I let somebody else do it? Should I do it? Like, what am I supposed to act? And basically before anything happens, like the police take care of it and everything's fine. So he's just like, oh, cool. I didn't have to be responsible for this thing because like,
00:08:25
Speaker
I'm not a person in this world, really, which is kind of weird and kind of heavy. That is an interesting thing. I do know that as the series goes on, there's a lot of talk over being a real person.
00:08:43
Speaker
And I think, you know, like if you're a clone, you're still a person. And like, and he just is like, he has no clue what the hell he's doing. And he's still like, and he's very aware that he has like all these Spidey powers as we saw like with the asylum, uh, like battles and stuff like that.
00:09:03
Speaker
Okay, so that's like, that's like basically all of scene one. And then we're gonna go to a different side of the city. You have Venom. They kind of elude that he hasn't been in the city for a while, but now he's like back. And he's really mad because he knows about Judas Traveler being at the asylum, Carnage was also there. And Venom takes a lot of like personal responsibility over Carnage because he's like, I created this symbiote, like,
00:09:32
Speaker
And he's freaking crazy. Like, I feel like I need to redeem myself. So now Venom has decided he's just going to try and chaotically turn himself into a hero, even though literally everybody in New York is like, this thing is a psycho. So Venom sees that there's a robbery happening on his side of the city and just decides
00:09:55
Speaker
to stop this high speed chase that it's in with the police and rams the robber's car off a bridge and like into water. So we just see two very like different robberies and how they're handled. One gets murdered, the other gets like peacefully arrested. It's very weird. It's weird also that like, I know New York has a lot of crime. Yes. But it seems like there's like a lot, a lot of crime.
00:10:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's a lot of simultaneous crime. Right. The parts that I've read have a lot of like meanwhile and like back to this and like everything's happening at the same time.
00:10:35
Speaker
So it's very odd. Okay, so robbery, murder happens, done. We're gonna go to Aunt May now. She's in a coma. As we've learned. Got a check-in. I mean, you never know, maybe. We got a check-in. Everybody has to have a hospital scene, that's how this works. And so her friend Mrs. Watson is there. That is MJ's mom. I'm gonna let the audience know that Corinne, I did not know that. That's actually her aunt.
00:11:05
Speaker
It's her aunt. Okay, great. But either way, it's not Mary Jane herself.
Peter Parker's Relationship Struggles
00:11:11
Speaker
When I first read this, I thought it was Mary Jane, because I didn't know what was happening with Peter Parker when I started this. I didn't know what Derek read.
00:11:20
Speaker
So I for a while thought one is Ben Riley from a different universe and therefore sees himself as a clone and somehow got like multiverse his way here. And two, is this a universe where Peter Parker is like 60?
00:11:36
Speaker
That's not the case. It's just Mary Jane's aunt coming to visit her friend, May, who's in a coma. And then for some reason, Betty Brant just arrives and is like... I guess Betty would have known May through Peter.
00:11:53
Speaker
Yes, I had to look up who Betty was because I was just like, who is she? She works at the, she works at the paper. Yeah, she works at the Daily Bugle. Good stuff. I didn't know. She's also in the newer Spider-Man movies. She dates Ned in one of them. Oh, good for Ned. That's supposed to be the same character. Yeah. It's just her as like a high schooler. Yeah. In the comics, she was a little bit older than Peter.
00:12:23
Speaker
She sometimes, apparently, is also in school with him. Sometimes she's his love interest, sometimes not. Yeah, they dated briefly in the earlier Spider-Man stories. Yeah. OK, cool. So she's like, you know, she talks to Mrs. Watson and sends regards and all that stuff.
00:12:46
Speaker
While this conversation is happening, Ben Riley is just like chilling outside of the hospital on the wall, like listening in because he wants to check on Aunt May and sees Betty and is just like, she's cute. And then I'm just like, is this going to be a love interest thing? Who knows? Spoiler alert. She doesn't come back for like any part that I've read. She's just like an arbitrary cameo. She does not come back.
00:13:16
Speaker
I do know that she continues in the series. So I'm wondering if that's a setup for like way later. Yeah, I don't know. We'll get to that though.
Ben Riley's Self-Doubt and Heroic Challenges
00:13:26
Speaker
Yeah. And then kind of after that we have these like
00:13:32
Speaker
It gives you just a lot of memory redogging. So there's a point where Venom is at a church and he remembers when Eddie Brock got turned into Venom. And then you have Ben Riley remembering how Peter Park chose to become Spider-Man. And it's all the same kind of
00:13:54
Speaker
origin story that pretty much everyone knows the baseline about Venom and the baseline about Spider-Man. It kind of just rehashes all that for the rest of the issue.
00:14:07
Speaker
That might be a product of the time because there was a period where as comics were coming out, you never knew if you were gonna get the issue right before or if you could find back issues. So they did a lot of like, well, as you know, and then they would just fill you in on everything you needed to know.
00:14:28
Speaker
Yep, except they didn't always, they didn't do it right. And I'm gonna explain as we go further, because there were some things that I was just like, I had to double check so many times because I was like, did I somehow miss this?
00:14:44
Speaker
Or did I not fully listen to what Derek was summarizing? And no, that's not the case. It just was never friggin' ending. And this is what, later in the 90s, Marvel did a thing. I wish they still did. They have since dropped this, and I don't know why. At the beginning of each issue, there would be one or two pages that would give you the characters that are involved and what their basic backstory was.
00:15:10
Speaker
And I loved that and they stopped it. They did it for like a couple of years and then they were like, ah, we don't have to do that anymore. I don't understand why. I don't know. Maybe they were just like, everybody knows these guys now because we're Marvel and we're so cool. But it's also just like, no, and your website doesn't work well. We'll get into that later.
00:15:33
Speaker
But yeah, so that's pretty much the end of
Symbiotes and Chaos: Venom, Scream, and Scarlet Spider
00:15:35
Speaker
Webber Spider-Man 118. Really, it's just power and responsibility. That was the main theme, because Ben Riley is just reminding himself why Spider-Man is Spider-Man. And that's like, fine. It was okay. The ground of power and responsibility is well-tread within
00:15:59
Speaker
Spider-Man comics, so I guess if you're starting off, it's something yeah, it's kind of like okay um I think I was a bit underwhelmed by that because I knew I was starting kind of unlike essentially like chapter two Essentially of this whole like thing so I was just kind of like maybe they would have laid this down in chapter one But I guess not um because I didn't know what was going on in the first chapter so
00:16:25
Speaker
What I didn't like, we'll start with that, and then I'm going to end with the positive. I didn't like that there was too much reminiscing on the two main people's backstory, because again, I just felt like everybody knows that. It's a product of the time, so I'm not too mad about it. It's whatever.
00:16:44
Speaker
And then, yeah, it just also, it had nothing to do, it had nothing else to say, except for just like, power, responsibility, Uncle Ben's dead. That was it. What I did like, I liked Ben Riley's costume, because he does put it on at the end, because he's like, maybe I'll end up using this. And it's the cool, sleeveless, hoodie thing, but he's got sleeves and he's got the cool mask. It's very fun.
00:17:15
Speaker
Rocky, Rambo, but Spider-Man. And I thought that was fun. It's a big fan of that. Also, I liked the museum. I liked that they started in a museum of natural history because this is a man who has no history. And it's maybe something eager and smart. I like that. Did I come up with that on my own? I hope not. I hope that they thought that through.
00:17:41
Speaker
He just uses it as like a little hideout in this, in this issue. And I thought that was, that was cool and fun and groovy. I like that a lot. I don't think I would have put that together. Yeah, I thought it was fun. And then that's, that's Elphin of that one. We're going to move on to not Web of Spider-Man, but we're going to move on to Spider-Man Unlimited.
00:18:05
Speaker
This is issue number seven. I was reading this and I think Derek knows I got very mad reading this. I'm a defender of the Unlimited series, but it really depends on the issue on whether or not it makes sense or is worthwhile.
00:18:29
Speaker
So I want everyone to know. I did not know the context of Spider-Man Unlimited. I did not know. So when I first read this, and I'm reading all of this on Marvel Unlimited, I am thankfully Derek is sharing his account with me. I really appreciate that. And what it'll do is you'll see like when you have it on like full screen,
00:18:54
Speaker
It'll say the title if you kind of move your screen like you do on Netflix. And then it shows you a progression bar of how much of it you've
Plot Expansion and New Threats
00:19:02
Speaker
read. So I'm gonna read you what I thought was the whole end of this. So the issue starts with Ben Riley's at a diner, classic New York. Just kidding, that's New Jersey and they ripped it off. And his spidey senses go off because across the street there's another robbery. And so- This fucking New York is insane.
00:19:23
Speaker
Literally all of these things for the first half of what I was reading was just robberies. It's just robberies. So this time he actually,
00:19:34
Speaker
does like a quick little hero moment. He just puts the mask on and he stops these robbers. And they're like, oh, what are you? Like a second-rate, not Batman, Spider-Man. They're like, oh, New York, who are you? Because he just has a mask on. And they're trying to just like demean him. And he's like, that's actually pretty accurate. I am a second-rate Spider-Man.
00:20:03
Speaker
Don't be so harsh on yourself, Ben. You know what? Ben Riley, the king of self-deprecation. I'm gonna let you know right now. Oh, great. Yeah. So, you know, he stops these robbers.
00:20:17
Speaker
And while this is happening, because again, ton of mean times, we have this homeless man. His name is Richard. He's very wholesome. He just wants to work. He wants a job. He's down on his luck. He finds $5 on the street and he's really excited because he just wants to buy like a sandwich. But he's rudely turned away by like some shitty store clerk. And that's sad. I wanted to come back and pretty woman that place.
00:20:45
Speaker
Me too. I was really rooting for Richard. This issue, this part of the issue I really liked because it, you know, it's more than just the power and responsibility. It's all kind of like, you know, nobody is really second rate. You're just perceiving them as that because you want to put them down. So like Richard is the other side of like being treated like a second rate person, except this one is this one's more accurate to like society, unfortunately.
00:21:15
Speaker
Anyway, so now this is actually the only time you really see Peter Parker ever is in this issue. Once Richard has just been harassed by store clerks and asked to leave, we go back to Aunt May. Everybody loves Aunt May.
00:21:30
Speaker
And the Peter Parker is there and he's like, hey, Aunt May, I'm sad. I miss you. Ben Riley is doing his little Spidey stance on the wall outside listening in. And as soon as Peter Parker leaves, Ben hops in and is like, Hey, Aunt May, I'm sad. I miss you. Even though you don't, we don't technically know each other, I guess. Um,
00:21:55
Speaker
So he's sharing his sentiments and they almost have a little bit like, oh no, they bump into each other because Peter forgot his keys or something. But that doesn't happen. They don't need each other. I guess I get the idea of Ben trying to keep his being aliveness a secret. Because he does want Peter to kind of live Peter's life. But at the same time, if you're stopping robberies dressed as a Spider-Man,
00:22:25
Speaker
you know, he might put two and two together. Yeah, that never really comes up. Um, I'm going to let you know, this is very Ben focused and Ben doesn't seem to care too much about it. Like, cause I, he just doesn't think of himself as spider man. It's very, it's.
00:22:46
Speaker
I mean, you know, he sees himself as like a shadow of Peter. He does. And therefore like Peter is Spider-Man. He's just, he's just the shadow. Yeah. And he's really confused because he's this, he like talks about this frequently, how he's just like, have all these memories of you and it like, these memories are feelings and you know, they're, they're all focused usually towards like Aunt May.
00:23:15
Speaker
I'm really like feeling for you and I miss you even though like I don't like my body doesn't know you but my brain does. So he's kind of battling that and he does frequent like the hospital a lot and he just kind of hides away from people because he doesn't want to have a run in with like people part of actual Peter's life. It's very like complicated for him. He's more of a cockroach than a spider. Yes. The light comes on and he scatters. Truly.
00:23:45
Speaker
I would call him a lanternfly, but I don't think he's that invasive. I had like a horrible experience with a lanternfly the other day. No, like an hour ago. I will tell you about it later though.
00:24:02
Speaker
It was on me while I was in the bathroom and it was terrifying. To have a terrifying alien bug going, I love that I was like, I'll tell you later. No, I'm telling you now. They seem like aliens. They are horrible. They're crazy. It's like if Mothman...
00:24:17
Speaker
had fallen and had a vendetta against the world. They're terrifying. I don't like them. I was in the bathroom in a vulnerable moment and I turned to look at my shoulder and it was just there. And I went, ah! And Max was like, what's wrong? And I was like, I've been attacked. It was terrible.
00:24:38
Speaker
And for those who aren't on the East Coast, like we are, these are, I don't know where they came from, but there's some sort of an invasive species. Like there's literally ordinances out that are like, if you see them, kill them. Like it's that kind of a thing. Yeah, because there's a lot of animals that don't know to kill them yet. And I know like if cats or dogs eat them, they do get sick. It's a time.
00:25:05
Speaker
Like, they'll just throw them up. They're not going to, like, die. Yeah, I actually didn't know that part. I just don't like it. I just know if I go to the trail near us, there's, like, signs about them. Yeah, just kill them. It's like, bear and lanternflies. That's it. Yeah. I'm more scared of lanternflies than I am of a bear. Yeah, bears tend to just walk away. Bears are great. At least around here, you know. Love a bear. Love bears. All the bears. Big fat.
00:25:35
Speaker
So the hospital, he makes it out of the...
00:25:39
Speaker
He makes it out of the hospital. He doesn't get caught. He's hopping on the top of the hospital being sad because he's like, I'm invisible. No one wants to know me. And down below in the streets, we see homeless man, Richard, who also feels invisible because people ignore the homeless and that's unfortunate. I honestly, weirdly, I feel more bad for Richard, who's definitely not our main character.
00:26:07
Speaker
I don't think that's weird because, I mean, Ben's a self-imposed. Yes. I'm invisible. That's because you hide from people, Ben. Yeah, that's because you're hanging on the outside walls.
00:26:22
Speaker
That's on you, dude. No, I really felt for Richard. As Richard is walking along, there is a street gang that just starts harassing him. He's not invisible anymore. He's just evicting him now. It's really sad. And they're trying to get his backpack from him.
00:26:47
Speaker
He's just like, please leave me alone. I'm just Richard. This is so depressing. It's so sad, but it's drawn in that 80s colorful, goofy coloring book kind of thing. It's very weird. This is the early days of Photoshop, so there's going to be some heavy, weird pop art colors.
00:27:13
Speaker
Yes, there were definitely quite some colorful moments. And I guess this is later enough time where Ben Riley is now just walking on the street being sad for himself and walks past this thing, this whole like scene. And
00:27:30
Speaker
Like, Richard sees that this man has just passed him and is like, literally no human wants to help me. This is garbage. But Ben Riley's thinking like, oh, I really should have helped that guy. So he runs to his apartment and like gets in the full, his full like, I call him Spider-Ben at this point. Yeah, he gets on his Spider-Ben costume and then he runs back.
00:27:55
Speaker
The timing in which this stands out i do not know what is next door because i'm sorry if you live in new york i'm assuming you gotta take like.
00:28:07
Speaker
12 trains to get to your apartment and then 13 trains back to get to where this Richard is being harassed. But yeah, Spider-Man kicks their butt. Spider-Man kicks their butt. And they again are being like, oh, who are you? Some kind of like second rate Spider-Man? And he's like, yeah.
00:28:29
Speaker
Yeah, I am. And by the end of the issue, Ben accepts that he is a form of Spider-Man and will help people even though he is not the Spider-Man of this New York City. Good stuff. And I was like, you know what? We got some progress there. I was like, that's good. Ben's good. He's accepted that I am some form of a... I can help.
00:28:52
Speaker
That's awesome. We love that. Also, Richard ends up being okay in the end. Some citizen bystander is like, hey, you seem like a good man. I would like to give you a job. Oh, that's good. That's how you know this is fictional. Absolutely. Someone stopped to actually help the homeless in a way that actually could help.
00:29:15
Speaker
Yeah, okay, now I want you all to remember that I mentioned that there was a progression bar on the comics up at the top.
00:29:27
Speaker
So I wasn't done, but it said the end in the little corner in Comic Sans. And I was like, why aren't I done? Why isn't it queuing my next issue? And I was like, you know what? Maybe it's already on the queue. So I'll continue.
00:29:48
Speaker
We go to Aztec Corpse, just a big building where we meet James Caboostas. I don't know how to say his last name. It's very bizarre. We meet a CEO head of this vehicle company. This is when I feel like I'm having technical issues.
00:30:08
Speaker
The CEO of this vehicle company is kind of your classic depiction of like some big business CEO guy He doesn't really like care about the people that are buying his products because there was just multiple accidents Caused by his vehicles and there were like seatbelt errors or something So a lot of people like died because their seatbelts didn't work
00:30:32
Speaker
And he's pretty much just settling the lawsuit, keeping it on the down low because he's like, hey, you got to get your hands dirty to be successful. I'm a New York CEO. And so as he's about to go into his office, this crazy looking
00:30:50
Speaker
thing comes through his window and tries to kill him. It's, uh, it's cardiac. Um, I, for those of you who don't know, um, cardiac looks like the villain from Scooby-Doo cyber chase. Uh, that movie was just the weird blue
00:31:15
Speaker
lanky thing with crazy eyes. Just crazy, like, coked out eyes. And that is the Scooby-Doo cyberspace virus. I can kind of see that. They look the same to me. So I was like, I didn't know I was reading a crossover issue. Also, what does this have to do with the Clone Saga? I'm gonna let you all know now, it does not. I'm going to put you through what I went through. So.
00:31:42
Speaker
Cardiacs like I'ma kill you for all of the crimes you've committed Indirectly to human beings and then spider-man comes in after cardiac has assaulted multiple security guards at this point and then Spider-man and when I say spider-man, I mean like proper spider-man like Peter Parker spirit spider-man And cardiac or duking it out
00:32:09
Speaker
The CEO escapes the office. As he gets out of the office, he has a heart attack because he was very scared. So natural caused heart attack. Not a cardiac. Not a cardiac caused heart attack. And when I say cardiac, I mean the cardiac villain, not cardiac arrest, though he is probably going through that right now for natural reasons.
00:32:38
Speaker
Cardiac the villain gets away and spider-man is like hey call this man an ambulance take him to a hospital. Now we're gonna find out because this whole time i'm like who is cardiac are we going to understand who this is.
00:32:56
Speaker
I don't know. Yes, you are. He is actually a surgeon. That's like who we, his like alter ego is his secret identity. And he decided he wanted to be cardiac after he used to be like this really like kind of grubby doctor who would be like, I only like will do surgery on you if you can afford it. And then his brother died because nobody helped.
00:33:24
Speaker
his sick brother because his sick brother couldn't afford it. So now he's gone to like total Jurassic End and he's like, I'm just gonna kill anybody who hurts people because they don't care about the little guy. Does that make sense? Okay, so he's, he's essentially Dr. Strange. He used to be, he was like Dr. Strange, but if Dr. Strange's brother died, and so he's gonna take it out on the world. It's like if Dr. Strange was a villain arc.
00:33:53
Speaker
And he has a somewhat similar thing to Peter where it's like, I care only about myself and then a bad thing happens to someone that I love and now I have to reevaluate all that I see. Maybe not as well put together as Peter's. Yes. And also he flies on a weird hang glider and has a big shocky stick.
00:34:16
Speaker
Yes. A big shocky stick. Big shocky stick. Every villain worth their weight has a big shocky stick. Listen, I'm a fan of the big shocky stick. I just think he needs to work on the costuming because again, he has no nose.
00:34:35
Speaker
It's jarring. There is a weird thing in the 90s where a lot of these characters were popping up that had no discernible nose. There's a guy for the... He has no face features except for these eyes.
00:34:50
Speaker
Just these big eyes without lids because they didn't draw it on his mask or whatever it's supposed to be. And then he has no lips either. So it's just like eyes and a slit for a mouth. And he's like, it's crazy. The maverick character from X-Men also was he wore this like math
00:35:13
Speaker
The mask that he wore had no nose on it. So like it's very clearly a mask, something over his face. Yeah. But it makes his face look so flat. Yes. Because there's no nose to it. This man looked very flat and he was also bright blue. So again, cyberspace. So this CEO is now in the hospital. Someone needs to like, you know. This GEICO CEO guy.
00:35:41
Speaker
Yes, yes, this Aztec CEO guy is in the hospital and needs to be treated. Guess whose hospital it is? It's Cardiac's Hospital, but he's in doctor mode now. I know, right? Guess. So he's kind of going through like a moral dilemma. And then pretty much what happens is he helps the CEO. He like treats them.
00:36:08
Speaker
And then he's like, oh, you know what? Once he gets out of the hospital though, I could kill him. It's going to be great. So he still is like planning to kill him. And then he gets up. It's kind of like Batman's thing in Batman Begins where he's like, you know, I don't have to, I don't, I'm not going to kill you, but I don't have to save you. He's like, I'm going to save you, but then I'm going to kill you. Yeah. And he, I won't, like, he does kind of like a half ass job at like saving him. Uh, so.
00:36:37
Speaker
which we find out later, but so he has now as cardiac, cause he's about to go try and make a second attempt at killing the CEO. Spider-Man intervenes and is like, leave him be. I thought you would do this. You crazy man. And they have a whole debate on like, if he's responsible or not. And like, you know, big business, immoral stuff like that. Um, and then the CEO dies.
00:37:02
Speaker
He just doesn't stay stable for long enough. And then Spider-Man's like, that really sucks. I guess it was God's will. And then Cardi Hack was like, should I have tried harder to save him? Or is this what I wanted all along? And starts to question himself. And then that's the end of that. And then I looked at the progression bar, and I wasn't done.
00:37:28
Speaker
And I was like, why am I not done? What's going through your mind at this point? Because now you're two stories in. I was tired, man. And I was like, where's Ben Riley? And he was nowhere to be found.
00:37:41
Speaker
When you're done going through your experience, I will explain why it is. I mean, you and I have had this conversation. We've talked about why it is, but, you know, maybe not every... I'll get it on the record for those who don't know why it is done this way. Okay. So the last bit, and I thought this was like actually interesting and I'll talk about it more, but basically like the final little like
00:38:07
Speaker
Part three is Spider-Man, Peter Parker and Mary Jane were supposed to have like a date night. They were gonna watch a movie. And Peter sees that on the news. There's like some, I don't know, his name's like Boomerang. He's some like,
00:38:26
Speaker
Oh yeah, Boomerang. Boomerang, okay, super camp. If you read the superior foes of Spider-Man, which is a very funny book, Boomerang is one of the guys that's like in that group.
00:38:40
Speaker
Okay, cool. Well, so Boomerang is robbing a bank. Robbery number five, I think. So many robberies. This should be a drinking game. How many robberies can you fit into four issues? Probably be blackout, honestly. Holy shit.
00:39:01
Speaker
So he goes instant Spidey mode, he runs to this bank, Mary Jane comes in with popcorn and is like, oh my God, this bitch ditched me again. And they're married at this point in this story. So to my understanding when I realized that, I was like, okay, so I guess all of this is canonical in some way. So she's like really mad. She's like, he always forgets about me.
00:39:29
Speaker
you know, he's not paying attention to me, feel really neglected and all this crap. You know, when is he going to stop playing like superhero and like have an actual like life? And so she sits down and she starts reading like this life magazine article and it's about the wives of police officers and kind of the burdens that they bury, but also why they feel like so rewarded.
00:39:58
Speaker
to be married to police officers. So it's the parallels of their relationships. And after reading it and the news is still going on and it's broadcasting Spider-Man fighting Boomerang. You can see she still really cares about him and wants him to make it through the whole fight and everything. And so he comes home and she's like, oh my gosh, I love you so much. And it was a cute little thing.
00:40:27
Speaker
I mean, that sounds cute. I liked it. I thought it was really interesting. I feel like that's what I feel like that could be elongated. Like you could, again, you could make that more than just a third of a comic issue because that's such like a bigger topic.
00:40:49
Speaker
Well, I will say, having read a lot of Spider-Man around that time, that was something that they just kept going back to for Mary Jane's character. And it, to me, is the most boring version of Mary Jane.
00:41:10
Speaker
Because I don't know how much you know about when they first get together. She let him know that she always knew Peter was Spider-Man. So going into the relationship, I can see her being a little bit unsure of how things are being handled between the two of them. But to have it a thing where she is constantly being like, oh, he's going out and endangering himself. What have I done this time?
00:41:40
Speaker
it becomes a thing where it's like, okay, but you signed up for this and you've had this thought process multiple times over. Yeah, definitely. And I think that was my first time reading that. So I was like, oh, this is a cool point. Maybe they could have
00:41:59
Speaker
have a book that kind of focuses on like the dynamics of their relationship, maybe not just specifically like this note, other things, but they didn't want, they don't, they clearly don't want to do that. Um, cause they wouldn't have made it just one third and it's the smallest third. And Marvel, Marvel, very, there were a lot of people who hated Mary Jane as
00:42:27
Speaker
as maybe not as a character, but as the one that Peter is married to, the fact that he's married at all. I mean, look, later on, they completely dissolve this marriage.
00:42:44
Speaker
Like not during the clone saga way later. And it is, it's entirely done just to be like, look, we have to get him back to being a bachelor and get him away from being what they viewed as, as, as boring and unrelatable as like a loving husband. Like it's fucking insane.
00:43:08
Speaker
It's it's very odd. But yeah, it was like it was a cute way to end it. This is the only time from my reading that like Peter Parker was involved. Like where you see him. You only saw him for like the two seconds in the Ben Riley most based stuff. And then just these like two where he fights cardiac and boomerang. I mean, that kind of makes sense.
00:43:36
Speaker
The idea was to separate them. Yeah, so my thoughts are like, okay, well, if Peter Parker is definitely still around, there just must be like an overwhelming amount of crime. Yeah. That just like, but somehow like, and the whole time I'm just like, well, it's weird like that. Venom would be floating around, but you wouldn't see Spider-Man.
00:44:05
Speaker
like you wouldn't see the Spider-Man. I thought that was very weird. And we're gonna get to that in just a second. Because here is the thing. Oh, before we move to the next issue though, I will do my pros and cons real quick. I liked
00:44:22
Speaker
I liked the Ben Riley section. I liked the inclusion of the little second rate themes. I thought that was a lot of fun. It made it more interesting to read. The things I didn't like, I did not like the double feature, dare I say the triple feature because I didn't realize it was a triple when I wrote this con. Genuinely, I couldn't tell if Marvel Unlimited was glitching or if it was just really shitty storytelling.
00:44:51
Speaker
And so it really frustrated me because I didn't know what was going on context-wise of that kind of the Marvel or the Spider-Man Unlimited thing. So that was a pain in the butt. Did you have something to say about the Marvel Unlimited before I moved on?
00:45:12
Speaker
Well, I just so around this time Marvel introduced X-Men Unlimited and Spider-Man Unlimited. And the idea was that these were going to be places that had higher quality paper. It had a
00:45:27
Speaker
double the page count. It was supposed to be where you would tell a story that didn't quite fit into what you were telling in other places. And it made more sense the way the X-Men did it, so that it was technically within continuity, but it doesn't necessarily have to be read right
00:45:48
Speaker
Yeah, it's a one shot. Right. And they usually did them as longer stories. One of my favorites being, I think it was the first one in the X-Men where the X-Jet gets shot down over the Arctic or the Antarctic or somewhere snowy. And it's just a tale of how do these people survive in an inhospitable area?
00:46:12
Speaker
And that was super interesting and fun. And I love that Spider-Man took it in a very different route in that the very first issue of Spider-Man Unlimited was part one to the Maximum Carnage story arc. So you had to pick it up to follow what was going on in the four other books that were coming out that month.
00:46:37
Speaker
And it's kind of weird because these were released on a quarterly basis. So it was once every three months. That's why they could do it. It was a little bit more expensive, you know. And some of these, and then the other thing is they often would break it into these shorter stories. You'd have one that was like maybe the size of a regular book and one that was like maybe not enough to fill a full book.
00:47:05
Speaker
one that's just a handful of pages. And I, I guess that makes sense too, but like I have a bunch of these and really the main features were the only ones that I thought were any good. The backup stories were just whatever. Yeah, it was, it was all just very like, it honestly having those like two
00:47:29
Speaker
okay ones right at the tail end of what I thought was just gonna be what I was supposed to go through. I feel like it kind of just like, it kind of stomped on my experience with that first bit. So it was just like, oh, why did you do that? It was very frustrating. If you pulled them out, do you think that you would have enjoyed Ben's story more?
00:47:57
Speaker
I think so. I think I would have, because I wouldn't have that experience of being like, I would have, I would have known just like, okay, it's done. The end. Good. Cool. And that would have been fine. So that was, yeah, it was just kind of like, it throws you off. It was very weird. Yeah. But now we're going to move on. And I promise everybody that there are no more double, triple, quadruple features. Um, it's just the main plot now.
00:48:26
Speaker
Am I going to say the main plot doesn't get as simple? No, it's not. So we're going to dive into it now. The next issue that I read was Spider-Man number 52. It's like Spider-Man volume one. It was like the whole thing started in like 1990.
00:48:47
Speaker
Like, this is the issue. If you try and type, Spider-Man 52 or Spider-Man 53, it will try to tell you that you want to read the amazing Spider-Man from the 60s. That's not what I wanted to read. I wanted to read the one from the 90s. Google warned me and I didn't listen. So the main title... Are you saying this is not a good story?
00:49:10
Speaker
It's a fine story, it's okay. All of them are okay. Is the Amazing Spider-Man one amazing? I will never know. So that's fine by me. This one is called Deadline, that's kinda like the subtitle of it. So it's gonna start off at the Daily Bugle. You've got this working writer, his name's Ken Ellis, and he just had a really successful front page story about Venom.
00:49:40
Speaker
And he was getting his tips from Eddie Brock. He does not know that Eddie Brock is Venom. So yeah. Ellis just gets another tip about where Venom might be next. And so he like runs off to chase the story. And that's when he runs into Spider-Ben, who is also looking for Venom. He was like in the last like issue,
00:50:09
Speaker
He had mentioned Venom, but you don't really know why he was really looking for him. It's not really properly explained, so I guess we're just assuming it's because of memories. Well, so Venom would have been a character introduced after Ben was split from Peter. Okay.
00:50:38
Speaker
I think it would more have to do with just understanding the violent nature that Venom was sort of known for. At least that, you know, like maybe just kind of going like, hey, he's a bad guy. Bad guys in the city gotta go get the bad guy. And it's kind of like, oh, he's really bad. I'm surprised he hasn't been taken care of yet. So that's, I guess, kind of the main reason.
00:51:05
Speaker
So yeah, Spider-Man, also looking for Venom, runs into Ellis. Ken Ellison is like, do you know where I can find him? And Ken gives him, shares the tip with him and is hoping like, oh, maybe I'll get like a double exclusive like story out of this. I can get two interviews instead of just one. That's like, cause all he wants is just like this really big story. So.
00:51:33
Speaker
That's what we get from like the first little bit. And Venom is at Roosevelt Island tram terminal where, yeah, I felt like it was relevant. And so I was just like, maybe it is. It's actually, it's not, it's just a tram terminal.
00:51:55
Speaker
And the police are there. They're trying to shoot Venom down from a building. And Venom is very upset because nobody sees him as a hero who's with a redemption arc. They just see him as a person who's just killing a bunch of small-scale criminals.
00:52:17
Speaker
Which is true. He's on the rooftop with a pile of them and it's very jarring. A pile of dead people. And he's like, man, why won't anyone love me? It's really weird.
00:52:35
Speaker
One thing I think that Marvel has consistently gotten a little, I don't want to say wrong, but like it's never quite a focus is Venom when in the 90s was fucking goofy.
00:52:51
Speaker
Oh my god, he is. It's really great. I love it. Um, there were like some screenshots I took and I think I sent like a Snapchat to mag so I was just like there's a really great line that it's during one of the fight scenes and like Venom is like falling at some point and
00:53:08
Speaker
you know, Spider-Man, like, catches him. They're gonna fight. We'll talk about it in a minute, really. But if Adam's just like, oh, thanks for your help, friend. Let me return the favor. And then you turn the page, and it's like, by breaking your spine! And it's like, oh my god! So we're gonna have, for these episodes, we'll have, like, a visual companion that goes up on the website.
00:53:31
Speaker
That way, when you're discussing cardiac and things like that, you can go and get a good visual of how they're presented in the book. I'm really debating on doing a side-by-side for him and the Scooby-Doo guy. I personally took screenshots of pages that I thought were just visually very striking and very cool, because there were a couple of them. That's usually a lot of my pros for a lot of these issues.
00:54:00
Speaker
but like going onward. But I will continue. So he's got a pile of small dead bodies and he's really trying to redeem himself because he's mad about creating carnage. And he's just, Venom's just starting to question his strategy if it's even working or like, cause honestly by doing a lot of this, he's hurting a lot of innocent people like at this tram,
00:54:27
Speaker
scene like he's basically almost torn down a whole like you know sky tram and people are in it and he's just like oh maybe I'm hurting innocent people while trying while trying to you know murder small crime so
00:54:46
Speaker
On the way to fight Venom, now we have Spider-Ben. He's questioning himself and he's starting to feel doubts about his ability to fight Venom. Because he does know that actual Spider-Man has fought him before and he doesn't feel like he's strong enough, all of this stuff. But before this
00:55:12
Speaker
you know, all happens, you see that there's kind of just like this little person, like hiding in the background, like on some of these stylized. Is this a little person? No, just like you see like a hint of a person and it's, you're like, I don't know what that is. So now Venom, Spider-Ben, they're going to start fighting essentially. And then out of nowhere, our person that's hiding, it's a lady Venom.
00:55:42
Speaker
that comes out of hiding and is begging Venom to stop what he's doing and to come with her, because they need to talk. And then Venom sees that there's another kind of symbiote thing, and he's like, what the heck is this? What are you? I made you too? This is bullshit. She's yellow.
00:56:07
Speaker
So I had to look it up. I was just like, what is this lady symbiote? Apparently she is one in five of a second generation, meaning she was made by Venom. Her name is Scream. She is unnamed throughout the whole, like they do not address her as Scream throughout this entire book. If I'm thinking correctly, they don't really give her a name in universe.
00:56:36
Speaker
Until way later like she has just like really human name. Yeah, and I'd so I my introduction to this character I know exactly who it is now If you go in the islands of adventure in Florida, there's a spider-man ride and for whatever reason I
00:56:56
Speaker
they decided to include Scream as one of the villains that Spider-Man has to fight during the ride. And I remember seeing her for the first time falling in love with her design. I think it's a cool ass design. It is really cool. It's like this like bright yellow and like orangey, like red. She got this crazy hair and she's just got the ghost face. And it's really cool.
00:57:25
Speaker
I absolutely fell in love with her. I cannot tell you anything really that is like worthwhile about her. Well, so I'll tell you right now is she is semi-conscious. Like her human self is semi-conscious and that's why she wants to talk to Venom. She thinks that like she can, he can help her get control of
00:57:50
Speaker
Okay, that makes sense. Because Eddie and the Venom symbiote, there's at least something there. Yeah. Now, she has not told him all that explicitly. She's just like, hey, we need to talk. Venom gets really mad and instantly is like a hell to the no, and then he starts fighting her. Forget Spider-Ben. He's fighting this lady now.
00:58:15
Speaker
And Ken, our reporter man, he arrives at the scene and he's reporting everything as these symbiotes are fighting. And they're truly endangering everyone. Crap is falling everywhere. Again, there's a tram car suspended in the air. It is probably going to fall soon. Ben Riley, Spider-Ben, he's injured, but he's saving as many bystanders as he can. But he's still thinking of himself as useless because he couldn't
00:58:45
Speaker
beat Venom. And now there's two Venoms essentially. So he saves like all of these people and is like all mad at himself and all these people are cheering for him like, Oh yeah, we love you. And they named him the Scarlet Spider. Um, and he's not hearing any of it. Um, at this point while he was like saving bystanders, both Venoms have fallen into the river and that's going to like stall time for them.
00:59:15
Speaker
or something. Well, in classic comic book fashion, if you have to get rid of a villain, but you don't know... Throw them in a body of water. Throw them in a body of water or down a whole... You never see a body and they're gone. They'll be back some...
00:59:33
Speaker
Exactly and they tell you like oh, they're gonna be back. I just needed some time But yeah, he just keeps beating himself up and he's like, oh like I'm not a real person like I can't I'm not I'm no good and he plans to leave the city and also Ken Ellis has like his article that gets published so like There's a weird like someone gets success and someone wants to hit the high road. Um, I
01:00:01
Speaker
Also, okay, here were some questions I had with this one. I was questioning the lady symbiote for a while. I did answer that. We know who she is. She screamed now. There was a point where in the beginning, Ken Ellis was like, I'm going to bury Eurek, who I am assuming is some competitive
01:00:24
Speaker
writer of his. But he was like, he kept saying like, I'm going to get this scoop and like very uric and like all this and it just kept coming up and then it doesn't come up again. But while I was reading it, it felt like it was very prominent.
01:00:40
Speaker
Do you know, okay, have you seen the Daredevil TV show? No. Oh, that would have been the easiest way to answer this. He's in the Daredevil show. So Ben Yurk is just one of the top reporters from the Daily Bugle and he often will team up with Peter. You know, Ben goes to write the story. Peter goes to take the photos. Oh, okay. So Ken Ellis just wants to be Ben.
01:01:08
Speaker
Yeah, Ben is he's if you're writing a story and actually just recently when I was reading X-Men number one just from the last year. Right. Ben Urich is the reporter that was reporting on the mutants now being in New York. So it's he's your Clark Kent kind of guy. You grab the guy or the Lois Lane, the person who is just like the top reporter that you always grab.
01:01:36
Speaker
Gotcha. Okay. Cool. I'm glad that that was like a thing that actually wasn't super complicated. And he's like friends with Daredevil too. Like that comes up quite a bit. Oh, that's fun. Good for Ben. Ken. Yeah. Whatever. Okay. I didn't really have too many cons for this one. I think the one con is I feel like Ben Riley has a regress. I feel like if we were going to make
01:02:05
Speaker
This whole self-doubt kind of thing seems to kind of backtrack the progress he made in the issue before. Because in the issue before, it ends, and he's feeling very confident in himself. He's like, yep, I'm going to take on some responsibility. That's how it reads. I feel like if we wanted this doubt kind of thing to make more sense,
01:02:33
Speaker
I feel like the attitude for Ben would have been more like,
01:02:36
Speaker
I know it's important to save these people and like somebody has to do it, but these people are right. I feel very second rate. Um, and that doesn't feel good. So I think like, I wish like the attitude kind of canonically made sense a little bit. So that way it just didn't feel so choppy, but I really liked the issue. I felt like there were a lot of really cool like, um, images.
01:03:03
Speaker
And it was like exciting to read because it was like, you know, he had a gritty reporter and then like, you know, you're getting spider, spider bends getting hyped up for like a scene and he's, it's tense. And like all of this is happening in a thunderstorm.
01:03:20
Speaker
So that was the other thing I liked about it. Yeah, it was like it was just very visually like striking. There's a cool Image that I screenshotted and it's spider-man and venom fighting in the thunderstorm and it was really cool And I thought that was fun. So I liked I liked this issue I just wish again that the attitude Kind of flowed a little better
01:03:44
Speaker
I'm not saying that it, like I know realistically, like some people have good days and some people have bad days, but I feel like when you're a fictional character, you know. You follow a certain flow chart to the end. Yeah, you wanna make it a little smoother. And I can't, that's the one thing. I have to, I gotta make credits for next episodes, because I wanna remember who wrote what, because part of me is thinking like, I think
01:04:10
Speaker
a bunch of these writers wanted to... They wanted to do their take on the... They wanted their take on building Spider-Ben's confidence. So I think that's part of the problem, but I will have to... Maybe when we do the visuals and we write what it is, I'll add the credits to that, for the visuals.
01:04:32
Speaker
But yeah, I don't know, okay. So, oh, and then also at the end of this, Spider-Man is hurt very badly. He gets like a huge wound to the gut. So poor Spider-Man, his tummy hurts because it's open. So that is a thing that happens. And it's gonna pick up pretty much right there. The next issue is Web of Spider-Man number 118. And this is called Echoes of Silence.
01:05:02
Speaker
So angsty. This is like probably the longest one because there's a lot happening here. Again, it picks up right where like the last issue that I read ended where it's like, you know, everybody's celebrating the Scarlet Spider, because that's what he's called now, apparently. And he's got, again, bad tum. So he's trying to get home to like fix this like open gash. On his way,
01:05:33
Speaker
like to call a doctor as he finally gets home and out of the costume and everything. He just like falls to the ground. This lady who lives in his apartment, I guess, her name's Gabrielle Greer. She finds him in the hall and then rushes him to the hospital. She's got that Stan Lee, a very alliterative name.
01:05:53
Speaker
Yes, definitely. It's very weird that it's like, sometimes it feels like only Ben Riley doesn't have an illiterate name, but I also know that I've listed multiple people that don't have the like, alliteration name. So I'm not mad about it. But she rushes him to the hospital. You might think, oh, is this gonna be a love interest? She doesn't get brought up again. Don't worry about it. So,
01:06:22
Speaker
Ben Riley is in the hospital. Venom is searching for the real Peter Parker now at all of his, like, typical spots, but he can't find him. He's trying to find Parker because he wants to know things about the Scarlet Spider.
01:06:38
Speaker
It was mentioned in the last issue before the fight happens. Venom's like, I made a deal with Spider-Man that we would leave each other alone and you're not the real Spider-Man. So I'm going to eat you. And that's how the fight starts. That's such a great way to just have an introduction. And it was a really cool intro, but here's what threw me off.
01:07:05
Speaker
The quote, I made a deal with Spider-Man. That threw me off because it comes back. There's going to be multiple times where Ben Riley gets mad at Spider-Man because he made a deal with Venom. You're like, what is this deal in depth? Where did this deal come from? It was not in the issues that I read because I double-checked. It was not in the issues you read. Apparently, it was in a totally different comic book
01:07:34
Speaker
just somewhere that is not a part of the clone saga, I believe. Yes, I actually do know a little bit about this. Okay, because I didn't. And I was equally confused. I'm mad with Ben Riley because I was like, why? What is the reason? Because it's a deal that would never work from what I know of. Like if you're going to let Venom do his thing and
01:08:02
Speaker
like that defeats the purpose of Spider-Man. But if you wanna tell me about the deal, that would be great. This is an entirely sales motivated deal that happened within the story. So basically Venom and Spider-Man, they have clashed multiple times and they've had to deal with like carnage
01:08:29
Speaker
and each other so many times, that essentially Venom approaches Spider-Man and he's like, look, you and I, we can't be around each other. Like I kinda hate you, you kinda hate me, and we keep getting into this thing. If you promise to leave me alone,
01:08:55
Speaker
then I will leave you alone. And I will go to another city and you have to let me just be. And for whatever reason, Spider-Man agreed. And it's just, it's one of those things that's like, if you were to look at it from Peter's standpoint, it only makes sense in terms of like protecting himself and like Mary Jane and like Aunt May.
01:09:25
Speaker
Yeah, it totally goes against his like power and responsibility thing because it's just saying I'm taking care of myself, but the the the in the our universe, the real reason why they did that is because they gave Venom his own book.
01:09:43
Speaker
and Venom went to San Francisco. Oh my God, of course he did. You can't have Spider-Man just like letting Venom run around. And you can't, if Venom stayed in New York, then you would have, there would have to be a Spider-Man cameo in the book. And you can't really do that. You're wanting to, they were trying to turn Venom into an anti-hero because he was such a big sales draw.
01:10:13
Speaker
Yeah, but you know, maybe it didn't work because there's a pile of dead bodies on the roof. So yeah, it's it's again, that's just such a silly thing for them to do and venom
01:10:28
Speaker
Like the last time that, I mean, I don't know if the deal happened before maximum carnage or after maximum, I feel like it had to have happened before. Cause if I remember correctly, Venom is in San Francisco at the beginning of maximum carnage. And then he comes to New York because carnage is free. So it's just, it's one of those things that's like, okay, but you also keep bringing him back to New York and he keeps killing people.
01:10:56
Speaker
It's weird, but yeah, so I would like everybody to know that this deal that gets made up that seems to be very important is not at all mentioned in the clone saga.
01:11:12
Speaker
is one of the reasons why comic books are hard sometimes. This is one of those times where they would have benefited from having the little bio at the beginning of the issue to fill you in on the pertinent details of the things that they're going to reference. I don't think they did. If they did, I missed it. Oh, darn. Venom is trying to find Peter Parker, cannot find him. That is quite a time.
01:11:42
Speaker
Now, Ben is, this might take me a minute to like get through this summary because there is like a web forming, no pun intended of just the most insane, sometimes like character, like just ties. It's very weird. So right now, all you need to know is Venom is trying to find Peter to know about Spider Ben, Scarlet Spider.
01:12:11
Speaker
Now at the hospital, Ben Riley is getting stitches, okay? And he doesn't want an anesthetic that was very like made clear. That felt somehow to be important. I think it's because he didn't want to be unconscious and then have somebody like walk in on him and be like, that's Peter Parker. No, this is so-and-so. I think that's why. That could be. The only other thing that I could think of is he was kind of a lab rat for
01:12:41
Speaker
when the Jackal created him. So like maybe there's some something there. Some sort of like trauma kind of thing. Yeah. I think there's like a possible couple of other reasons. They weirdly don't get into that. Um, no go miles and miles into Peter Parker's backstory, but they will not on Ben Riley. Um, so, um, while
01:13:05
Speaker
Ben is in the hospital. A nurse has tipped off the reporter, Ken Ellis, because he was looking for a man with the exact injury that Ben has because he's, he's trying to find the scarlet spider because he wants- He's got feelers out to like every hospital in New York looking for someone with a very specific injury. Yes, because he wants his interview. So that's, that's now two people looking for the scarlet spider. Okay.
01:13:33
Speaker
Now on top of the hospital or just around the city, she makes it to the top of the hospital. We have scream, which is what we're going to call her now, even though she doesn't get a name in this whole thing. She is looking for the scarlet spider so she can find venom. And that's like, again, as the last ditch hope to get some control over the, the symbiote situation. So that is three people looking for
01:14:01
Speaker
Spider Ben, one of them to find another person, two of them to find him specifically. What a time. Thank God I took notes. While all of this searching is happening,
01:14:21
Speaker
Some mob in Midtown, it's not said exactly who, or maybe if you're a deep lore Spider-Man fan, you would know. But there's some mob in Midtown and they're discussing the encroachment of, quote-unquote, Papa Granite's organization on their territory.
01:14:43
Speaker
I don't know who, yeah, Papa Granite, big rock man, I don't know. And they want, so this gang wants an assassin whose name is Kane. He's a really, Kane. I'm aware of Kane. Yeah, I was not, Kane has a really cool entrance though. It's very, honestly, his intro to the, in this issue is very Indiana Jones, which, so I think you'd like it. It's very cool.
01:15:10
Speaker
So the gang once came to take a hit on Granite, who is apparently literally right on the floor below them. I guess that's like, there's a restaurant on the floor that is below them. Because all mob people own a restaurant for some reason in comics. And they're like- I think they've all seen the same gangster movies. They've all seen Goodfellas. That's it.
01:15:37
Speaker
Kane misses the opportunity. He stays in a chair reading a newspaper this whole time you don't see his face. And the mob is mad. And they try to shoot him immediately, like instant kill Kane. That does not work. Kane kicks their asses. And then he's like, I got bigger fish to fry. And he throws the paper down and it's Ken Ellis' article about a second Spider-Man.
01:16:06
Speaker
So now this is four people looking for Spider Ben. Ben is super popular. Ben's poppin' right now. Good for you, Ben. Also sucks to be you, Ben. Now we're gonna go back to the hospital. Ben Riley escapes from a ceiling vent because he hears the reporters coming and he doesn't want his identity blown.
01:16:33
Speaker
So he gets away from Ken, makes it onto the roof of the hospital, but Scream's there. And Scream is trying to get answers from him because I guess while he was somehow traveling through the air vent, he managed to get a costume on. So he is Scarlet Spider now. Feels like it would be hard to change in an air vent. It would be. I mean, it's hard enough to change in a car
01:17:03
Speaker
So I don't know how he's doing all of this. It must be a big air vent. Or like, I genuinely have no idea. Because as far as we know, he doesn't have the weird Judas Traveler arbitrary powers of just like, he can't quick change like that. I don't think. I could be wrong though, who knows. Scarlet Spider, our little Spider Ben, doesn't want to hear her right now. He's just trying to get out. So he leaves. He just hops off the building.
01:17:32
Speaker
And she starts having a full on meltdown and throwing bricks off the roof. She's just like, I just want someone to help me. Just going crazy. And now these, these bricks are falling off the roof and they're going to be hitting pedestrians. And so Scarlet Spider now sees that there's bricks falling off the building and he's like, Oh no, like I gotta help these people from, from the bricks. So.
01:18:03
Speaker
He's starting to understand now that he needs to deal with the actual villains instead of just doing damage control for the villains because he's been doing that a lot now. It's been like, first it was last issue, now it's this one. Venom actually comes to scream during her hissy fit and he's gonna destroy her. He's literally like, I'm going to rip you apart, pretty much. Holy shit.
01:18:31
Speaker
and he begins violently separating the symbiote from the woman, which would kill her with the way he's doing it. So, because I guess, again, Ben Riley's apartment is like anywhere convenient, he's now changed into his full Spider-Ben costume, and he's now gonna deal with the villains head-on.
01:18:55
Speaker
I feel like the Spider-Man have this weird teleportation ability that's never quite addressed because even in the last story arc, they somehow went from the middle of New York to fucking Westchester with no explanation of how they got there. I think in terms of the costuming, it's gotta be like Mary Poppins' pocket. I think because none of them have bags. So he's ready to like, he's gonna fight Venom.
01:19:26
Speaker
There we go. Oh, also that Gabrielle lady in the very beginning did check on him at some point to see if he was okay. But then again, it was so irrelevant. It didn't matter. She's not going to come back from what I've read. We're getting little bread crumbs. I feel like that's going to be something at least because
01:19:46
Speaker
I mean, maybe not, because there's a lot of- Who knows? This particular era of Spider-Man, if there's anything I know for a fact, it's that there's a lot of mystery people that show up. Yes. And most of the time, there was no real plan in place. Yes. Okay. But that was the end of that issue.
01:20:10
Speaker
you know, Spider Ben, Scarlet Spider has accepted he's going to fight Venom and deal with a problem head on. So we have, we have. So I'm going to give you a quick screen. Okay. So Venom and scream, they're fighting each other because Venom wants to just destroy a symbiote because he feels guilty about it and is mad at everybody.
01:20:34
Speaker
Scream, lady symbiote who's getting ripped apart right now just wants to have some control in her life and is just trying to get questions answered. So those two are fighting. Gotcha. Spider Ben, our scarlet spider is now gonna hop in and he's going to challenge one of them. That's what we've ended with. We also have Kane who has bad-ass
01:21:01
Speaker
walked off and is like, I don't like this second Spider-Man. That's who we have right now. Cool. We were like three quarters of the way through the story and they're like, oh yeah, there's this other guy. Yes. Oh, just you wait. Okay. I think I did not like
01:21:24
Speaker
Okay, I thought individual scenes were really cool and really fun. I did not love them all stitched together the way they were. Pretty much the sequence I gave you is how it was delivered and it just makes it feel a little overwhelming.
01:21:41
Speaker
And I guess maybe it's supposed to feel overwhelming because I mean like you were Ben Riley and you had all these people searching after you for various reasons. It would be overwhelming. It would be overwhelming. It just, it was starting to feel just a bit like a character pile up that maybe needed to just to be cleaned up a little bit. But after I tell you what happens in this final issue,
01:22:07
Speaker
I feel better about this one that we've just discussed. So this is the finale. We've made it, guys. Thanks for being so patient. The final issue is Spider-Man volume one, number 53.
01:22:27
Speaker
And it instantly is like we are in the fight with Scarlet Spider versus Venom, and Scarlet Spider is just getting choked out right now by Venom.
01:22:39
Speaker
And that's not fun. But while he's currently choking and possibly about to like pass out, we don't know, Scarlet Spider is kind of thinking about like this deal that Spider-Man has made with Venom and is really mad. He's like, you know what, the real Spider-Man
01:22:57
Speaker
shouldn't have done that. And like, because if you're a true Spider-Man, why would you? That makes no sense. Like how we discussed it makes no sense. And he gains confidence and breaks free from like the chokehold basically, because he's like, I'm going to be better than this Spider-Man. I'm going to, I'm going to finish what he started essentially. Now what we're going to do.
01:23:24
Speaker
to making this the easiest way to explain is, so we are gonna go back and forth from various places to this specific fight. Cool. So everyone knows that all of this is technically happening at the same time, just we might be hopping in Salt Lake City for a hot second and then we're gonna go back to venom punching people. Okay, so we have a new location being introduced in the final chapter of this story.
01:23:54
Speaker
Oh, yeah. OK, so we're going to do that right now. OK, so we go to Ken Ellis. We're staying in New York right now. He's working late trying to get like his story all written up with the Venoms and the Scarlet Spiders and all that. Jay Jonah Jameson warns him like, hey, don't let the story consume you. It's interesting for Jay Jonah Jameson to say that.
01:24:19
Speaker
Well, he's like, take it from me, I learned. Oh, okay, all right, yeah, all right. It's one of those. Okay, Jonah. He's learned some things. It kind of makes you feel like Ken is gonna be taking a turn for the worse, because he's honestly one of the most reoccurring side characters. So I think he's going to be coming back, and maybe he'll,
01:24:45
Speaker
I don't know, maybe he'll be a baddie, we don't know. We're gonna go back to the fight. Scarlet Spider thinks he has found a way to defeat Venom, but his little tummy injury never got better because he left the hospital early, so that's like, you know. It's been like five minutes, so. Yeah, so that's like causing some stress, because he's very injured, but he thinks he might have found a way to,
01:25:13
Speaker
to stop to defeat Venom. Okay, now, we're gonna go to a different spot. We're leaving the fight. So we have Grim Hunter, who is the son of Craven the Hunter. Okay, yeah, yeah, I know Grim. I know the Grim Hunter. Cool. There are a lot of children of Craven the Hunter for some reason.
01:25:41
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Well, he's lamenting at his Papa's grave and he's like, ah, I'm out of prison now. I'm going to put, I'm going to, you know, give Spider-Man a good beaten now. Back to the fight. That was it.
Scarlet Spider vs. Venom and Mob Tensions
01:26:01
Speaker
It was one game. Can we also introduce another villain? I guess that works for like setting up new storylines, but it seems like it's getting a little
01:26:09
Speaker
off the rails in terms of what's happening. Just you wait, my dude, just you wait, we're back at the fight. Spider, Scarlet Spider, this is gonna be so hard. Scarlet Spider has trapped Venom inside of a web cocoon because he's trying to like save himself some time and regain like a little bit of strength because his tum tum hurts. Right.
01:26:36
Speaker
Yeah! Now we're gonna leave. We're gonna go to Salt Lake City.
01:26:45
Speaker
We have Detective Raven. Detective Raven, that is like the bird, not like Craven the Hunter. We have Detective Bird. Okay, he's getting a fax. Vintage, we love that. This fax has to do with some deaths that are happening in York City. The victims resemble the pattern of a killer he's been chasing for years. Yeah, that's what we got.
01:27:12
Speaker
I am vaguely aware of Detective Raven. So I do have some understanding of where this part's gonna go. Okay. This is interesting. I have no idea who Detective Raven is. Is he a part of like a different superhero comic? No, this is, this is, if- He is a part of Spider-Man comics. This is my guess, his first appearance. Okay. So maybe we'll learn more about him.
01:27:39
Speaker
Yeah. Great. Okay, meanwhile. Again, I have a lot of the clone saga that I have read. Yeah, surprisingly. It's just because it happens over the course of such a long period of time, I've not really read it all together. So I just have various little bits of information that I can pull from. Yeah, it's a time. So now we're gonna leave detective alone. We're gonna go to Mr. Thorpe,
01:28:09
Speaker
Mr. Thorpe. Mr. Thorpe, yeah. He's just killed his brother, essentially. He is also a part of a big crime gang kind of thing. Okay. A big mob. He just killed his brother, who essentially was the leader of the mob, and is promoted to crime boss, again, of some organization. They don't tell you what, but he also does not like Spider-Man.
01:28:40
Speaker
Okay, cool. Okay. We're going back to the Scarlet Spider and the Venom fight. This is a chaotic fucking issue. They're still fighting. It's happening. They are still fighting and Venom has broken out of his cocoon like a weird slimy butterfly. And basically what happens
01:29:04
Speaker
is the Scarlet Spider shoots a web shooter, like a specific one or something, inside of Venom's mouth. And that kind of, because the web explodes, it causes it to separate. Oh, does it impact webbing? Yeah, so it's going to separate Eddie from
01:29:27
Speaker
Venom. This made me question, when does Venom's mouth end and Eddie's begin? I don't think we'll ever get a real understanding of how that works. I don't think we will either. It's kind of confusing because if I'm thinking about it correctly, his impact webbing is generally like a little, like a ball.
01:29:50
Speaker
and then it spins outwards. So it's a little ball, and then it, yes, it goes psh, out. Just with that sound too, the psh also. In his mouth, that's really only one part of his body that's getting separated. Well, so they start with the mouth, okay? And then they're trying to expose Eddie's face. Yeah. So he can punch it.
01:30:18
Speaker
Um, okay. All right. Yeah. All right. I'm understanding. So he's trying to, cause that's, you know, like the human part is the vulnerable part of venom. So he's repeatedly punching Eddie's face, trying to shoot more webs to like separate them. It's very, it's, it's cool. I won't lie. I was confused by the logistics, but I tried not to think about it too much so I could enjoy myself.
01:30:44
Speaker
It's the rule of cool. If it's cool, then it works. Yeah, exactly. Now, as this is happening, Cain is on like a rooftop, angstally looking at them and basically is like, you know,
01:31:03
Speaker
Spider-Man like made it again, but I'm gonna be the one to kill him and then walks away as Some agency. I don't know what the agency is. I wish I knew I feel like it should be relevant But maybe it's not but there is some agency containing Eddie Brock and the symbiote venom separately and taking them hopefully that they don't get attached again, so I
01:31:26
Speaker
And then that's it, that's where it ends. I had multiple questions at the end of this, such as what group is containing Eddie Brock and Venom? I had multiple questions about like, again, what is this deal with Venom and Spider-Man? But we've answered that now, which is great. Yeah, yeah, we have that down.
01:31:47
Speaker
Also, what happened to Scream? They didn't finish that, because she didn't die. Like, Scarlet Spider comes in in between that. Oh, that's a good point. My guess is- And she came into multiple issues. And then- They were probably setting her up for a spin-off or something.
01:32:11
Speaker
because that tends to be the way they do things like this. So she came out of a story where I think she was one of the only symbiote characters to survive. So I think they were really trying to build her up as like the next Venom, the next Carnage, maybe not as a villain, but as a character that you could buy a franchise out of.
01:32:38
Speaker
Yeah, man, I wish I knew what like, you know, we knew what had happened though, in terms of like this reality, she was cool. And like, it seemed like she had a really interesting like, you know, character plot line, you know, wanting to like take control for herself. And she doesn't want to take control of themself is very cool. So stick around because there are comics that are coming out like now ish that have featured her.
01:33:07
Speaker
Yeah, but I guess just in terms of like this story, where did she go? Like, because they really just like forgot about her. I hope she comes back in the Clone Saga because I would like to read more about her while we're doing this, but she truly just got dropped off. It was weird. That was those were like a lot of my questions. Yeah. So just from what I have been able to glean, the organization that takes Venom away is the Guardsmith.
01:33:36
Speaker
which are essentially, have you seen like Age of Ultron, the Avengers movie? I've seen parts of it. So essentially in that Tony comes up with a series of robots to help him with his, what is essentially policing. And in the Marvel universe at this time,
01:34:02
Speaker
Rather than do that, he basically came up with a series of armor that was not quite Iron Man-esque, but would still help out, and that was the Guardsmen. And they set up a little organization to help out with like the
01:34:22
Speaker
They would go to the vault, which is maximum security prison. They were in charge of taking in supervillains. And I don't know, they have some pretty cool armor, I think. Nothing crazy, but just an interesting looking design and it's cool to have
01:34:47
Speaker
I was a big fan of damage control. They were a company that would come in after superhero fights. I like that idea. How do you react to having a world full of these superhumans? What is it that you do? And having an elite armored task force come in to clean up and then also a separate group of people that would clean up specifically after superhero fights. That's pretty interesting and fun.
01:35:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's fun. I think that's why I like the boys a lot because it kind of challenges like, well, what happens after the fight? Like, there's like cynicism to it. And that's if you the storyline itself is not great. But if you the lead up to Civil War was pretty interesting because especially within the Spider-Man comics, because I was reading them at this time.
01:35:43
Speaker
Spider-Man goes with Tony to Congress. And one of the conversations that's had is who's responsible for cleaning up after the superheroes come in and make a fucking mess of everything? Yeah. Who's paying for this? Why is this being taken care of by people who aren't you? You're causing all of this damage.
01:36:10
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, that's interesting. And then the storyline starts and it doesn't go in that direction whatsoever. But that was still an interesting question to be asked at the beginning of the Civil War. Oh, definitely. I think so. That's cool though. OK, so we know we know who took them away. That's good. So I did not love. That there was a scatter shot issue.
01:36:39
Speaker
I just, there's so many characters, so many that were just added to this, like right at the very end. And we knew it was the end of this little like segment.
01:36:52
Speaker
You know, it should feel somewhat like a finale, but it does not. It just feels weird. I do like, however, that like Ben Riley finally gets some confidence. I think the last three issues, like the Spider-Man 52, the 119, yeah, 119 and the 53,
01:37:17
Speaker
Those three together are good. I like them together. I thought that in and of itself was a good story because you have the right amount of self-doubt and then redemption to get a hero who can stand up on their feet.
01:37:38
Speaker
That was great. So I liked the ending of this. It was good. What I, again, it's so many characters. That's what I don't like. I feel like if you're gonna, if you know you're gonna be making this long event thing, you would stagger your villains. Like, Kane makes the most sense to be back in this issue.
01:38:01
Speaker
because you would allude to him as being like the next big villain, because you had a really cool intro to him, like an issue or two ago, and now he's back and he's watching the fight. You know, he's in the city, he's really close, and he like wants to get this Spider-Man. The Grim Hunter, the like weird mob organization and like the detective,
01:38:26
Speaker
The three of them all together, it's just very overwhelming. Again, you would assume that those would solo be added to their own season or their own little book. You stagger it. Once you start to finish one villain, maybe two, then you go to the other. Having three or four is just a lot.
01:38:51
Speaker
Yeah, I will say one of my favorite types of comic book storytelling, and it's not quite done that much anymore, at least with the big two, but surprisingly done extremely well over in Sonic the Hedgehog.
01:39:06
Speaker
is where you have your main story. And then as you're like starting to wrap that up, you have a different, like a B-plot or a C-plot even, going just in the background. And it's just a couple of pages out of, you know, and it slowly builds until it's the next story arc. And then you do that over and over again. And it just feels like you're flowing into the next story.
01:39:34
Speaker
It just feels more graceful, but with this, it just feels like you're kind of, you're the ball and racquetball. Yeah, that, I mean, just you describing this, where it's like, oh, you have a page of Spider-Man, or I guess Scarlet Spider and Venom fighting, and then now you got to deal with the detective Raven. And look, I know where some of this is going, and that's interesting. And I don't.
01:40:00
Speaker
But again, I've never read any of this. If you've never read it, all you're getting is mystery character number one, mystery character number two, mystery character number three. What's going to happen next? And there was a moment that doesn't tell you anything. Yeah. And there was a moment when it was just Grim the Hunter or Grim Hunter and Detective Raven.
01:40:24
Speaker
There was a moment where I was like, oh, maybe Grim Hunter is the one that Detective Raven is looking for. But I looked back and what they were both saying and where the locations of where things were didn't match up.
01:40:46
Speaker
for Grim to be Raven's killing he's looking for. It didn't add up. So it seems pretty clear that those are two separate plots. And then you add the cane reminder and this other crime boss. I keep forgetting that there's just this random crime boss.
01:41:11
Speaker
Yeah, he's super forgettable. And like, I tried to look back at the past issue where Kane's introduced to see if like Thorpe is mentioned, because maybe they are connected, but there's no, they don't say a name of who it is. And, you know, all the, your classic mob, people all kind of look the same, but like,
01:41:38
Speaker
It's so you can't prove that they're part of the same plot line or not. And they they didn't mention Cain in the Thorpe scene. So you're just like, is just some other guy who wants to kill Spider-Man. So there's four people at the end of this that want to kill Spider-Man, who they think Scarlet Spider is just like a reincarnation kind of deal, like a second try of essentially. Yeah.
01:42:08
Speaker
So Ben Riley has a lot coming to him. I feel bad for him. But yeah, that's that's all I read. It was a time. It seems like it was it could have been a very short story. Instead of over five issues, you could have told it in. I think you could have told it in three. Three.
01:42:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think if you started with 52 deadline and you end it, yeah, if you do Spider-Man, volume one, number 52, and then you do the 119, and then you go to 53, I think that is like one solid, complete story, even though you get the weird, jumbly characters at the end. And then if you just sprinkled in- And we just excise those out.
01:43:00
Speaker
Yeah, you could, that would be
Storytelling Inefficiencies and Plot Criticism
01:43:01
Speaker
great. And then if you could just kind of sprinkle in a little bit of like, you know, maybe the scene at the diner or the scene at the museum in one of those, like, I think it would be fine. This is reminding me a lot of either
01:43:26
Speaker
Dragon Ball Z Abridged or Dragon Ball Z Kai, where you can have just go in and just cut out all the fat and make it. What is the fucking story? Tell me that story. Yeah, that's that. I feel like that this would benefit greatly from something like that. Yeah. Or even Marvel is doing a thing now, which is great. I've only the ones that I've read are
01:43:55
Speaker
Very different qualities, but the first one being X-Men Grand Design, the Grand Design series. Essentially, you take all of a character or a franchise's, their entire story, and you tell it over the course of a couple of issues. Yeah. Where you really gotta just nail down, this thing happened, this thing happened, this thing happened.
01:44:22
Speaker
And I feel like that would be the best way to tell the clone saga here because you have so many moving parts that don't quite fit together in their entirety. And I think kind of the whole overarching theme of this is just figuring out your own identity and trying to make yourself
01:44:47
Speaker
your own because he very clearly like throughout the whole time is having the whole like what are these memories to me like I'm not a person oh I am a person like and at this point he at the end he's just accepted like I need to deal with problems head on um that's where we end
01:45:12
Speaker
So I guess overall, I think this was a pretty good storyline. Yeah, the first two, again, they weren't my favorite. I liked the last three that I read. Just felt more tied together. And fuck the anthology thing. That was really annoying.
01:45:32
Speaker
Um, but yeah, no, I thought I thought it was fine I think out of the first two that we've like the two episodes we've done I think I might have gotten the better end of the stick So I am I'm grateful for that Just in terms of like eat like concise like story like Legitimately as as we move forward the next episode I
01:45:59
Speaker
really like the story. We're going to get into it next time. And it is, I like it for basically doing kind of the negative stuff of this story arc, I think is done a little bit better.
01:46:23
Speaker
And the one that I'm covering. That's good. We'll get into why next episode. But it's just so weird that I was like, I'll be damned. I really enjoyed that. Oh, good. I'm excited. I'm excited to know more and see what you read. I'm interested to see what Peter Parker is doing because I know New York is big, but New York is not that big.
01:46:48
Speaker
It's going to be a weird story. Cool. Well, I'm excited for it. I have some trivia for us to get into. Let's kick it.
01:47:04
Speaker
I'm going to be quoting from the Life of Riley archives, which was written by Andrew Golitz. They did a 35 part series on Ben Riley. Cool. And sort of how Ben Riley became the character that he is. And
01:47:24
Speaker
Throughout this, I found this, and I'm just going to be cutting out parts. There is an editor, Glenn Greenberg, who at this time, I think was an assistant editor. They will eventually become an editor on Spider-Man. And a lot of this is just, I'm going to quote them specifically about this story. OK.
01:47:54
Speaker
So Glenn says, I remember seeing the sketches of the Scarlet Spider, hearing the name and just shaking my head and rolling my eyes. I thought it was really cheesy and that the fans would feel the same way. I remember several of the other non-Spider-Man editors greeted the Scarlet Spider with scorn as well. But Mark Bernardo explained to me that the costume was supposed to look cheesy, that it was something Ben Riley pretty much threw together in a hurry out of necessity.
01:48:23
Speaker
Hearing that, I figured that if it was intentionally cheesy for story purposes, it might actually work. Although why Ben continued to run around in a cheesy thrown together makeshift outfit after he decided to become the Scarlet Spider on a regular basis remains a mystery to me. So I think that's pretty interesting because the Scarlet Spider costume, I love. I like it. I think it's really cool. And I think it also, it does currently make sense
01:48:51
Speaker
for him because he is a wishy washy character. Like, I mean, he had a bunch of confidence at the end of the second issue that I read, but then it immediately goes away for like three issues. So I think it does make sense for him to probably like want to have a thing where he constantly is like, oh, I should throw it away. It's like a sweatshirt, like whatever. But then it's like, oh, no, I got to save people. Where's my sweatshirt? Like, so I think it makes sense.
01:49:22
Speaker
I think that eventually Ben gets a very different costume. And I like that one a lot too, but this is the one I think of whenever I think of Ben Riley. This is the one that I like. I think it's cool. I like it.
01:49:36
Speaker
It is so interesting. All right, so I'm gonna move forward a little bit. There's another quote from Glenn. The story of Ben's victory over Venom was very important. It was specifically designed to show how cool a character Ben is to get the readers to be impressed with him and really root for him. The point had to be made that he could go toe to toe with one of Peter's most dangerous enemies and not only hold his own, but also have a decisive victory.
01:50:03
Speaker
This was crucial, absolutely necessary to the development of his character, especially in light of the direction in which he was ultimately going to go. I thought it was a nice touch to have Ben harshly criticize Peter's pact with Venom. It showed that Ben was more like the Peter Parker we knew, loved, and remembered than Peter was being at that time. Which I think is, that part I think is really important. Because again, we've talked about how Peter in the last story arc
01:50:32
Speaker
is, you know, he's running, I'm the spider. I don't want to be Peter anymore. And it's just very out of character, not what people want it.
01:50:40
Speaker
Yeah. But Glenn goes on to say, this was actually intended to be a foreshadowing of the direction in which things were going to go. I always hated the pact between Peter and Venom. I thought it was so out of character for Peter to make such a deal with the villain as obviously crazy and dangerous as Venom. And it was especially interesting to hear Ben voicing my own opinion.
01:51:03
Speaker
It was good to see this used as a way to show a major difference between Peter and Ben and to perhaps imply that all was not right with Peter, that maybe Ben was the preferable choice between the two. It was clever to use Peter's pact with Venom in this way. So, I mean, you can already kind of see there's like this groundwork of being like, uh,
01:51:24
Speaker
Things are not going right with Peter. We should have a backup. Yeah, definitely. And I think we pretty much like covered that. I think we agree with this Mayans. I approve. Because right now Ben Riley definitely does seem like a more favorable like neighborhood hero. Yeah. Because it's also like
01:51:50
Speaker
Again, they're giving him the kind of clear moral backbone of like, no, of course, like why would anyone want to make a deal with this crazy alien thing? That seems like a terrible idea, given the track record. Also look at the dead bodies on the roof. Clearly no one should have made a deal with him. And then, but also he kind of still has his own things to learn. That are, I feel like maybe different from
01:52:19
Speaker
from Spider-Man. This is the first Spider-Man thing I've ever read, so I could be wrong when I say this, but I feel like it's a unique thing for this character to kind of be like, oh, I shouldn't be doing the damage control
01:52:38
Speaker
that the villains are producing, I should be dealing with the villains. I think that's kind of like a new thing because I feel like usually like when you get a superhero that's starting out, they do try and just like deal with the villain.
01:52:56
Speaker
Instead of being like oh, I don't feel ready for this now. I'm gonna I'm gonna stop the bricks from falling on people's heads instead um, which I thought was like unique so Kind of cool to see that is kind of unique. I like that approach to have have been Almost come at it from the opposite angle that most people would
01:53:21
Speaker
He's dipping his toe in instead of like swan diving straight into the pool. And it's interesting. All right. I have two more quotes of Glen's. And I think that they're both pretty relevant to kind of what we've talked about. OK, cool. So Glen says, I also remember that there were big plans in store for Kane. The Spider-Man team was really excited about the prospects of this character.
01:53:47
Speaker
I didn't know who he really was at this point. Even Mark wouldn't tell me at first. I think he wanted me to read the stories as they came out so that they could see my natural unprepared reaction when Kane's identity was finally revealed. Although if memory serves, I finally dragged the secret out of Old Bernardo one night after work, probably over drinks. So there is a lot packed into what they are going to do with Kane.
01:54:15
Speaker
Yes, and they do kind of. So what I know so far about Kane, which I realize I probably threatened. It sounds like he had. One kind of identity and Spider-Man beat him.
01:54:33
Speaker
I guess pretty badly and now he has kind of this quote-unquote like new form and he when he sees a scarlet spider battling venom in that final scene he's kind of monologuing being like oh I see you've now taken a new form like well I'm gonna come out on top this time I'm gonna be the one to kill you. I don't know what that
01:54:58
Speaker
first form would have looked like or anything, or what it was, but it was a very cool thing. It was a cool monologue. I am curious to see how this plays out moving forward, because I can just tell you, as someone who has come into this well after the Clone Saga and knowing everything that happens, I hated Kane.
01:55:25
Speaker
Oh, okay. I fucking hated Cain. But that doesn't mean it's not good. It's just that, you know, I'm coming at it from an entirely different perspective. Right. So it's interesting to see how this moves forward. So I'm looking forward to seeing that. And going back to Glenn, he further goes on to say,
01:55:49
Speaker
There were a lot of shadowy mystery men coming into the fore in the Spider-Man books at this point. First was Ben, then Kane, then Jacob Raven, and of course Traveler and his followers can be included too. It would grow to become sort of a monotonous after a while, but at that point I liked the tantalizing clues about what happened during Ben's time in exile.
01:56:14
Speaker
It showed that the character had his own story and was really off doing stuff over the long years. Which I mean, I kind of like, it's interesting to have stuff of importance happening to Ben before he's reintroduced into Peter's life. Like that I find interesting. Okay, well wait, here is a weird thing. Okay. And I realize,
01:56:41
Speaker
that we didn't talk about it before. So at the end of deadlines, this was the one really weird thing. So after the whole like tram car incident, everyone starts calling him the Scarlet Spider and he's like beating himself up in front of like a cheering crowd and he's like, he has plans of leaving the city. There is a point that it says he came back to the city, but he also still has the same injury. So you're just like, wait, I thought,
01:57:11
Speaker
Like it seems very confusing because it's worded almost like he did leave and came back, but also like no time has passed. And now it's like, okay, well, were you saying like he's injured, he's going to his apartment and then he's going to be leaving and then caught up in like a, then got caught up in the rest of the story. Like it was very weird. That might be more of what, that might be what was being planned. Yeah. It was, it was just very weirdly,
01:57:40
Speaker
That was one weird blip in the three issues that I did like. I was like, this part makes no sense, but I think I can just wash over it. Someone did put together a rough framework for what happened to Ben after the original Clone Saga and between this Clone Saga. It's just that,
01:58:08
Speaker
How that eventually gets explored and how you get that information is not really It's not given to us yet. So there is an idea Yeah, but it's coming
01:58:23
Speaker
This is another thing where, you know, like we talked about, I think a couple of episodes ago, you're coming into every issue almost like you're in chapter two because you don't have all of the information. And a lot of the writers don't either. So especially with these characters who all have some sort of a background and some sort of tie to Spider-Man or Ben.
01:58:45
Speaker
We don't know that, so we don't. No, we don't. They're just these random people that are showing up, and it's like, okay, well, it's like in the early, oh, actually around this time, in the early 90s, in the X-Men comics, you had Cable, and part of Cable's backstory, you didn't know Cable's backstory, so every other issue he ran into someone he had some mysterious past with,
01:59:10
Speaker
And a lot of the times it would be like a character we already knew and they'd be like, oh, cable running into you again. And it's like, just tell me what the fuck happened or show me something. Like, are you just relatives? Like, what is this? I'm tired of seeing this tease coming because at some point you're just like, all right, I don't care. There's like 20 people who are all, they're all lined up to tell their story and yet you keep not letting them. Yeah, that's weird.
01:59:40
Speaker
But that was interesting. I like the, Ben comes out of the gate and starts with Venom as his first major bad guy. And it's also interesting to make Venom the bad guy when in Peter's part of the spider books, that's kind of not, I mean, it's not been a thing. Well, cause they had the deal, I guess. Well, and you know,
02:00:08
Speaker
Even before that, it was sort of like, oh, Carnage is in town now. Well, you can't really, like Venom's not the big bad because Carnage is the big bad. So it's interesting to see that. It's also weird that the first two story arcs we get, we have Carnage and Venom because I feel like, you know, they're interesting, but come on. Well, I think it's also because there are, like, I feel like
02:00:37
Speaker
They're some of the most popular villains. So it's just like, oh, I'm read this. Everybody's favorite is in this. Just a few years ago, I went back and I read Carnage's first story arc. His introduction as Carnage and the team up between Spider-Man and Venom to take him down. It's not good.
02:01:03
Speaker
It's an interesting idea for a character. The story itself is not good. Yeah, and it's also just like, I liked Venom in this one. Do I think Venom is like my all-time favorite Spider-Man villain? I don't know enough of them, but I would still probably say no, just because it is like him fighting just a darker version of himself. And I usually don't get attracted to like
02:01:31
Speaker
that kind of villain. Except for Manbat, that's different. And I'm just saying that now, so no one can come at me and contradict me. Manbat is special and we all know that. But it's not like Venom shows any really special hours, aside from the fact that he's just really strong and
02:01:56
Speaker
certain stuff just doesn't like bounces off of him. Like he's just big Spider-Man. Yeah. He's just big Spider-Man that looks scarier. So yeah, he's just, I get it. He's not the most like combatively interesting, but
02:02:12
Speaker
I think I just, I liked how he talked. I think I just liked how chaotic he was just in the story that I read. Cause it truly was like, I'm going to be a hero now, runs a car off a bridge. Like it was just, it was really, it's really funny seeing like a super villain's portrayal of like how to be a hero.
Venom's Misguided Heroism
02:02:37
Speaker
It's just instantly get rid of the problem the quickest way you can, throw it off a bridge, like, kill it instantly. I'm curious, and this could be a follow-up to the clone saga if we have to get around, you know, I'm curious how you would react to Superior Spider-Man. Oh, I don't know. No, I've never heard of that. Superior Spider-Man is a story where
02:03:02
Speaker
Dr. Octopus, before he dies, transplants his brain patterns over Peter's. And so he becomes Spider-Man. And so it is a long story arc. I don't think it's quite as long as this one, but it's a long story arc where Peter is not Spider-Man, Dr. Octopus is Spider-Man. And so it's
02:03:32
Speaker
it's how would Dr. Octopus approach being a superhero? It's really interesting and weird. I was not super into it for a long story arc, but it is an interesting idea and an interesting way to look at like, okay, so Peter approached it this way and Dr. Octopus approaches it this way.
02:03:56
Speaker
one is a little bit more humanitarian than the other. Yeah. I thought, I just thought it was funny, especially like in the first issue where you have like, you see like the police calmly arresting these robbers and then instantly it goes to like the police are chasing down different robbers. And then the car's just not there anymore.
02:04:26
Speaker
It's like Venom is the key, the peak of like...
02:04:31
Speaker
throw anything in a body of water, it will be, like, it's not your problem anymore. I highly recommend checking out. I thought that was funny. There's a, there's a, the PlayStation one, there was a Spider-Man game that came out that I fucking loved as a kid. And Venom is a good chunk of that story that I highly recommend you checking out because he is.
02:04:59
Speaker
It's, I have to get Spider-Man's attention. How do I get his attention? I'm going to hijack Times Square. I'm going to take over the big, the big fucking TV in Times Square. And I'm going to announce that I kidnapped his wife. And then I'm going to taunt him as he's trying to get his wife. And then it's just like every single thing he does is fucking ridiculous. And it's like, yeah, okay. I can see why you did that.
02:05:27
Speaker
It's almost like you're 11-year-old does something really stupid. And you're like, explain this to me. And they do. And you're like, okay. The logic is there. I get the thought process, but this is not how we do things to me. And I think maybe that's why people like Venom so much. Oh, no, am I becoming a Venom fan?
02:05:57
Speaker
I think, look, if you... You know what? That's okay. I can't be mad at that. I love man-bat. So it's like, what's the difference, really? I'm taking back everything I said before. There are two Venom fans. There's one that is just, you know, they love the darkness. They're like, oh, he's so cool and gritty. And then I'm just like, he goofy.
02:06:25
Speaker
Those are the other Venom fans. I think I'm somewhere in the middle in that I can appreciate the darkness and I think that's an interesting take on the character. However, the thing that was the most fun about him was how batshit insane he was. He is truly goofy. He just has a scary jack-o'-lantern face and that makes it even goofier. I love it.
02:06:53
Speaker
It's a good time. So yeah, this was a fine thing. If anyone wants to read The Exile Returns and just nothing else, you'll live. You'll be fine. And so with that, you can find more information at comicallypedantic.com. We're actually going to be posting a lot of visual companions for what we're reading through just so you have a good idea of what we're going through, the artwork, some of the cool stuff that we like, even just getting an idea of the characters.
02:07:24
Speaker
You can find that all at comicallypedantic.com. You can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram. I will say I don't really tweet that much or post that much on there, but I do have some stuff I'm going to be putting up. You can search at pedantic cast on both platforms. New episodes come out most Sundays on iTunes, Discord, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and at comicallypedantic.com.
02:07:46
Speaker
If you have any comments or questions, you can send them in text or audio recording to comicallypadanticagmail.com. Please indicate if you'd like your name or question right on the air. We will be back soon with another deep dive into the world of comics. This time I will be running it. We will be going over Peter's adventures over and back from the edge. And until then, you can find more exciting adventures at your local comic shop.
02:08:24
Speaker
Doo doo doo. Give me one second, cause I feel like I typed this wrong. I did.