The Smark Avengers - Vol 3, Ep 11: The Smark Avengers Talk About Ben Reilly

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

This should be easy right? All we're going to do is talk about Ben Reilly, right? Well you can't talk about Ben Reilly without talking about the Clone Saga... and you can't talk about the Clone Saga without talking about Kaine... and you can't talk about Kaine without talking about The Jackal... and you can't talk about the Jackel without talking about Spidercide... and... I'm sensing a pattern here. Join Corey, Dylan, and Jon as they talk about their favorite Spider-Clone, the Scarlett Spider, Ben Reilly!

Robin one and the flash and stuff. Like you were doing a lot of talking. So yeah. This is something that me and John, I can know stuff about it. Yeah, I mean, I know little bits and pieces. And I started to try to research.

And it started to get very much like if you give a mousse a muffin. It's like, okay, I got to keep, I got to know about Ben Riley. You also have to know about Kane. To know about Kane, you also have to know about this.

So I just found myself in like a research hole. Yeah, it's tough. We're going to try and like, this is why John says, that could last two hours because it's a lot of stuff, but we'll try to be as concise as possible. So basically,

Ben Riley can run super fast, but then he also has the powers of being able to not age. And he has, what was the other shit the flash could do? I've already forgotten. My favorite one is that he could vibrate his eyes so that he could see other rays of light. Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

Of course. That was great. Yeah, that's how anything works. Yeah. So now that you've compared it to the flash, I now have a basis of understanding. Yes, you know. Hi, everyone.

This is the Smart Avengers. I'm with Corey and with John and Dylan. Obviously, we're on our fucking A game today. So real quick, because I want to make this a recurring bit, John, what is your current movie? How many movies have you watched this year? I've just watched my 270th movie. that sounds delightful

yes that's not expand on that at all let's move on with the show moving on with the show so speaking moving on with the show we've had some really odd kind of episodes lately we had the WrestleMania run down where Dylan was in America

we talked through like all 16 however many X-Men movies were last time so really in-depth stuff that we've been going through a great amount of detail in so we're going to focus on one particular character today, which I thought was going to be easy, but in my own research for it, I ended up having to read about like four or five other characters. So, John, Dylan, do you want to cue this one up?

Yes. The reason Corey had so much problem with this, not, it's because it's a very complicated character, Ben Riley. He originated, well, he originated in the 70s, really. Technically, it was the first appearance of the character, but he became Ben Riley with the, the name and the appearance and the costume and everything like that in the 90s during the clone saga which notoriously is incredibly convoluted and to to parlay a phrase from the smart part of our name very overbooked very only bit um so it's very confusing but we're going to try to lay it out as as succinctly as we can ben riley was a very popular character in the 90s, despite the fact that the clone saga was a bit of a mess.

And so after he disappeared from comics, for a long time, there was a big kind of fan clamoring to bring him back because, as we know, very few people in comics stay dead. But for a long time, Ben Riley did. And then he came back, not that long ago. So, and he think he's still in the comics today. Yeah, yeah. so I think we should start at the very beginning we have to talk about a character called the jackal Corey you familiar with the jackal

I will tell you I am both familiar and unfamiliar with the jackal I remember hearing the name the jackal a lot and then when I would see images of the jackal in the comics it looked like a weird green little guy and I went that's not usually how one would depict a jackal.

A weird little guy. You're not wrong. Really. The jackal was originally Professor Miles Warren who taught Peter Parker in whatever

university he went to. Peter Parker University. They named it after him. He was very happy, but that part might not be true. He also taught Gwen Stacey and he really liked Gwen Stacy despite the fact that he was a middle-aged man and she was in school but he he he went mad as people often do in comics after the love of his life that didn't know that she was the love of his life accidentally fell off a bridge as as people often did in comic

and so obviously Miles Warren was very upset by this and he not only was upset at the fact that he lost the love of his life, Quincy but also he was mad because he believed that Spider-Man had a lot to do with it.

So he somehow I'm not totally sure how but he figures out how he figures out that Peter Parker and Spider-Man, I wanted to see him. I'm not totally sure how he did this, but he did. Do you remember

when we were talking about our own sinister sixes and we talked about the claw or the crab? And we said maybe he would just always knew that he was Spider-Man. Yeah. Maybe that's what happened. Yeah, like sometimes Peter Parker turns up to his class and he still got the mask on

and Miles Warren's like, what do you do? What's up with the Spider-Man mask there? Peter Parker. He's taking, he's the taking the, he's taking the he's taking the roll call for the morning uh peter parker and then spider man stands up puts his hand up present he's like oh shit yeah it's not me i'm spiderman i mean peter parker like the thought bubble above the jackal's head is like that's when i started to suspect you know yeah so somehow mild warren starts to experiment with

cloning. And he figures out how to clone people with the intent of bringing Gwen Stacy back. He wants to clone her for totally normal, legit, just to hang out. Why else would you clone a girl that you love and she doesn't know you exist? Just to talk.

I don't know. I think he wanted his own personal clone sex dog, to be honest. I don't like you do. You know, it's comics. They couldn't specifically say that. So what happens is once, so there's a lot of, of clone stuff, yada, yada. The crux of this is that at some point the jackal clones Spider-Man. He knocks out Spider-Man, he clones Spider-Man, and then both Spider-Man and the clone wake up with no memory of like what.

Neither of them have any memory of like what happened for the last, I don't know, day or whatever. And they're both in, I think it's Shay Sted. Yes, I believe so. And the jackal has wired like a bomb to the stadium was going to blow them both up. And with the idea that neither clone nor real Spider-Man are actually sure which one is the real Spider-Man because they both have the same memories

and they both were knocked out or whatever by the time they got into the stadium. So they have a fight and then they figure out which one's the real Spider-Man, which wants a clone. The real Spider-Man, I think, escaped in time. The bomb goes off.

Okay. I'm incorrect if I'm incorrect on this, but I think the bomb goes off, but Spider-Man escapes. The clone Spider-Man appears to be dead. And Spider-Man, the real Spider-Man, collects the clone body of himself. Which I imagine is a surreal fucking feeling.

Yeah, imagine just picking yourself. up that's died. There's my dead body right in front of me. Well, it's my face. And then he, you know, he tactfully does what anybody would do. If you had a clone of yourself that was dead, what would you do

the respect it deserves by throwing it into a smokestack? Smoke stack? Correct. Into a big chimney. So it would burn up and dispose of all the evidence, right? Oh, okay. I was thinking, like,

this is like a smokestack over like an industrial like yeah burning fires i just i was like just dropping it down someone's fucking chimney like a morbid santa claus no not not no not somebody's chimney but like a big industrial chimney okay jesus christ so the idea was this was like a kind of story in the in the 70s it was a twisty corner story you know the jackal is evil clone ha ha good one and then in the 90s so hold on Hold on. I'm going to ask questions, and I will attempt not to derail the conversation by these questions. These are just genuine questions.

Somebody in the 90s read that storyline, and they said, we should really expand on that. Yes. Like, of all the storylines that happened in the 1970s, that was the one they honed in on. Yes. Because I'll be honest with you, just hearing that conversation about, like, oh, the real one fought the clone one, and they weren't sure, but then the clone, that was, I, yeah, that was. already confusing a bit. And then just to add in this little small element here, much like how like Spider-Man's search nemesis is the green goblin,

I don't see what clones have anything to do with spiders. I'm so thrown off by like why all of the Marvel characters that was going to get caught up in a bunch of clone stuff, they went with Spider-Man who I always kind of felt was more like a slice of life character in regards because he's like always the, oh, the down on his luck guy, can't pay his bills, you know. getting shoot out by his boss Correct. I think that was part of it

Like the whole point of this Because it all wraps itself up really Okay This one story kind of wraps itself up There's a clone Spider-Man gets rid of the clone I think at the end of the story Like Miles Warren like repents

Where he feels bad or something like You know what I mean? Everything kind of wraps itself up And And you know he disposes of the body Yada yada again that's a bit much Throwing it in the fucking chimney, but it all kind of wrapped up in a way

that you like, this is just a story to kind of like add a little bit of spice to Spider-Man, but not necessarily way heavy on the clone issue. It's just something that happened to Spider-Man, right? Yeah. In much the same

way that you wouldn't expect an alien suit from Spice to be relevant to the everyday Spider-Man. It's just a thing that happened. And then some fucking guy was like, no, let's keep doing it. Yeah, we'll keep, let's keep this going. Yeah. So in the 90s.

Yeah. So in the 90s, technically it's been like, you know, 20 years or whatever in real time. But in comic time, it's only even five years. What happens is in the 90s, Aunt May gets very sick. Peter Parker's Aunt May gets very sick. She's in the hospital. She's on the brink of death. and Peter Park is very distraught

and he is suddenly surprised I don't remember where this happens but at some point he meets somebody who is also coming to pay the respect to their aunt May and that person is Ben Riley so Ben Riley is the clone

of Spider-Man that Spider-Man threw into the fucking smokestack he didn't die he survived and he crawled himself out of the smokesack and he was going to go he found his way to Peter Parker's house

and was going to confront him until he looked through the window and saw Peter Parker having a wonderful life with his wonderful girlfriend at the time I don't know if they were married were they married? I think so

but yeah I can't remember but he witnessed this and thought there's no life here for me and he went off as a drifter and he took his names from his grandparents, his Uncle Ben, and his Aunt May. Those aren't his grandparents. Whatever the fuck that that is, that relation. Uncle and aunt.

Correct. I just said it out loud. Boy. So Uncle Ben and Aunt May surname before Parker. was Riley. So he called himself Ben Riley. And he went off on some misadventures for five years. He heard that his aunt was sick and decided to come pay respect. And then the two Peter Parker's came face to face,

which is a very surreal moment. So again, to Corey's point, it seems like somebody in Marvel realized that this thing happened in comics 20 years ago and thought, wouldn't it be funny if the clone wasn't dead? Ha ha, we could probably spend a couple of weeks out of this. Cut to you five years. Yeah. Well, I think they'd plan this to be like a big kind of year-long thing.

I'd like to talk about this real quick. But there is a website. It's like a blog spot thing called The Life of Riley, which is a really, really good kind of blog that talks about the entire run of Ben Riley and the clone saga. in extreme detail. And it also kind of talks about what the writers originally had planned. Like how they kind of talked about how it was only going to be like a, I think like a six month or like a one year kind of deal, what their original plans were,

how they were going to wrap it up. And you can see how along the way editorial issues and other things kind of, the popularity of Ben Riley, et cetera, made it last longer than it needed to. So I went to that website, Dylan. Sorry? I went to that website, Life of Riley. Yes.

So it is Ben Rileytribute. Dot X10host.com. That's not the one I'm on. Really? Because this is the Ben Riley tribute. Yeah. And the Ben Riley Tribute presents the Life of Riley and it's like a 35 part series. Maybe that is the same one because this one's 35 parts.

Yeah. This is like Life of Riley archives. Dot blogspot.com. Yeah, no. This is just a different website. but it looks like it's the exact same thing. Yeah, 35 parts. Jesus Christ.

That, for some reference, will explain to you and to all the people listening exactly what went on in Spider-Man in the 90s. This lasted a long time. And despite the popularity of Ben Riley, some people didn't care much for this. Well, I think this was the case of there being a lot of writers coming in. and out of the story and each having different ideas and stuff as well. So, you know, there was a bit of a disconnect from where they started, probably where it ended up going. Yes.

I think that's the nature of comics in a way. To keep it, to make it a little relevant, it's a little bit how Jonathan Hickman started the X-Men Utopia thing. And the way it ended was certainly not the way he envisioned it ending. because he didn't end it. It went through a couple of more twists and turns. I will say that obviously, the Clone Zaga went through many, many more

twists and turns, many, many more writers and editorial changes and things like this. But it's just the nature of comics, I think. Overcomplicate things. Of course. Do you have any other questions at the moment, Corey? Well, I was going to say that I'm glad you brought

up the Hickman stuff because they this does feel very much like kind of crocoa that you could tell there was like a story in mind and then it more people got involved other people had other ideas and then it went on and on and on and on and on until it started to not really look like how it used to well as far i think it's on that blog spot that that website but there is online you can find out what the original writers plan for it to look like and how long they planned for it to go and they were way off

and by the end of it I think funny enough what's really funny about it is by the end of the story some of the like a lot of the ideas they did plan kind of come back around anyway it's just that it took so many people saying

no we're not doing this to eventually say okay we're doing this and then it ended you know they could have ended it years ago but they just fluffed it out and just ended it anyway you know which is quite funny. So at first, we have two Peter Parker's looking at each other.

One's Ben Riley, one's Peter Parker. And Ben Riley becomes the scarlet spider. He doesn't become a Spider-Man. He becomes the Scarlet Spider. So he has like a kind of like a red costume with like a blue hoodie. Yeah, is there an explanation for the blue hoodie? I don't remember. I think it was just because it was cool and the 90s.

Fair enough. Was there an explanation? I don't know. I dug a lot of the 90s costumes, a lot of people make fun of. I will say that I've always been amused by the little pouches at his ankles. I don't know why.

It looks like he's wearing ankle weights. Well, that's what I love to buy. The hymn is spider. Well, we'll get to that. But I love the him as Spider-Man costume. I actually really like the scarred spider costume as well. I thought by this point, Spider-Man has been in the same costume pretty much for his entire, you know, career. And the Scarred Spider comes along and has a totally different look.

You know, it's still Spider-Man, but he looks very, he looks very 90s, you know, but not over the top 90s. You know, he's not going to skateboard, you know, or Paris sunglasses. You know, that does remind me we should have like an episode where we discuss the most 90s characters possible because I know some off top of my fucking head when you just mentioned like leon skateboard, I went, oh, ho, ho,

but I know of some who do. Let's continue. So there was a while where Spider-Man and the Scarlet Spider-Spider were fighting crime together as a Spider-Man tag team. So at this point, you can't really talk about Ben Riley without mentioning Kane as well.

That's what I've been really. looking for. Yeah, okay. So things are going to get a little sticky here. Okay. The idea behind Keen was that whenever the Jackal was making the Ben Riley clone, the Ben Riley clone wasn't the first clone. There were others. And one of the clones before Ben Riley was, was Kane. And he came out with his fias all disfigured. And he had like, this kind of like his cells were like degenerate because he was a clone his cells

were falling apart much quicker than than should have been so the jackal gave him this weird like body suit that held his body together which is such a wonderful like comics explanation that makes fucking no sense at all

if by the way you could see this old body suit you were like how did that hold his cell together. It doesn't make any sense, but in comics, you're like, this makes as much sense as this being the fourth clone of Spider-Man, so why not?

Yeah, he's like covered in like what appears to be these really swollen engorged veins. Yeah. It's unpleasant to look at. My favorite thing about Kean was instead of

having the ability to climb up walls, like, Peter Park and Ben Riley. That part of his body also degenerated. So instead of being able to stick to walls, his hands actually left like a corrosive touch. They burned into stuff instead. Which I thought was actually a really good idea.

I really liked that. And, you know, Keen was this horribly disfigured person who escaped somehow. And I think he always hated Peter Parker Parker because he wanted his clone Ben Riley to have the life that he should have had. I can't remember. Now, this is where things start to get sticky.

John, am I correct or incorrect in this? Because I can't remember if he hates Peter Parker or if he hates Ben Riley. I believe he hates Peter Parker because the idea was they did like a test and it came back and it showed that the Peter Parker who'd been in the comics for years and years was actually the clone, and Ben Riley was the real Peter Parker. Yes. So that was the twist. Yeah.

And that sort of spurned Peter Parker, like, essentially giving up the role of Spider-Man and Ben Riley taken over. But even then, it didn't turn out that was true because there were some shenanigans going on. A lot of shenanigans, yes. So, the idea is they went to the Jackal himself to decide who was the clone and who was the real one. Because again, the whole crux of the original storyline was neither of them were really sure. So they went back and did the test. And it turned out that Ben Riley, according to the Jackal's tests with his big machines and whatnot,

and also being the fucking guy that created them, his test revealed that Ben Riley, or the person that we all believed to be Ben Riley was the original Spider-Man and the people, the person that we thought for the last five years had been Peter Parker

was actually the clone Ben Riley. Do you follow this part? Yeah, I'm okay so far. So it means that since the person that was found in the smokestack was away for five years and the person that went back to Peter Parker's house and lived a Spider-Man for five years,

they kind of it was as if they were you know they'd switch places the person who went back to Peter Parker's house and lived with Mary Jane for five years was actually the clone and the person who thought he was

Ben Riley and lived as an outcast for five years was actually Peter Parker so the idea behind Kean was he apparently knew this and chased after Ben Riley because he wanted the clone to just live his life as a clone and didn't like

I just didn't like Peter Parker. Fuck him, right? So they had a big fight and it was a lot of fun. They were always at each other's throats. So after this news, Peter Parker was devastated and thought, since you're the real Spider-Man, you can be Spider-Man. I'm going to retire. I'm going to kind of take a backseat.

I'm going to go live my wife who is pregnant. We're going to have a little spider kid. so you're Spider-Man and Ben Riley was like woo-hoo you know I assume he didn't I don't think he said that but

you know he said woo-hoo maybe he did there's a wee panel of him like fist bump and like woohoo I did it it's me

Spider-Man you know well I mean the voice actor for Mario did retire recently so maybe he's going to pick up work as Spider-Man yeah

he's got you gotta do something and build so Spider-Man, now that he is Ben Riley, to differentiate himself from the Peter Parker version that had kind of

stolen his memories for five years, he gets a new costume. And I love this costume. It was super cool. It was still like red and blue, but like it looked totally different. The web shooters kind of stood out like little gauntlets right his wrists.

I love that. costume. I love Ben Riley and Spider-Man. I thought he was super cool. He also, he was blonde. See, that's why I liked him. That's why I liked, uh, that's why I liked Ben Riley as Spider-Man. I let his costume was cooler. Yeah. I mean, also he's blonde. That's how they told the difference between the two of them. Which, yeah, no, isn't exactly a great disguise. Like, surely if he meets people, they're going to recognize this Peter Parker. Don't you look like Peter Parker, but blonde? Yeah.

No, Peter Parker's a brunette. What are you talking about? It's the 90s. At least grow a goatee or something. Come on. Oh, my God. Could you imagine him with a goatee? I'm like, so I've been scrolling through the life of Riley as we've been talking.

And I am seeing so much fucking fantastic 90s art. It sickens me. Oh, yeah. Dude, the art was fucking cool as hell. It's amazing. Some of it's fucking ruled. Some of it's amazing and some of it is a little rough. Oh, yeah.

There's a guy that I didn't like, I think it was Steve Scream. grow, like, would do Spider-Man stuff. And I hated his artwork. I hated it. But a lot of it I thought was really cool, you know. Jared Jr. did some stuff. And Mark Bagley did some stuff. There was a lot of really good stuff. Luke Ross.

Like, there was some really, really cool artists doing a lot of that work. Again, we had like five years of, and then also, like, five different books. I think there was, like, four or five different Spider-Man books a month. you know so there was a lot of art a lot of work when I did this this little project so um where were we do any more questions or shall we should we continue on so there's there are names i keep seeing names pop up and we can help you with this okay trainer seward supertator was a man that ben riley befriended during his exile during the five years who originally was like a scientist.

But then he had some sort of weird, almost like cosmic powers at some point, which, yeah, it didn't really make sense. Yeah, they didn't really follow that up too much. No. No. So he, Stewart Traynor was the one that helped Ben Riley get to do the deal with the jackal to find out which one was, because obviously neither of them trusted the jackal. but Ben could buy to pursue a trainer. He was like, I know this man. I trust him my life.

So that's probably normal. There's no shenanigans there, right? That's where he comes in. Any other questions about any other characters? Who's the traveler? Judas Traveler was a character. Judas Traveler pretty much encapsulates everything about the clone saga, which was that he was a character that came in.

to add a little bit of mystery and intrigue that had phenomenal cosmic powers beyond the scope of understanding so huge, in fact, that the writers didn't know what the fuck he was supposed to do or why he was there. Just to correct myself, that's who I was thinking of.

Oh, okay. Because I couldn't remember if Stewart had powers or not, because again, it's the 90s. Like, why wouldn't they just give him powers, right? Yeah. Seward was like a, he was a scientist. that knew Ben Riley. And Judas Traveler was a guy that was supposedly around to kind of judge people for his own twisted reasons.

But again, nobody knew what those reasons were. Nobody knew why he was so insanely powerful or why he would have any interest in Spider-Man. And then they kind of retconned that near the end of the clone saga to just say he had the power of inducing mental images of people. So when they thought he was incredibly powerful, he just made them think. he was. And he had an interest in both Spider-Man because he was a psychiatrist. And I'm like, okay. Okay. All right. All right. It answers those questions, I guess. Right. Off to the next one, you know. I got another question for you. At the beginning of the clone saga, he seemed like an important person. He's a red herring. He means

nothing. Yeah. Okay. I remember like having, so back in, back in the 90s when I was a child they would sell trading cards of like marvel characters and i remember getting one for the traveler and i'm like who's this old man why does he look like he listens exclusively to the duby brothers and uh seeley dan what am i supposed to take away from this person why is he and like zizi top or whatever right yeah yeah so uh all right the next one i saw this character and it filled me with a sense of joy that i have not felt since i was a small boy who's spider side Spidersight, I believe, was another clone. Have you looked at Spider-Side recently?

Because... Yes. He looks fucking ridiculous, and I love that for him. Correct. So he was just another clone, that was it? Yeah, I think so. I don't think it was a big backstory. I think he just was another one of the clones that worked for the jackal.

Was he... I can't remember. Was he mute or, like, just more monstrous anyway? like he didn't really have much of a personality because he ended up he got drafted in with the carnage and part of his crew didn't he i think spider side no that was another one does it yeah my goodness my memory is really fucking no no listen you're understandable there's so many different permutations to this there's a lot to it spider side i think was like the big kind of mussely guy mm-hmm And there was another clone that had like six arms.

Yeah, yeah. Spider's side was beefy. Yes. The six arm one couldn't talk. And he was with carnage. Yeah. I don't remember. Dopplganger.

Dopplganger. That's who it was. By that point, they just gave up. Yeah, that was creative name they got. Oh, he's a doppelganger spider band?

A doppelganger. He had a sick, I remember he had a sick toy. Like when I was a kid, there was like a sick doppelganger figure. Yeah. He had like fangs and stuff. like weird thing.

But again, he was just a clone that went wrong. And he just ended up with six arms. So again, we're getting a lot of like characters that are there but have no real, like spider side seemed like a big mussely spider man. But like I don't recall him doing a whole lot. And the same with the doppelganger. Like he went to, he was in maximum carnage for a little bit. But that's simply because they didn't know what the fuck else to do with that guy. to make him carnage his pet, you know.

All right. I just saw a cyber hobgoblin. That was Jason McIndale. Yeah. Okay, that's the one I picked. He, he, in a desperate attempt to continue to be feared, he got a lot of cybernetic. That, by the way, is around the time I started reading. And I remember reading those issues going, this fucking rules.

Because the artwork of that was sick as hell. Was this before or after he was possessed by a demon? I think this was after. Yeah, yeah, it was after. Because that was after maximum carnage. But it's still part of him trying to claim that power that he so desperately wanted. And I really wish they had done more with him because I felt like he was such a fun character in that he was so desperate to be dangerous. And he almost was.

but he was always destined to be a loser. Do you know what he mean? Like, I thought it was such a fun. It was a great place to start, despite the fact that I was like, what the fuck? Smokstack, what? Because you remember in comics,

like the first page was always like in storyline, them talking to each other, but also like trying to recap all the shit that went on in the last couple of issues. It was like Ben Riley and Peter Parker just in their house like, ha, ha, ha. Hey, remember that time I dropped you down in the smokestack?

and then you run away for five years. And I'm like, uh, what? You know? Um, but yeah, dude, that was,

that was sick as hell. That was, um, J. McIntyle as cyber hobgoblin, I guess. There's a lot of really cool villains. That was when,

um, the female Dr. Octopus was around. Yeah, she was, she was the daughter of sewer trainer. So she hated him and also hated Ben Riley. Because,

her father like Ben Riley more than her, which is a perfect reason to become Dr. Octopus. Dr. Octopus, by the way, the original, died because Kean snapped his neck. In a way to really big up

Keen, be like, how do you make this guy look like a killer? Literally kill one of Spider-Man's oldest and deadliest foes. Straight up. So, there you go. Who else is on the list? There's a lot.

We talked about cane. We talked about Seward. We talked about Lady Doc Octopus. We talked about cybernetic hobgoblin. We talked about the traveler. I don't know. Should I let you guys get back to the order you were presenting in? Well, we're trying to go kind of chronologically.

But by this point, it's just Spider-Man having a lot of adventures. And... John, I just saw it. your boy, the swarm. Nice. Swarm is there, because I've read that issue too. What's funny about this is there's a lot of times when Ben Riley as Spider-Man is fighting villains like Swarm and like Willow Whisp and stuff, where in the five years that

he's been gone, Peter Parker has fought these guys and they're like, oh, it's you, Spider-Man. And he's like, I don't know who you are. We have never met, but he has to pretend that they have because he is Spider-Man. He just hasn't seen them in five years, you know? Well, I like that angle as well. So, um, we're, what else? I mean, a lot of this is just Peter Parker on the sidelines and Ben Riley, the new Spider-Man, trying to make an image.

And again, I think the reason this went on for a long time was because, oh, I got another, I got another one. Okay. Scryor. Okay. Squire was originally a separate character that looked a little bit

like the nopheus from Spirited Away. Yeah. Big black cloak and a white face. And originally he was one mysterious character. Introduced around the same time as Judas Traveller

because they thought, why have one mysterious character when we can have a shit ton? But again, he was so mysterious. that nobody really knew what to do with them for a long time. So towards the end of the clone saga, they started to reveal exactly what Scrier was. And I think we'll get to that in a second,

because Scrier has a lot to do with the end of the business. Yes. Yeah, we still have to get to the end of the clone saga and then all the weird stuff that happened to Ben Riley after the fact. Well, shall be just like kind of zip to the end? Yeah. Because so you so there is a whole series there is the whole whole series of Ben Riley as Spider-Man. Yes.

It went on for a long time. It went on for a long time because that's one of the comments they saw about scrolling through this was like, this was not the original plan. No. We did not know like when they when they changed the plan. We didn't know what the new plan was. So new plans kept getting made all the time. Yes. So it does read disjoint it.

I do love that 90s style art though like that late 90s style like not necessarily the life filled influence stuff but just you know everyone just looked animated and I like that yeah I miss that I miss that yeah yeah it's you know I think there's not something wrong with a lot of comic art these days

but it lacks a lot of that character yes I think so so we had been doing that stuff Kane is still around and I love the fact that whenever they drew Kane he was so much bigger than everyone else. Yeah. Which is going to be confusing when we talk about K and a scarlet spider.

Correct. I'm like, is this the same dude? Correct. It is going to be confusing. You might even say it doesn't make any sense. Yeah. We'll get to that. So at some point, they all decided to start wrapping things up.

The Judas Traveler bit gets wrapped up. And then we start to realize what happened with Skryor. At the same time, Peter Parker, at some point, as he said, retired from Spider-Man, he started to lose his powers for a while. And then they started to come back again. The reason his, well, in comics, the reason they thought his powers were disappearing was because he was the clone. So they're like, well, clones just kind of stopped working after a while, right?

That's just what happens. But his powers come back again. And Ben is a little unsure about this, but he's like, okay, that's good for you. around the same time Mary Jim Watson, who is very pregnant, starts to go into labor so they take her to the hospital to give birth

to a little baby, as is what happens whenever people are pregnant or so I believe. So I've been told. So while all this happens, Ben Riley and Peter Parker are suddenly fought against a guy that

had appeared throughout the clone saga in bits and pieces, a man called Gaunt. I don't know if he came up in your search, Corey. No, I did not see Gaunt. Gaunt was a man that seemed to know Stuart Traynor

somehow and was manipulating him. And from that point, we start to see a lot of things come together, which is that Suey Trainer manipulated the results of the Jackals'

first test. test between Peter Parker and Spider-Man to make it seem that the clone Ben Riley was the real Spider-Man and the real Spider-Man Peter Parker was the clone. This was done by Stuart Traynor without the Jackal even knowing, apparently. By the way, at some point in the 90s,

the jackal just like died. Got hit by car. I should make that clear. At some point, he just kind of died. It wasn't great. Despite the fact that he was the fucking lynchpin in this entire fucking years long thing, he wasn't even the main villain. He just died.

And they were like, well, see you later. And like, wouldn't you have had him as like a lynchpin in this? No, fuck it. That's not twisty, turning enough. So as things go on, Supertrainor is trying to find Ben Riley to explain everything. He's very sorry about the life he's led and he's trying to explain himself. He is eventually killed by Gaunt, who at the beginning of the Clone Saga was a very gaunt-looking man, whose body was falling apart and was held together by cybernetics.

And eventually, by the end of the Clone Saga, built up a much more robotic and evil monstrous-looking body and went to fight Peter Parker and Spider-Irace and Ben Riley together. And it turns out that the Gaunt that they've been teasing for so long was, was Mandelstrom. Mendoorstrom. Cory. Ripping him. Corey.

Aren't you going to go, what? That guy? No. It's all who Mendostrom is. For the record, when I read this, after having read

so much of the clone saga, I, too, went, huh? What the fuck? Mandelstrom was a very, very old friend of Norman Osborne's. in the comics from a long time ago

I think he was the robot master well I think originally he helped he helped create the goblin formula as well and then I think yeah Osborne had him like sent to prison or something well he was in the Spider-Man movie too by the looks of it

I also believe part of it was Norman Osborne tested the Goblo formula on Mental Strong which is why Gaunt who seemed to die from a heart attack, was still technically alive and very gaunt. And he needed Stuart Truner to help put him back together. So this is a tease, which I think we can all figure out the next part of it.

Mental Strom came back from the dead, technically, or he didn't die. So after the two Spider-Man beat up the evil Gaunt, the robot master, in some of the ugliest artwork I've ever seen, this was such a disappointment. I fucking hated this horrible. bullshit artwork. This is the end of the clone's eyegun. They did this shit to me. So disappointed.

But while all this is going on, Mary Jean gives birth to her baby. The doctor takes a baby and says, I'm sorry. Your baby is not making any noise. You know.

Oh, so it's well-behaved. It's a lovely boy or girl that's so sweet. I'm keeping it, bitch. He goes with the middle finger. Yeah, and then he ran away. There's a very emotional part where it seems like Murray Jane's baby

was still born, and we're very sad about this. Yes. Cut to that doctor holding the baby on like a pier on the dock, and he gives the baby to, I don't remember if it was him

or if it's like the nurse. I think it's a nurse at the hospital gives the baby to a mysterious man in the shadows. Corey, who could this mysterious man in the shadows be? Mendelstrom, I don't know. Who was Mendelstrom's friend? Who tested the goblin serum on Mendelstrom

to realize that Mendelstrom didn't die after he ingested the goblin serum? Oh, was it? Norman? Who died after getting us? Yep, that was the tea. So this is how we get green goblin into this mess, huh?

Yes. Who had famously been dead for like 30 years at this point. Yeah, a long time. Because like Harry, was this before after, it was this before after Harry Osborne's like breakdown? After, Harry Osborne was dead. Yeah, okay. That's what I was trying to figure out was like,

is Harry alive and erupt? Was this what caused the breakdown? For the record, at some point, somebody in Marvel wanted it to be Harry Osborne as a reveal. And they were like, that sucks. I don't know. I always have a soft spot for Harry. So I don't...

Originally, they wanted it to be Norman Osborne and somebody in Marvel said, we're not bringing back Norman Osborne. Five years later, somebody in Marvel went, okay, we'll make it Norman Osborne. This is how it happened. So this is how Norman Osborne came back.

And like I said, the teasers were there. It made it clear that the Goblin Serum could bring people back from the dead. a mental strong didn't actually die. He just appeared to be dead. And the same thing happened with Norman Osborne.

It appeared that he was dead. But whenever they brought him to the morgue, he came back to life and just escaped. The way he put it was he killed a homeless man and just left him in the morgue instead. And everybody just went with it. Well, this body looks nothing like Tommy Lee Jones. Surely. Oh, never mind. I'm just overlooking it.

So to go back to an earlier point, there was a wonderful, like, mini-stil. like one issue thing that explained Norman Osborne's Port of view because he wrote like a journal of it. It's really good. Because they, God, they do their best to explain it. And honestly, this... Dear diary.

Pretty much. Today I stole a lifeless baby. He's like, this is the day. I get my revenge on Peter Parker. But it talks about him going to... After he comes back from the dead, he's like, I can't just turn up, right? People will think that's weird.

So I'm going to go to Europe. And he starts... Well, he doesn't start... He becomes a part of... a mysterious cult called the squires, which is a big group of people who all dress in a big black robe and the white mask. And he eventually becomes the leader of the squires. So from that, it becomes determined that the one squire that we saw previously was actually one of many from the cult. and they were Norman Osborne's eyes and ears in America.

And so through this, he was able to determine exactly when was the best time for him to come back and strike. He was able to use Squires to determine when is the best time to fuck with Peter Parker, essentially. I'm like, this all, like, kind of works, you know, I can kind of believe this. you know so it all ends with a big brutal fight between Norman Osborne Peter Parker Ben Riley Norman Osborne by the way beats the fuck out of Ben Riley JR Jr. does the artwork for it he makes him look like he is just yeah J.R. J.R. does really a fun job about brutalizing people yeah like that man's face is gone essentially based off of how

JRJR draws it. Can you see the picture? I have seen many of JRJR's beat down photos before. It's a wonderful thing. So there's a bit where Norman Osborne is about to impel Peter Parker with his own

goblin glider a la, you know, the way he tried to do before. Ben Riley briefly jumps in front of it, takes the front of it. Spider-Man beats up Norman Osborne. and Ben Riley, the clone, just kind of disintegrates

because he's a clone. The idea was that all the clones eventually would disintegrate. And that's what happens. Bear in mind at this point, Keane is supposed to be in prison, I think. So, let's not worry about his disintegration just yet. Let's just remember the fact that Ben Riley disintegrated because

he got attacked by a goblin glider so it happened much quicker than it normally would have. But we don't really have a good time frame for when it would have happened. And that was it. That was kind of the end of the clone saga, you know? That was the end of Ben Riley. He went out as a hero saving his buddy and brother and self. And, you know, they stopped the evil Green Goblin. It brought Norman Osborne back into the comics,

had a big lasting effect. Of course. Norman Osmond was, he became, you know, he took over the, the gilie bugle, and then he became the leader of hammer

and what, would they be like the mayor of New York or something? Well, he was in charge of the Avengers. He had his own Dark Avengers team, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this was all like the catalyst for a lot of that.

So that's kind of the story of Ben Riley during the clone saga, as succinctly as, we think we could have put it. Are there any questions so far? Um, so yes, I have one question. Um, uh, what the fuck? So I mean, it does, it does sound like it was just sort of a mess of editorial getting involved and change plans changing due to some successes and some not. As I was scrolling through that, I did see something that did kind of crack me up where it was like, oh, there was a decision to cancel Thunderstrike and War Machine and the 2009 titles.

Not because they weren't successful, but because they thought they were weakening the core titles instead. And I'm guessing that's kind of what happened with Ben Riley's Spider-Man, is that eventually they felt like they had to put Peter back into the role after an extended period of him, not in the role because they thought it was hurting the brand. I think so. Like, Ben Riley proved to be, like, surprisingly popular. Yeah. But I also think that their original plan was always.

for Peter Parker to be Spider-Man. They had to stand his quote once again. We talked a little bit about it. We didn't really get too into detail. And it's kind of one of those things about legacy characters. It's that when they introduce a new, this is the new, whatever, eventually they do return it to status quo. It's very rare that that person who is like suddenly this person's this character now,

that that stays for a long time. Marvel's currently doing that right now with Moon Knight, for example. like Mark Spector is not Moon Knight it's this other character who's Moon Knight and it's like it's going to make for an interesting storyline sure but it's not permanent by any means well I feel like that's always kind of part of the problem

like whenever they did Spider-Man the superior Spider-Man yeah Dr. Octopus I liked that angle but having lived through the clone saga I knew that this obviously wasn't going to be the status quo

because if they didn't do it with Ben Riley, they're sure as fuck not doing it with Dr. Octopus. And again, they gave it a good go. They made you think it was different, but in the end, they still pulled the rug back, you know? Yeah. I would really prefer. I like the superior Spider-Man at the time, the original run, but obviously, you know, you have, in that case, you have to go back to Peter Parker. Whereas with the Ben Riley run, it was, you know, that.

I think part of the reason it went on for so long was because Ben Riley proved to be surprisingly popular. Well, and they gave Peter a farewell, you know, like Peter, Peter gets to be normal. He gets to, he gets his wife and he gets to have a kid. And I mean, it seemed like they were setting that up. The joke of it all is, is that Ben Riley is still really Spider-Man, Peter Parker. Like, because of the way they did it, he's still, the way they had done it. originally was he was the original Spider-Man anyway. So it's still fine, you know?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, in a lot of ways, I kind of like that because it's sort of like Peter has all of these other responsibilities in his life. Like he's got this relationship. He's got a kid on the way. Bid had fucking nothing to do but be Spider-Man. So in reality, it kind of was the best situation for everyone. And also, we've heard the rumors or the stories that a lot of the people in,

Marvel management didn't like the partnership, the marriage of Murray Gian and Peter Parker. So this was the perfect out. Peter Parker could still kind of be married to Mary Jean. And also, Ben Riley is still really Peter

Parker. He's not a Spider-Man. You got the best of both worlds. And yet, they still were like, fuck you, we're not doing it. And they could do the occasional team up every now and then where Peter comes in and helps out with something. Yes. They absolutely could have.

I don't know why they didn't. Like, it's very interesting. But the way they did it was Ben was always a clone and he died. And for a long time, people nostalgia-wise were like, you know what? It was a cool costume. He was a really fun character. It was a nice twist on Spider-Man that genuinely shook things up. You know, it really did.

It was the kind of thing Spider-Man needed. I know that the clone saga was needlessly complicated, but it also was just like something wild. And the 90s did that a lot. You know, with like the death of Superman, for example. It was a lot of like really shaking these characters up. And I feel like the big problem that they all suffered from was the shakeups in the end didn't matter.

They all went back to status quo. Some of them took a little longer than others. but yeah. Correct. But yes, it's a shame. So for a long time, Ben Riley remained dead and people were calling out

to return the scarlet spider. So Marvel said, okay, you guys want scarred spider? We're going to give you the scarlet spider. Which, technically they did.

Yep. Where they brought Kane back and just made him the Scarlet Spider, which I fucking hated. I remember that series took place in Houston, and they made a joke about how there weren't as many tall buildings in Houston for him to swing off of. Yes. Wait, John, do you have something to say by this? I, yeah, I wasn't a huge fan of this series either, to be honest. I liked the costume. I thought it looked pretty cool.

Let me ask you this. Why did you not like it? Well, like you say, the Houston setting probably didn't help too much because it was a bit too far removed from everything else. There wasn't any like established villains really that he was going up against. It was all these random like local villains who weren't that interesting. But yeah, I don't know. It just, it didn't really click. And I think as well, because I loved the original cane when he came in.

And he was like, he was like a big monstrous guy who was Peter Parker gone wrong, basically. And he was, he had no compunction about killing people and doing all this stuff, whatever he felt was right. And now he's, he's basically more. Yeah, he's more like Peter Parker. and it felt like a bit of a regression. Yeah, exactly. We don't need another one. Exactly.

The problem with bringing Keen back was they ruined everything Koola by Keen. So we'll touch on that and we'll move away from Kane because I feel like we could probably talk about Kane, Scarlat Spider for a bit just based off how you two feel about them. Not really. I think we're done. Yeah. We'll move forward and move into, are we talking about the. return of the jackal? Yes.

I was very excited to read this because, like I said, I was a big fan of the clone saga. Maybe one of the five people in the world that was a fan of the clone saga. But I loved it. And then we saw the new jackal. Because, Corey, as you've seen, the old jackal look like a little green man, a little green boy. Not like a jackal, but some kind of humanoid. fuzzy green thing. Almost a little bit like a green goblin.

Mm-hmm. But not that. There was a reason for that, like Miles Warren went through some kind of genetic stuff himself to make him a good fighter for whenever he would fight Spider-Man. So he turned himself into whatever that is.

Is that the, I thought it was a costume? No. No, I didn't look like a costume, that's for sure. I think originally it was a costume and then he made it a genetic modification of his own body. Right, right, right.

Now, the reason you probably thought it was a costume was for later on when we see the jackal. He has made clones of Miles Warren. Which would make you think that he's making clones of himself. But that also means he must have DNA of himself as Miles Warren that he used to clone that point. part of himself.

It's very confusing. The whole clone business is so confusing. I think that he had a history of making clones of himself because it wasn't that very first appearance in Chase Stadium when the bomb blows up. Like, it's made to look as if the jackal died in that explosion. But that turned out to just be a clone. Yes. More clones.

Clones everywhere, dude. Yeah. That's cloning up, baby. at some point the jackal comes back with a new mask that looks like a jackal but the rest of his body looks very humanoid which set alarms off for me

because I knew that the jackal I mean if you can make yourself look like a little green goblin you can probably make yourself not look like a little green goblin I don't know how genetic slicing works but a man appeared he knew a lot about Peter Parker and his history he wore a jackal mask

he was involved with cloning and he had a company called New You that would allow dead people to come back to life by placing their old memories into clone bodies and essentially making them come back to life.

The only caveat to that is if he did do that you have to kind of I think you have to take like a medicine every day in order to stop the clone degeneration. Mm-hmm.

And at some point, the Jackal persuades Peter Parker that he's legit. Okay, John, correct me if I'm incorrect here. But he persuades Peter Parker that this is all legit. Because doesn't he bring back Uncle Ben? Well, I think he... He brings somebody back, right? He brings back Gwen Stacy, first of all. Okay.

I think he offers to bring back Uncle Ben as like the final roll of the dice to try and get Peter on board with it. Yes. And then Peter Park is like that's too far. Yeah. I've just remembered something. We should have mentioned a little bit earlier. Corey, remember whenever Aunt May died? Yeah, well, no.

Well, I remember she died in Civil War. No, Anne May died. Right. The whole reason that the two. clones met each other was because Aunt May was a deaf store. Way back in the 90s. Sure. She died.

Turns out that wasn't At May. Oh. Like you do. Norman Osborne Norman Osborne hired an actress and got her to have facial reconstruction surgery to look like Aunt May. Hell of a pain gig.

And then she died. while he kidnapped the real Aunt May and kept her alive for some reason Yeah Like why didn't he just kill the real Aunt May What the fuck? But anyway So then she came back

And then like you said In Civil War Then she died again And then she came back to life again That's I just remember it After we did the Uncle Ben bit But so now it's all good But a lot of old Spider-Man

Adjacent people came back to life and this was a great boon for everybody. And then through this entire process, it became apparent that the Jackal was not Miles Warren. It was Ben Riley, which was a fun twist. Because all the way through this, Ben Riley was being portrayed as not really a villain. All the way through this, it felt like the person doing this, was doing this for a good reason. You know, it never felt malicious like the jackal would have,

the Miles Warren version. But then it gets silly because the reason all of this happened was, again, John, feel free to step in here because, I don't know, but at some point, the real Jackal, the Miles Warren version of the Jackal, after Ben Riley died at the hands of Norman Osborne because the Jackal is a master of cloning was able to bring back Ben Riley but the way he did it he was disappointed

in the versions of Ben Riley that he brought back so he would kill that version of Ben Riley and bring it back like 37 times until he got the right Ben Riley that he wanted Am I off base with that? No, it sounds about right to me. Okay. So after this happened, Ben Riley obviously had some issues with his own psyche after being killed 37 times, 38 times, if you count the Norman Osborne bid.

And so now he was a bit mentally unstable. He did this whole gimmick to try and bring other people back so that clones could kind of live in their own world. I don't remember how this ended. I don't remember what the end game was. John, you could probably film me in here because there was some sort of end game for Ben Riley here. All I remember is that something happened,

Spider-Man stopped him, and then at the very end of it, Ben Riley and the real Jackal had a fight where the real Jackal apparently died, but obviously he didn't. Yeah. But what was his end game? him. Like, why did he do this?

I think it was just to sort of make death not a problem anymore. Like, everyone could live forever. Yeah, I read the synopsis of this. Okay. But, yeah, obviously, they could only do so through his sort of

technology and through having his pills as well. So... Did you mention that when they were trying to bring Ben back, they killed him 27 times? 27 times. I thought it was 37. times. He's 27, yeah, yeah.

So that's, he, he obviously was very psychologically traumatized from remembering 27 or 28 different times he died. Well, I see, this is the thing I was thinking about because I'm like, if this is a clone body you're doing this to you, my clone mindset and stuff, like, how does, like, at some point, I was like, at some point, how far into this do I look logically? Like, is, is, does it actually happen? like why would you retain those memories? I don't understand how any of this works.

You know? But then again, maybe that's me trying to look into it too much. I don't know why you would retain the knowledge of dying 37 times like 27 times. Like 27 times. Seems like a gross oversight

on the person conducting the experiment. Again, that's part of it. You're like, well, Miles Warren's in a scene character. Why wouldn't he do something insane like this? And you're like, well, because he's trying to make the perfect clone. Why would he intentionally take a clone that worked? The only, the only, the only clone that worked was Ben Rogley. And he took that clone that worked.

I don't know. Spider-side looked pretty cool. You're telling me, you look at that guy and that's not perfection? How did Spider-Side die? We don't remember. We don't. Nobody remembers. Guys hit by a car.

We put cement and his lungs. Oh my God. I just looked up another picture of him. He's beautiful. Beautiful boy. But he's dead and gone. That's one clone. They're never going to bring back.

You know? So anyway, regardless, after this, it became established that Ben Riley was back and the Jackal was also back. The Jackal has made very few appearances since then. He made one in Spider Island, I think. Can I stop you for a moment and just say Spider-Side apparently died after falling from the Daily Bugle once it was revealed that the Jackal had deceived him? He just fell off a building.

Wait, didn't the, it's not how the jackal died? He fell off a building. People have to stop falling off buildings. In the 90s, like, whenever he, you know, whenever he supposedly died in the 90s, I thought he just fell. Oh, no, hold on. He was put in a stasis chamber as a precaution. At some point, Spider's side escaped the stasis chamber and decided to learn how to be human by attacking Ben Riley, who at the time was struggling with his identity as Peter's clone, but also by dating multiple people whom he ended up killing because they wouldn't reveal what he sought, letting them, him to be known as the first date, murder. as he usually killed them on the first date.

Wow. First date murderer. Was he dressed to Spider-Side when he went to the dead? I do not know. I'm going to keep looking. You keep talking. I'll provide the Spider-Side updates. Yeah.

Okay, Corey, you look after Spider-Side part of this, and we'll do the Ben Riley part, which is... I know what the show was about. What I like about this is, it has kind of, like, been more about the clone saga it really, but we're still developing. There's still a little bit more Ben Riley to go, which is kind of where we both fall off, I guess. Yeah.

So the Jackal, like I said, kind of appeared a little bit after that. Ben Riley for a little bit didn't appear because it felt like how do we reintroduce this guy? We had a really big storyline that brought him back, but also introduced like those crazy consequences of him dying 27 times having a very fragile mind

how do we bring it back and I think they did bring it back his discarded spider yes briefly like not long after I think the end of this he basically goes off

to Las Vegas I think it was and gets into it with cane over who's going to, you know, continue with the Scarlet Spider identity. They give him a new costume, which nobody likes. And he ends up. I've read this series, actually.

Oh, there you go. Do you like it? I, well, I love Peter David's work, and I liked Ben Riley, so I thought it was going to be really great series. And I was, there was some very confusing parts. But, but yes, John, that is my favorite part about this. They debuted a new costume. and it was received so poorly

that Ben Riley had to steal a Scarlet Spider cosplay from a fan and wear it, which was how they got back to him wearing his original outfit. It's a cosplayer recreation. That's bad. What was his characterization like in this? Was he sort of damage?

So, yeah. Yeah, Ben was still like, he still was convinced that he was doing the right thing by trying to clone people. and he was approached by this crime boss who ran a casino whose daughter was dying and she believed that he was Peter Parker so she was like I need you

because this was during the Parker Industries post superior Spider-Man run she's like I need you to cure my daughter and so like he was trying to figure out a cure for her while also trying to like justify his actions to himself meanwhile like he would also like his his like conscious would talk to him and be like no you did was wrong you need to just acknowledge that it was wrong that you were fucked up um he ends up making a deal with mefesto in a crossover arc that featured like ghost writer and i think red hulk and somebody else maybe daredevil and that led to him interacting with death who is a part of the series as well because his body he started to fail.

He was starting to degenerate and get a bunch of scars and shit. In death basically said like your soul is so corrupt because someone shouldn't live and die 27 times that like the next time that you die and are brought back, your soul is going to just be completely deteriorated and you're going to be like a monster, just a sociopath because you have no conscience anymore. So there was a lot to that series. and I remember it ended in the most unsatisfactory way possible because it was leading to another big spider crossover event that I did not read. So basically like the little girl dies but she saved and becomes this like angelic figure

and that Ben like sacrificed himself to save her. And so her using her like miracle powers resurrected Ben not knowing it was going to cause him to be a sociopath. And that's how the series ended is that Ben's back and he's crazy because the angel of a dead girl resurrected him. Well, here's my issue with that, right? I mean, obviously there's lots of issues with that. But my issue with that is in that story, they say, you know, you being dead and resurrected 27 times is going to really fuck with your psyche.

So if you're killed and resurrected one more time that will send you over the deep end, right? Yeah. But as we've established in this show, he died before that when Norman Osborne killed him. So he already has died 28 times and been brought back. So he should already be in psychosis if 28 is the number. Does the first death not count because the body completely deteriorated? But doesn't he have memories of all of that? Isn't that part of it?

Do we know that the memories weren't just implanted into him, though? So how, but how does that work? Do you get memories right up until your death and then question mark and then now you're alive again? Because it wasn't part of, and again, you haven't read this. So I'm going to ask John this. But wasn't that part of the new you thing? Like surely they would have acknowledged his old life. They have to acknowledge his Ben Riley life.

They have to also acknowledge his death at Norman Osmer's hands, right? how can you go from him being Ben Riley to question mark to being killed and resurrected 27 times the fact that Kean or the fact that the jackal was able to resurrect him the first time is because he died so he has died 28 times but I don't know it's so complicated it's so needlessly complicated yeah needlessly complicated yeah

Needlessly complicated. Corey, this is what we had to deal with in the 90s. This is our peeing. The Spider-Man pain. You had no idea. And they kept doing it. We're in the 2000s now. The 2010s now. And they kept doing clone stuff.

Stop. Stop cloning. So to give you your spider side update, he did turn up last year in a series called Spine-Tingling Spider-Man. What? What? Yeah. So he's not dead?

No. But didn't he degenerate? Like all the clones are supposed to? No, he fell off a building and they put him in a stasis chamber, apparently. He was dead. But he just didn't deteriorate. I don't know, man. But last year, last year, Spider-Side returned in Spine-Tingling Spider-Man.

What did he do? He talked Spider-Man in a tingling fashion, preferably around the spine area. It sounds tingly. So at some point, though, Ben Riley ends up back in New York. And he seems pretty normal because he's basically taken over from Peter Parker, a Spider-Man, when Peter Parker gets like radiation poisoning or something like that. And then he falls into a coma. So like, how have we gone from, like, psychotic Ben?

I feel like we've missed something on the... Yep. There were some... There were so many, like, Spider-verse, like, crossover events that I know that Kane and Ben were big parts of. That it's, like, it's going to be really hard, because you had to have read all of these fucking miniseries for it to have made sense.

Kane was a big part of Spider-Verse at the end of it. The original one anyway, I don't remember the Saccharmin that well, but I know that Kane was a big part of the original Spider-verse, which I guess is a interesting way to, like, you know, rehabilitated that character. Again, I don't like it because I don't think it's very original Kane-like, but... All right, so... Ben was resurrected a 28th time by Otto Octavius,

he revealed that he and he and Ben had planned for this to happen and Ben stated that it had given him a clean slate not only has his scars disappear but apparently this last death resurrection had made him sane again. I saw that turned out as he declared it had quote put him back to factory settings. After the inheritors were defeated, Ben like the rest of the spider army returned home. Ben returned to Las Vegas and this is where. Well boy, Ben returned to Las Vegas where he fought Conan the Barbarian. and Nila's skin thinking they were bad guys, but they were able to knock him out. And then he returns to New York.

So there you have it. Oh, well, that, John, but you, but that cleared up everything for me, right? Yep, no more questions. All right. Off we go, Ben Roddy, everybody. I think there's a little bit more, though, isn't there? Yeah, there is, unfortunately.

This, by the way, so like I said, I, you know, read all the comics in the 90s. Big Ben, already found my brother. is a big Ben Riley fan. We both loved him. We were so excited to see him back. We both read Dead Nomore, Colonial Beatsbury. Didn't mind it. That was fun. And then Ben Raddy came back recently. And we talked about that. And we had very similar opinions about this. And I'm going to go out in the limb and guess that these similar opinions that me and my brother had are quite similar to the ones that me and John have. By Ben Riley coming back. Now, this is where things.

get fuzzy because I haven't read Spider-Man the last couple of years. Just I don't know why. Maybe because shit like this happens. But Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Ben Riley is there. And

somehow, and maybe somebody either somebody on the show can fill in the blanks or maybe somebody in the comments can fill in the blanks about this. I'd love to read a 70th paragraph comment on YouTube about this. But At some point, Ben Riley becomes evil?

Well, before that, he becomes Spider-Man. Because, like I say, Peter falls into a coma. Yes. And, you know, New York needs a Spider-Man. So Ben Riley's there. He takes over. Everything's going swimmingly for a little while. But at this point, there's some sort of weird situation with the Spider-Man gimmick

where I think it's like been trademarked by a company called Beyond who you know just trying to monetize it so Ben is basically working for them but still doing his like superhero and like saving people and stuff but yeah like all big corporations that this beyond seem like they have some old tier motives perhaps and they start manipulating him a bit and like messing with his memories as well and I think that kind of you know messes with Ben Riley's mind which has already had a lot of psychological damage over the years from more the dying and resurrections and everything else he's gone through so to throw in my two cents real quick. I was optimistic. Oh, no, no.

These are just comments. I do not have questions so far. I was very optimistic about this run when I saw like, oh, we're going to do a series where Ben Riley's Spider-Man. I was like, fuck yes, because I've been really into a lot of the 90s, like callbacks and nostalgia runs that have been going on lately. I got the first issue, read it, thought it looked fun, didn't pick it up because I had other stuff going on at the time, but I'm like,

I'll keep an eye on this. Took some different directions than I was expecting, but it kind of, that's always happens to me in Spider-Man books. I feel optimistic at the start, and then I just go, oh, no. What would happen? Pretty much every single run you've ever read in Spider-Man, you're going to love it at the beginning. The way it goes.

Yeah. So, John, let's, do you want to continue on to the birth of chasm? Well, I can't really remember how it ended. Like, I know they kind of, like Peter wakes from his coma and they go to like confront this beyond corporation. And somehow I think Ben ends up falling into some sort of. Fell into a chimney. Yeah. A chimney filled with some sort of thing.

Son of a bitch. It happened again. Not again But yeah No no no So yeah he There is like an explosion It seems like he dies

But Can I well can I really quickly read What it says on Wikipedia What I means Yeah So there's some kind of conflict Between Peter Parker Ben Riley and the Beyond Corporation

Like we mentioned This is a quote from Wikipedia In the insuring Conflict Ben is swept up Under Strange Chemicals called Quote quantum shifting polymers in a psycho

reactive medium which are unleashed to rewrite and remake the actual physical matter of their headquarters to hide the evidence of their misdeeds so that should explain everything okay there you go quantum shifting polymers in a psychoreactive medium

what part of that are we confused by nothing no it's all that's that's it's it that's so Peter Parker survives this but Ban seems to be lost to the wreckage of the former Beyond Corporation headquarters. However months later, Ban resurfaces

and he's on he's undergone some changes due to his exposure to the quote quantum shifting polymers end quote Oh, I love comics. I love comics. Dude, if we ever become comic writers, just remember you can get away with anything just by saying bullshit like that.

Quantum shifting polymers. It's great. That's it. So, so yeah, we also forgot about they got Ben's girlfriend

out of prison and she was like living with him and then she also became a villain because of this stuff too. Yes. Again, Hello Zeeve. That was a real shame

because back in the 90s Ben Riley did have a girlfriend. Janine Yeah. That was Elizabeth. Was Elizabeth? Hang on. She had a fake name.

Yeah, I think Janine was the fake name. Okay. Janine might be the one I'm thinking of. The woman, she had a whole run over the law, and she faked her, like came up with a new identity when she met Ben Riley in the 90s. So that was a wonderful, I read that many series. It was wonderful.

I loved it. It did so much, like, character work for Ben Riley in the 90s. And then now they're like, remember that happened? here we go. Got to do it again. So they brought, no idea they bring Ben Riley back,

but they brought his girlfriend back and then they made her evil. And I'm like, this is not the future I envisioned. Well, I was 10. Ben also formed an alliance with another famous evil clone,

Madeline Pryor. Yes. No, if we're being nitpicky, that but I liked, because like you said, clone and clone you know, strange badfellows

that makes sense. You know? Yeah, yeah. Now, I saw this because Kasm showed up in the dark X-Men comic

that came out like a year ago. Okay. He was like one of the primary villains in it. Just hanging out. Pretty much.

But so like the crux of this is it's just gone and again, like we said at the beginning, it's just all gone back to see his quo. Well,

I don't know. It kind of. hasn't because like now Ben is the villain and Kane is the hero but isn't Ben like back in limbo yeah but he's

he's currently being held in limbo if he's being held he's like it sounds like he's still a bad guy listen hopefully we've been able to accurately pinpoint everything you ever need to know but Ben Riley

the clone saga, the jackal, Hane, Spider-Side. Caword, the traveler. What's the Spider-Side? What's the Spider-Side update? I've got to guess he didn't have such a big run in Spine-Tingling Spider-Man because in the same solicitation of issue one, it says after surviving an attack from Spider-side. So I'm going to guess that Spireside didn't last too great in that fight. That's a shame.

But still, he was there. you know, Lecy participated. That's cool. You got loads of clones, loads of, hopefully we were able to, like,

put a fine pin onto every issue, every question you might have had about Ben Riley or any of the other clones or the Jackal. Jackal, by the way, Worsi,

who gives the fuck, not important. He's up to something. He'll be back. Whenever I get my run in Marvel, I'm going to have the Jackal clone armless tiger man thousand times

when are Marvel are going to wise up and give us the comics that we deserve a.k.a. written by us. Armus Tiger Man. We finally get to write

that Spider-side adventure that the world is begging for. The Spider-Side Armless Tiger Man team up. Yes. And Hydraman is in there too. Well, thank you very much

for listening to our bullshit about Ben Riley. We really appreciate that. And also, of course, Spider-side. And all of the other guys. the Jackal, Cain, Dr. Octopus, Lady Octopus, Sewer Trainer, Gaunt, A.K. Mendelstrom, the robot master, Judas Traveler, Scrier, the Norman Osborne, the doctor that delivered the baby for Mergin and Watson. What's his name? Peter Parker. Yeah, that obscure character, Peter Parker.

where that guy is. I don't know. And all of the other characters involved in the clone's like, oh, the hobgoblin with the robot arms? Yeah, robot hobgoblin. All of the classic characters that we've named Swarm. There's so many. So many that we've named in this episode. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this.

That would be really nice if we did. If you didn't, I don't care. Yeah. I would love it. If somebody doesn't do like all like two hours of this and just let him. and just left the comment goes, it sucked. I'm like, great, you listen to it. So, fuck you.

I think that. So everybody, this has been the Smirk Avengers. And our discussion have been Riley that morphed into a conversation about the clone saga. It's been a good one. We've had a couple of long ones in a row. This one, we've got a little long, but not nearly as long as the last two. So if you, if you listen to all of it, fantastic. If not, as Dylan said, fuck you.

But this has been very enjoyable. and we hope to see you all again real soon. Goodbye. Goodbye. Bye. Brer. Rar.