What I Bought 6/16/2022

We haven't even officially gotten to summer and I'm already sick and tired of it. Why did climate change have to empower my least favorite of the seasons? Couldn't make fall nicer, or even just wetter, no, had to make summer even more like living inside a jock strap.

Ben Reilly: Spider-Man #5, by J.M. DeMatteis (writer), David Baledon (artist), Israel Silva (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Given how wiggly his his webbing has looked on all of these covers, I have to conclude that either Ben messed up the formula, or Mysterio pranked him by swapping in silly string.

Ben has to go fight all the released patients. Which goes better than it ought to because he gets a little help. First from Mysterio, then from Vermin, who Spidercide somehow brought back out of Edward. Still, Ben's losing until Spidercide concludes that Dr. Kafka was right and he does care about Ben. So he beats all the villains he released, again uses his abilities to bring Ben back from near-death (somehow) and falls into a coma. Except he seems to be out of that by a page later while under Dr. Kafka's supervision.

Woof, that was not a great ending. I guess Spidercide's face turn - one issue after his previous face turn - is supposed to mirror Ben's internal monologue during the fight about not dismissing the people he's fighting as crazy, because it allows him to dehumanize them and ignore their suffering. He tried to understand Spidercide, and it paid off. But considering this whole mess is Spidercide's fault, I might have been more impressed if Ben actually reached the patients, Mysterio helps because he wants a defeat of Spider-Man to be done with style, and Edward manages to resurface inside Vermin, but there isn't much indication Spider-Man's making any attempt to reach any of these other people.

Maybe it's because reaching out to Spidercide and trying to accept him as a brother is a step in Ben accepting himself as an individual again, rather than the cheap copy of Peter Parker he believed himself to be. Self-acceptance, but the self is actually somebody else. But it just feels so damn abrupt. Spidercide is gleefully turning Edward into Vermin and taunting Ben about what he'll do to Kafka while Ben's stopping the riot, and then he's all outraged that Ben's about to die. All within a couple of pages. The pacing wrecks any emotional impact.

Also, Spidercide's attempt at a knock off Spidey costume to "mock" Ben doesn't really carry it off. It just looks like an uninspired Spider-Man costume. Making sure his mouth is still visible through the "mask" is a little unsettling, but it doesn't scream mockery.

A Calculated Man #1, by Paul Tobin (writer), Alberto Albuquerque (artist), Mark Englert (colorist), Taylor Esposito (letterer) - His camouflage suit is only half-working.

Jack Beans is a former accountant for a mob, now in witness protection. Except it seems he's been found, and decides his best option is to just kill everyone in the mob. Tobin moves the story between the present-day, as Jack begins to put his plan in motion, and a series of flashbacks explaining his knack for numbers and total recall, and how he got to this point. That part is related through a discussion between two federal marshals. Omaha Avery is retiring, and Elsie Santos is his replacement, curious about this Jack.

There are two things established during this issue that feel like they'll be crucial to the story. One, Jack has a girlfriend he only knows through the internet. There are a few pages at the end that are meant to be text conversations between Jack and various women he tried meeting, and I'm guessing Vera is the one he's dating. 

Second, Jack apparently can't lie. This was apparently part of why he wanted to stop being a mob money manager, because it wouldn't inevitably cause problems when he dated someone and they wanted to know what he did for a living. Case in point, in one of the unsuccessful text conversations, "Phoebe" asks if he has a criminal past and he admits he does, though he doesn't specify what exactly.

I'm not sure how either of those will end up being relevant, although the issue ends with Jack meeting Omaha and Elsie at a diner. Hopefully neither of them ask if he's been killing people today.

It feels like it's going to be enjoyable. Tobin and Albuquerque keep the tone a bit light most of the time. There are two main crime families, the Keys and the Van Dykes. The keys get tattoos on their backs, the more keys the higher status. The Van Dykes have facial hair, although Albuquerque makes it look drawn on, rather than something they grew. Maybe it's a tattoo as well. 

Thing I noticed that may not mean anything. Omaha's narration boxes are these neat, precise blue rectangles. Crisp edges and corners. Jack's narration boxes are a dingy grey, with bent corners and brown stains. I guess I expected, with Jack being so good with numbers, he'd be more fastidious and so his narration boxes would reflect that, but it isn't really the case. Jack doesn't dress poorly, but he doesn't seem bothered by blood or mess, or anything not being perfectly in place. If it doesn't mess with his plan, I guess it doesn't matter.

What I Bought 5/12/2022

The temperatures have been like mid-July all week around here. I hope this isn't going to be an insanely hot summer. I found the only comic from last week I wanted, and one of the three from this week. Both of which highlight the futility of seeking help for mental health issues! Joking, or am I?

Batgirls #6, by Becky Cloonan and Michael Conrad (writers), Jorge Corona (artist), Sarah Stern (colorist), Becca Carey (letterer) - "Spellbound by Spellbinder" just seems lazy, especially with the painting motif. "Framed by Spellbinder", maybe?

So, Spellbinder's time working at Arkham convinced him the ones kept there were the most sane, because they refused to be dictated to or let anyone else determine what they think. He wanted to encourage everyone to see things that way, and somehow his brush strokes on his paintings interact with a particular type of fear gas to. . .make people agree with his ideas about tearing down society. Which doesn't seem like it's encouraging people to think for themselves, but oh well. Guys like that are good at excusing their hypocrisy.

Barbara beats him down with her legs tied to a chair and gets him to confess through a video she posts on the Tutor's account. Cass is trying and failing to fight an entire mob, and Steph is only doing so-so against the Tutor. At least she's not getting hypnotized. Cass does keep the reporter from falling to her death, the keep the Tutor from blowing himself up, but lose their car in the process. But people like them again, and now the Seer shows up on their door, looking for help.

I'm still very confused by the fact it seems like Spellbinder must know their secret identities, and considering the Seer walked in on them while they were just hanging out on the couch, she probably does, too. Yet this doesn't seem like a concern to the heroes. Odd, when you consider they were supposed to be hiding out to avoid being arrested after the false accusation they blew up the Clocktower. That keeps nagging at me, the usually secretive Bat-folk don't seem to care about enemies knowing who they are. But Spellbinder seemed surprised Barbara could fight effectively without her legs, so does that mean she was Oracle, but not in a wheelchair at all, or that it wasn't common knowledge Commissioner Gordon's daughter was in a wheelchair? I have no clue what's in and what isn't at DC in terms of character backstory any longer.

Speaking of things I don't understand, I can't figure out why Barbara is doing in that first panel. The one before that, she grabs the lapels of his jacket, so maybe she slammed his face on her kneecaps. But the way the arms are posed is more like she did the old abrupt neck snap maneuver, which is definitely not what she did.

I almost went with a panel of Stephanie with her mask down, grinning in a frankly terrifying manner as she tries to drive the bomb a safe distance away. It's like she got Joker gassed, or turned into a painted doll or something. I don't know what the hell Corona was thinking there, either. It's weird, because he's generally done excellent work on the emotion in this series. The end of the issue, where they briefly try to fake-out that Stephanie died getting rid of the bomb, Corona's pretty good at having everyone look somber or thoughtful, but each with their own postures and expressions. Each person processing things in their own way.

That said, I think this is the end of the line for me with the book. There are parts I like, things I think I should enjoy, but the sum is less than the whole of its parts.

Ben Reilly: Spider-Man #4, by J.M. DeMatteis (writer), David Baldeon (artist), Israel Silva (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Steve Skroce really likes drawing Ben making the "twhip" fingers.

Spidercide really just wants to be a family for Ben, for them to be a connection to each other. Spidercide's been trying to understand humans, since he doesn't fool himself that he's one of them, the way Kaine or Peter do. And since Spidercide can apparently split himself into lots of people, he can be everyone Ben lost while he believed he was the clone. "A" for effort? Well, maybe A- since all the different forms he takes are lacking eyes, except for Jason Diaz, the one identity he created for himself.

Ben refuses the offer, there's a fight, Ben keeps offering to help, but it turns out dividing yourself repeatedly into separate beings tends to destabilize a person's genetic matrix, and Spidercide. . .blows up? Well, mostly, because there's still one Spidercide left, posing as a Doctor at Ravencroft, and he let all the patients out. Again I wonder what Mysterio and Scorpion are doing in a mental hospital. Send them to real prison.

Baldeon draws Ben without the mask for almost the entire issue, right up until the bit at Ravencroft at the end. Which is interesting since Ben declares during the fight with Spidercide (god I hate typing that) he's been lying to himself about not wanting Peter's life when really, he wanted it so much he wasn't even trying to have any sort of life as Ben Reilly. No friends of his own. So naturally, as soon as the fight seems to be over and he goes to visit two people he's decided are his friends (Dr. Kafka and Edward "Vermin" Whelan) he puts the mask back on.

I get there are secret identity reasons, since more than 2 people work there, but it just struck me as a funny juxtaposition after he said he'd been hiding behind the Spider-Man mask. Anyway, next issue would appear to be a big knock-down-drag-out fight, though i expect Spidercide will have a face turn and help out. I hope Dr. Kafka's able to reach a couple of her patients and convince them to calm down. If she hasn't reached a single one, that's kind of a damning indictment. Also, considering Mr. Hyde is apparently among the patients, Ben needs all the help he can get.

What I Bought 3/23/2022 - Part 1

Found all three books from this week, plus one from two weeks ago. So let's kick things off with the nostalgia titles from Marvel.

Wolverine: Patch #1, by Larry Hama (writer), Andrea Di Vito (penciler), Le Beau Underwood (inker), Sebastian Chang (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - That is an interesting dress Tyger Tyger's almost wearing.

Hama puts several pieces in motion right off. There is a Dr. Malheur who is performing some sort of experiments involving monkeys out in the jungle for some guy with a spider tattoo on his face. There's a General Coy roaming the general after a bounty. SHIELD is keeping an eye on things from a Helicarrier. There's a Soviet plane wrecked in the jungle, and two mutants who have also been "enhanced" who may be the subjects of the bounty.

And into all that drops Patch. Literally, because after Fury tells him to butt out, Logan jumps out of his buddy's plane - without a parachute. He runs into the two hiding and gets cut up and left for dead. I know it stretches credulity that a lot of people don't recognize Logan just because he puts on an eye patch, but he actually brings out the claws during the fight and Gimel and Beth still don't recognize him. I figured Logan did enough Cold War secret agent crap he'd be very well known to even fugitive Soviet agents/soldiers, just as someone they might have to kill.

But I should know better than to start trying to untangle the layers of Logan's backstory at this point. Anyway, my initial impression is the thread about Malheur and his experiments in unrelated to everything with General Coy and Nick Fury. I'm not sure which thing is the reason why The Prince asked Patch to go investigate. I'm unclear enough on the power structures of Madripoor to know whether Coy and Prince are rivals, associates or something else entirely. If rivals, then you figure Prince wants to know what the general's scouring the jungle for. But if the Prince is a crimeboss, then maybe it's the guy connected to the yakuza he's curious in.

Di Vito's art is his typical clean look. Underwood's inks add a little rough edge to what's kind of a pulp adventure, what with the spies and weird scientists and whatnot. The idea of Logan wandering a tropical jungle in a white tuxedo is a little silly, but the jacket's already being torn up, so it may not last long. I liked the full-page splash of Logan's descent to the forest floor, done as series of images of Logan falling and hitting tree limbs awkwardly. Cowles compliments it with Logan's scream stretched across a bunch of small speech balloons as he falls.

I'm sort of amused at placing the sound effect of Patch stabbing Beth's arm over the actual stabbing. I guess that is where the sound would emanate from, but it feels like they think they need to hide it. Although looking at the rest of the fight, Cowles seems to have other sound effects that also move on the arc of the attack. So maybe that's just the approach he (or Hama, or Di Vito) decided to go with it.

It's kind of weird, because I don't know that I'm interested in any of the characters so much as I am how Hama tries to tie all this together. Do the different threads even come together, or is it going to be a case of tying one off first, then moving to the next?

Ben Reilly: Spider-Man #3, by J.M. DeMatteis (writer), David Baldeon (artist), Israel Silva (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - The Strategically Torn Costume proves ineffective against Dr. Octopus.

Ben fights Dr. Trainer, who once again knows who is under the Spider-Man mask. She seems to be angry that her father cared more about Ben than her, though Ben argues that isn't true. Then she vanishes and a decaying Kraven shows up. Who turns into a bunch of spiders. Edward narrowly saves Ben from those. Ben heads to Ravencroft, figuring if it's no Chameleon it must be Mysterio. Again, Mysterio got put in an asylum? He's not nuts, he's just a crook with an ego. Send him to regular prison.

Either, way, he says it isn't him, so Ben starts trying every other foe he can think of, hoping it's not the Jackal. Well, it's not Jackal, but it might be worse. Yes, it's the return of the Spider-clone absolutely nobody requested, Spidercide! The one that could shapeshift and stuff. Yeah, I tried really hard to forget he existed, too. So much so I did not know his body releases toxins that produce emotional responses. Unless Ben is being metaphorical about toxins permeating his mind, digging into the darkest caverns of his psyche. It's DeMatteis, it's a possibility.

Spidercide being a shapeshifter would seem to make him the likely culprit behind the first date serial killer, but that feels too neat at this point. Especially since Spidercide seems to be fixated on Ben, and was so clingy in his "John Diaz" identity Ben basically stopped hanging out with him. The notion he was going out on dates and charming people seems before killing them seems unlikely. But there also hasn't been any forward momentum on that thread, so I'm not sure DeMatteis can deal with it in two issues. If he intends to. Maybe Ben not solving it because he's been caught up in these mind games is going to be a point.

I'm curious about Ben's notion that, unlike Peter, he isn't motivated by guilt. Even though he is supposed to be Peter Parker at this point. The point being Ben's life on the road, trying to carve out some sort of existence for himself has forced him to move past that. Which makes a certain amount of sense. If Ben spent five years believing he was the clone, then he would have told himself what happened to Uncle Ben had nothing to do with him. He didn't exist when that burglar escaped, and would have worked hard to reject what he saw as Parker's influence.

Baldeon tries some horror stuff with Spidercide's shapeshifting. The spiders pouring out of Kraven's mouth as his head decays, plus some multi-faced, multi-limbed howling monstrosity near the end of the issue. I'm not his work can quite carry it off. Maybe more shadows, more left to the reader's imagination, would work. There's a panel of Ben lifting the multi-faced thing where we can only see outlines of eyes and teeth and a few limbs that's kind of creepy. Baldeon does do a good job of drawing those panels so that Ben feels trapped. As the spiders swarm him, the panels are tilting so it's like he's falling or being pulled down and the multi-thing tends to dominate the shared panels. It's all around him so that even when he's attacking it, it looms over him.

What I Bought 2/28/2022 - Part 3

Yeah, that weekend trip with Alex was something. Large crowds of drunk people, me spending more money than I intended, threats of gun violence, talking one of his friends out of trying to walk 250 miles back home, at night, in sub-freezing temperatures, because he was in an extraordinarily bad headspace at the time.

Ben Reilly: Spider-Man #2, by J.M. DeMatteis (writer), David Baldeon (artist), Israel Silva (colorist), Joe Carmagna (letterer) - Ben employing his Strategically Torn Spider-Costume here, Tom.

Ben's fight against the Scorpion is related in flashback, as he tells Dr. Kafka about it. He didn't win the fight, and already seems to be questioning if returning to New York, becoming Spider-Man again, was a good idea. Those doubts aren't aided by the fact Mac Gargan apparently never left his cell. What's Gargan doing in Ravencroft, anyway? He strikes me as a guy who goes to regular prison, at least before he spent time with the symbiont.

After, Ben resolves to let go of the attachments to his old life as Peter, since he can't get that back. Sure, just that easy, but Ben decides it's time to make friends. He invites Kafka's assistant Edward Whelan (aka Vermin) to see a couple old sci-fi movies, and when he runs into a regular from the coffee shop, invites him to hang out. Although John seems a little odd. No time to reflect on that, the lady Doctor Octopus shows up to attack Edward! Meanwhile, someone's still taking people out on dates and disposing of them somehow.

Ben's being pretty cavalier with the secret identity. If Kafka already knew thanks to Peter, that's one thing, but Ben's known Edward for about five minutes, and he occasionally mutates into a cannibalistic rat-man. Could probably draw conclusions from that. Ben has nothing and no one to protect. No aunt or wife. If "Ben Reilly" is no longer a viable identity, he can just ditch it, come up with a new one and move on.

I feel like Baldeon zooms in on characters when there's some sort of connection forming between them and Ben. When Ben first visits Edward to apologize for things he said in the first issue, we view them from more of a middle distance, where both characters fit into the panel, and not just their faces, but part of their body as well. But once they hit the movies, and especially when Ben encourages John to come with them,the views seem to close in more. Really focus on faces and reactions. 

But there's also more than a few panels like that during the Scorpion fight. But I figure that thread is connected to the disappearances, and the one responsible is trying to get a grasp on Ben. has already got some sort of mental link that let them know he's Spider-Man.

Grrl Scouts: Stone Ghost #4, by Jim Mahfood - Shouldn't Natas be more concerned about his severed finger? Maybe he's got a penlight or a laser in there, like Inspector Gadget.

Dio and Natas descend into Mr. Chazee's dreams. Dio insists that since they know where they are, they can do things Chazee can't. Which doesn't keep them from being separated. While Natas uses the power of imagination to mimic early '90s Image comics, Dio figures out the Billy she meets isn't the real deal and banishes him. Unfortunately, she reveals the power in her in the process, marking herself as a descendant of the Grrl Scout line. Fortunately, this gets Chazee to exposit about the importance of all that. As Natas says, ultra-convenient and also informative. They also learn where Billy's ashes are, but wake up to find a bunch of people waiting for them, the leader immediately tearing Natas' head off.

This book has such a bizarre energy to it. I don't really know what Mahfood's going to pull out next, and I enjoy the heck out of it. Natas and his silly comments and excitement about basically everything are a great counterpoint to Dio, who simultaneously understands more of what's going on, but is less ready to handle it. I don't know what's going to happen from here. Will decapitation prove ineffective against Natas? Will Turtleneck Jones re-emerge, or will Dio's power save her? Or is she going to get captured? Gordi and the Amazonian lady are still on their way, a rescue could be their contribution. Especially if they have to confront The Teeth, who has Gordi's family.

I notice the good characters - Dio, Natas, Gordi - tend to be drawn with smoother lines and rounded features. Chazee, Tako, Kettlehead and all his goons are drawn with a lot more sharp edges. Pointed noises, sharp teeth, hair that sticks straight up. Things like that. Also, Mahfood busts out this purple hue for the first manifestation of Dio's power. I'm pretty sure that, among all the different colors he's used through four issues, that color has never come up before. He saved it for a big moment when it could really pop.

What I Bought 1/20/2022 - Part 3

Got confirmation of a bit of bad work-related news this week. I was expecting it, but there was always a chance it wouldn't happen. As Red once noted, hope is a dangerous thing. But there's about 6 weeks until it comes to a head, so in the meanwhile, comics! Today, Calvin takes precisely the opposite lesson from comics from what the writers likely intended!

Ben Reilly: Spider-Man #1, by J.M. DeMatteis (writer), David Baldeon (artist), Israel Silva (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Each time I look at the cover, I think it's Mayday Parker in the costume at first glance.

Set during the stretch of the Clone Saga where Peter and MJ moved to the Pacific Northwest, Ben's struggling with being back in a place that holds plenty of memories, but where he can't fit. Because those are Parker's memories, and whether Ben's the real deal or a clone, he doesn't get to be Peter Parker. He does get to be Spider-Man, though, and heads out to capture Carrion, who is lashing out because he got some bad news and can't cope. Ben extends a helping hand, Carrion goes back to Ravencroft. 

Ben has a conversation with Dr. Kafka, but rejects the offer of therapy or friendship. Also, Peter apparently explained the whole clone thing to Kafka at some point. The issue ends with Scorpion in Ben's apartment, calling him Spider-Man. Jeez, he let Scorpion dope out his secret identity? At least Peter had the excuse the symbiote snitched to Brock and the Puma used his super-senses.

Hard for me to believe Ben would unmask to her just like that. Unless DeMatteis' point is Ben's in denial. He's simultaneously building walls and tearing them down. I'm surprised DeMatteis isn't showing Ben trying to build a real life for himself in New York. He still thinks this is going to be transitory, that he'll lose it at some point, so why bother? Or he's scared. I identify with it either way, part of why I always liked Ben.

Baldeon's more restrained on the facial expressions than he was with Domino, but this book isn't as over-the-top as that was. There's still variety and nuance, but not as many people looking psychotically angry or screaming. Although Ben was wearing his mask when he briefly lost control, so we could only see one eye during that scene. That's also the one page he goes away from the basic square and rectangle panels going across and then down. He opts for five panels slanting diagonally across the page, zooming in on Ben's face across the middle three and letting the top and bottom panels bookend the thing. The first is from behind Ben, looking down at Carrion before he unloads on him, and the last is from beside Carrion, looking up at Ben after said unloading.

Defenders #5, by Al Ewing and Javier Rodriguez (storytellers), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - The terrifying truth is the Masked Raider has a tribal tattoo like Mike Tyson. It looks ridiculous.

OK, somehow the Third Cosmos is the first of the multiversal cycle. What were the First and Second then? Anyway, the Defenders show up during a fight between Existence and Non-Existence. Zota's already there, and even if it's been an eternity for him, he's not willing to die without a fight. Unfortunately, anything anybody uses to fight draws upon Existence, so they're about to help Non-Existence win. Masked Raider steps in, opts not to shoot Zota, ends up being shot and, yeah, he's Zota. 

Not that it was difficult, but I got a prediction right. Mark it down next to that time I correctly predicted Ryan North was using Mojo II: The Sequel in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.

Zota puts on the mask and jumps in to help Existence, a mask made from the stuff of a universe that won't exist for five more cosmoses somehow still working. But the Defenders are able to draw on the nature's of the other ones they've visited to give Existence a boost and help it win, Seemingly at the cost of Zota's life, but probably not. Taaia gives Strange a device he can use to contact her, while Harpy tells him to leave her alone as they fade into an A-Ha music video. Everyone's home, Strange has the mask, story over.

So Masked Raider was Zota from one point of his life, running around trying to stop a version of himself from earlier in life all this time? Only to die because that earlier version couldn't make a selfless decision until he'd killed himself? And that had to happen, so Raider couldn't stop his earlier self any sooner? Feels a bit like that ending to The Dark Tower, the one Stephen King advises you not to read, but if you really must, OK. Where Roland is stuck redoing his whole story until he makes a "better" choice, or whatever King was going for. Except there are two Rolands and the one who needs to make a better choice doesn't realize it.

The page where "Lifebringer One" triumphs, Rodriguez lays it out like a descending arc. Panel of Lifebringer's sword growing as they're powered up aligned vertically. The deathblow at maybe 60 degrees, the initial disintegration at maybe 45. All drawing the eye to a big explosion in a panel along the bottom of the page. A lovely comic to look at, right to the end.

A Copy's Not a Copy All the Time

So Krakoa apparently has a rule against resurrecting clones of people. Or, more precisely, having more than one of the same person. Setting aside this only seems to apply mostly to Maddy Pryor, and not the Stepford Cuckoos, it's a little strange.* The argument seems to be something to the effect the clone is just a copy of the original, and it would be a mess to have two of the same person running around (setting aside Madrox and his mutant-power generated duplicates, I guess.)

But they aren't really that sort of clones. As far as I know, Maddy Pryor doesn't have Jean Grey's memories, other than perhaps an unfortunate attraction to Scott Summers. What a horrible thing to inherit. And Jean doesn't have Pryor's memories of being left to raise a child alone, then getting hunted by the Marauders while Scott goes and hangs out with his old school chums and back from the dead ex-girlfriend. Maddy doesn't have Jean's memories of that time Scott telepathically cheated on her with Emma Frost.

Just a reminder Scott Summers is the fucking worst and no one should ever lend that character any moral authority. Ever.

Likewise, Gabby (or Scout/Honey Badger) doesn't have Laura's memories of having her mother around in that facility, or of being exposed to a trigger scent to send her into a murderous fury. And Laura doesn't have Gabby's memories of being raised in a different facility with a bunch of other clones of Laura of varying appearances and ages. They're clones in the way a pair of 10-year old identical twins are clones. The genetics match, but the life experiences don't.

A clone I could see the argument holding water for, up to a point, would be Ben Reilly, the Spider-Clone. Because he really did have all Peter Parker's memories up to the moment the DNA that he was created from was taken. Which was always one of the things I found interesting about him. He had all of Parker's memories, his likes and dislikes, his morality, but none of it was really his. He couldn't be Peter Parker, go to college, get yelled at by Jonah, kiss Mary Jane, because there already was a Peter Parker doing all those things.

Given Miles Warren initiated the whole original Clone Saga out of some twisted love for Gwen Stacy and anger at Parker, it's pretty cruel to create a clone who never actually met Gwen Stacy, but vividly remembers dating and being in love with her, remembers the grief of her death like it happened to him. Reilly's actually kind of a reverse of Carol Danvers. Where Danvers eventually got back all the memories Rogue took, she had no connection to them. They may as well happened to someone else. Reilly has all the emotional connection to people and events, but never actually did any of that stuff.

And even then, Ben Reilly isn't merely a copy of Peter Parker. From the moment he stepped out of the tube or whatever Warren created him in, he started forming his own, separate existence. Peter Parker never spent years traveling the globe, teaching at different colleges under a false name and faked credentials. Parker never got hunted relentlessly by Kaine. And Ben Reilly never got killed by Kraven and stuffed in a grave for two weeks.

The closest comparison to that in the X-verse would seem to be Sinister's old Marauders. Where, other than I guess Sabretooth, Sinister just had a bunch of copies of Scalphunter and Arclight and those other losers sitting around in case one of them got killed or pissed him off. I never got the impression the Marauders knew that about themselves, so presumably each one had the exact same memories as all the other copies.

I don't know if there's some point about how often clones in X-related stuff don't have the original's memories, versus other parts of the Marvel Universe. Cloning is X-books is more of a long-term, wide ranging scheme, and takes a more impersonal touch? It really just seems like an odd, arbitrary limitation on Krakoa. Maybe if the issue was exceeding carrying capacity of the island. I assume even with Krakoa being sentient and the mutants all being such superior geniuses to those dumb old humans that there must be limits to how many people the island can support. But I haven't heard anything about scarcity issues yet. It can't be a concern about duplicate codenames/mutant names. They aren't stopping Laura from also calling herself "Wolverine", after all.

* And yeah, it's obvious that Maddy not being resurrected is a cronyism thing. Scott and Jean would be uncomfortable seeing Scott's first wife, who he abandoned, walking around all the time, so Havok's request got denied. Same as Mystique's request for Destiny to be resurrected. It would inconvenience people in power, so it doesn't happen. The whole spiel that she committed crimes against humans and mutants is also bullshit considering the presence of, well where do you start? Magneto? Apocalypse, Mystique, Wolverine, Mr. Sinister, Daken, Exodus, Rogue? Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw were both in the Hellfire Club. No way their hands are clean. Quentin Quire's almost certainly gotten up to some shit.

Sunday Splash Page #78

"Hope He Didn't Expect You to Monologue," in Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider #5, by Peter David (writer), Mark Bagley (penciler), John Dell (inker), Jason Keith (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

This series spun out of the Clone Conspiracy storyline in Amazing Spider-Man, where Ben Reilly was the 28th Ben Reilly the Jackal cloned, and he'd watched the other 27 be killed by the Jackal. So he killed him and became the Jackal and cloned a bunch of dead characters, and some other stuff happened and I don't know.

That's not a promising start, but I've always liked Ben Reilly as this character who resented having a particular morality - Peter Parker's - imposed on him by virtue of being a clone, and struggling against it. This Ben is much more amoral than '90s Ben was, willing to lie or make all sorts of absurd promises if it saves his neck, willing to demand money from people he saves. But he will save people, sometimes.

So there was potential there, and Mark Bagley was the artist, so I was on board. Bagley always is able to sell the emotion of a situation, and he can draw a solid fight scene (although he seems to skimp on backgrounds more during the fights than I remember from the past). It's not so much page layouts, just that the way things are laid out, you can easily tell how each action flows into the next. The hits have force behind them.

Unfortunately, after 5 issues, Bagley got switched to a Venom title, I think, and Wil Sliney took over art chores. It took one issue for me to decide that was a no-go. The flow of action wasn't there, and there were too many panels where the expressions on character's faces looked odd. Where it didn't convey what the scene was calling for, or like the art fell into the uncanny valley, where it's trying to realistic, but not pulling it off.

The Clones Went Down To Utah

Spider-Man: The Lost Years (by J.M. DeMatteis, John Romita Jr., Klaus Janson, Christie Scheele, and Richard Starkings) was a mini-series released during the '90s Clone Saga detailing a particular part of the time Ben Reilly spent wandering the country after surviving the original Clone Saga. I thought it was going to cover a longer arc, show more brief snippets of his travels, but no. Ben drifts into Salt Lake City for awhile, meets a waitress with a secret named Janine, and the two fall in love. Ben starts consider staying around, and begins going out fighting crime at night.

Kaine's there, stalking Reilly, but meets and falls in love with tough cop named Louise Stockton. And for a while Kaine starts to think things can be better. So that shit can't last, and it doesn't, as Kaine ultimately commits a murder which ends up coming back to bite Peter Parker in the ass (right as he's mourning Aunt May no less).

DeMatteis is working on a theme about hope, with some characters having lost it, others wanting to lose it, and others trying to convince themselves they don't believe in it at all. Kaine bought in for a moment when he met Louise, but when things went south, he gave up. Part of the going south is his cellular degeneration kicking into overdrive, and that gives him a much more monstrous and tortured face. Janson goes real heavy on the inks, to the point that, combined with the wild hair Romita gives Kaine, you can barely discern his face.

You could argue whether Ben and Janine maintain hope. They opt not to trust that if they tell the police the truth things will work out alright, and it would seem things didn't end up working out somewhere down the line. They trusted in each other, but not in anyone else.

I've always thought of this as that time where Romita Jr. draws everyone really bulky, but here, it's more than everyone is wearing heavy clothes. Every shirt, coat, pair of pants has a ton of folds in it. I don't think it's set during winter, maybe early fall, but either Romita or Janson got too busy with the lines. Lot of shadows and darkness to the story, except for a few scenes during the day when Ben's working as a teaching assistant of spending time with Janine. Even at night though, the shadows recede from his face when he's with her, and the same is true for Kaine when he's around Louise, for a briefer stretch.

There are a few fight scenes, Romita keeps things up close, rarely pulls back. The panels are a tangle of fists and Kaine's hair and assorted rubble. They're personal affairs, the other people around aren't part of what's going on, because it's these few people struggling with themselves. Is Ben going to be the hero, even as he insists the power and responsibility thing has nothing to with him? Is Kaine going to give in entirely to his rage and hopelessness? There's nothing flashy, just basic, sold storytelling.


For as seemingly critical as Janine and Louise are to the two main characters, they don't get any internal monologue of their own. Even Louise's partner, Detective Jacob Raven, gets a lot of time devoted to his internal narration. That could be simply the story being told from the perspective of the survivors, but considering the two ladies' approaches to hope - one being afraid to, the other having simply abandoned the notion - and how they play off Ben and Kaine, it might have been nice to get some time with their thoughts. Even just as a contrast between what the guys are projecting onto them and whatever the reality may have been.

What I Bought 8/25/2017

A couple of books from the last two weeks. I might not have bought one of them if I had looked at the cover more closely, but I was running out of time on the parking meter.

Ben Reilly, The Scarlet Spider #6, by Peter David (writer), Will Sliney (artist), Jason Keith (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - So the key to being really flexible is for people to punch you through walls. I've been going about things entirely wrong.

Ben tries a possible cure on the little girl, then steps out for some air, where he runs into Marlo from Peter David's Hulk run, who seems able to manipulate people and wants Ben to stop two guys driving around town shooting people. He does, but refrains from killing them, to Marlo's annoyance. Kaine shows up, because the little girl died, and Marlo kills him, and I don't know what's going on with this. I assume something to do with David's Captain Marvel run from like 15 years ago?

Is this meant to make Ben actually consider his actions? He mentioned while fighting Kaine that his advantage was he acted on instinct and relied on his spider-sense. Is that all he's doing, bluffing and jumping into things without considering why or towards what end? That could be interesting, depending on the reasons? Is he trusting the Peter Parkerness to guide him, or just trying to avoid thinking about what matters to him and what his goal is?

So there's something there, but I can't handle the art. It reminds me of a comic trying hard to match actors on a TV show it's based on. Very computer-generated feel to it, but like an attempt an early 2000s attempt. Jason Keith is still the colorist, and the colors seem a lot flatter, less varied. Sliney inks himself much heavier than John Dell did to Bagley's pencils, so the shadows are a lot deeper on faces. Maybe that has something to do with Keith's approach. The expressions of the mother who nearly dies at the hands of the two guys driving around shooting people are. Like Sliney's trying for really realistic, but falling in the uncanny valley. It looks awkward, fake, fails utterly to convey the emotion to me.

My hunch Bagley leaving would be a good time to jump ship was right; I just needed to put more money in the parking meter that day so I could read the cover more closely. To be fair, I was also in a hurry to reach my dad's so we could tow his car to his repair guy. So really, it's his fault this happened. If he'd gotten his car moved months ago like he should have, this wouldn't have happened.

The Unbelievable Gwenpool #19, by Christopher Hastings (writer), Gurihiru (artists), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - Unless you are the Punisher, trying to shoot Spider-people with guns doesn't work.

Gwen confronts the time-travelers out to stop her future self, even though by showing up, they've taught her how to move between panels. Whoops. The team considers trying to erase her memory, but Miles' instead swings off with her to tell her the way she ruined everyone's life by revealing all the heroes' secrets so she could be entertained by the fallout. By doing so, Gwen's giant, evil future self knows what they're up to and appears, probably swatting Future Miles to do his death.

I'm suspicious this story is a criticism of fans. Gwen is one of us, supposedly, and we're told she revealed secret identities, aired characters dirty laundry, and did this to kick off the biggest hero vs. hero war yet. To be entertained. Which makes me think of secret identities becoming passe, because it would be unrealistic to maintain one. Or the constant escalation of conflicts, and heroes constantly being at each others' throats. And that's all, if you listen to the people in comics, because it's what sells. Which is a neat way to blame the audience for what they produce. Perhaps I'm being paranoid, but comic writers surely do like to blame the stories they write on the fans. Or Alan Moore, they also like blaming Alan Moore. Or is Hastings jabbing at the other writers who think that's what they have to do? Someone is being jabbed, that's for sure.

Setting aside my paranoia, I still don't know how Hastings plans to resolve this. Teddy being a sort of blind spot in Gwen's perceptions could play in, but now Gwen's in the classic situation of meeting her evil older self. Given what we've learned, she has to reject her older self, and I'm not sure what her older self could do (presumably Evil Gwen is still genre savvy enough to know threats aren't going to work). Is Gwen going to have to learn to think more carefully about her actions? Is she going to try and really be a hero, rather than run around being crazy and say she's a hero?

I like the Gurihiru art team's work, but it doesn't quite feel right for the story. Or certain parts of the story, at least. Miles' depressing flashback of how Gwen ruins his life kind of lacked impact. Although the panel of Miles stating he's going to kill her, said plainly and against the backdrop of a bright blue sky is effective, the more I look at it. They nail the humor parts; Gwen trying to slide through a panel border and whiffing was funny. I'd still much rather have Gurihiru handling the art than most other art teams out there, just not sure they entirely fit the grim direction things have trended. But we'll see, one more issue to go in the story.

What I Bought 7/27/2017 - Part 2

I hate grabby drunk people. The ones who lose all respect for personal space - assuming they had any to begin with - once they get a few drinks in them.

Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider #5, by Peter David (writer), Mark Bagley (penciler), John Dell (inker), Jason Keith (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - That is the opposite of how I would expect that fight to go, but the actual comic taught there are many things different about Kaine from what I remembered.

Kaine and Ben fight for the entire issue. Ben keeps trying to stall, so he can get Kaine to listen to him, Kaine just keeps trying to kill him. Ben, after failing with the, "let's play with swords" tactic, and the, "You want to shoot me? Fine, shoot me," tactic, eventually plays the "Uncle Ben" card, which does convince Kaine to listen, and Kaine agrees to let him live until he saves the little girl. At which point Kaine will kill him. Also, the mysterious "Thorne" causing Ms. Mercury trouble is her brother, who runs a rival casino.

I wasn't aware Kaine doesn't have a spider-sense, but I also thought he was still far stronger than Ben or Peter, which apparently isn't the case. How things change with a character I've barely paid attention to in 20 years.

Watching Ben's various attempts to get Kaine to lighten up was mildly amusing. It added something to the fight between them, kept adding new elements to the fight. Though it's hard for me to take Ben's arguments seriously. It all feels like an attempt to manipulate Kaine, rather than genuinely reason with him. Of course, Kaine's hellbent on killing him, so trying to honestly debate with him would probably be stupid.

I would have preferred Bagley not skimp on the backgrounds as much as he did in certain panels, but he did a good job laying things out so an element in one panel guides the eye naturally to the next. Like Kaine throwing a sword at Ben, and it's point guides us to the end of Ben's sword in the next panel as he deflects it, and Ben's sword guides us down to the dialogue and also the deflected sword, which brings us to the next panel (Kaine webbing Ben's sword). The webline draws us back to the next dialogue balloon, and that and the angle of the sword point us down to the last panel on the page, where Kaine's pulling Ben off balance. It's basic stuff I assume, but it's also important stuff to making the story work.

Also, Bagley's remembers to establish where characters are in relation to each other at the beginning of a scene, and then making sure the action works from that. So if he shows there are knights to Ben's left, and Kaine tries to web him, Ben's going to jump right, and sends a couple of weblines left to snag their swords. Just basic panel-to-panel continuity, but I feel like there are a lot of artists who either don't get that stuff, or just don't give a shit.

Still, enjoyment of the fight scene aside, I don't know about this book. I still don't really care about this thing between Cassandra and Thorne, siblings or not. It's two casino owners in a pissing match. It's probably setting something up that will present Ben with some important character moment down the line, but I don't know if I'm going to care to stick around until then. I've gone back and forth just in the time since I started working on this post about whether I'm even going to give the book a chance once Bagley leaves. I say no, then talk myself back into it, then out of it again.

The Unbelievable Gwenpool #18, Christopher Hastings (writer), Gurihiru (artists), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - I'm most disappointed in Howard. After all the times angry mobs have chased him, and he turns around and partakes in the chasing himself. Tsk, tsk.

Teddy, Gwen's brother, wound up in the Marvel Universe when she did, but didn't adapt as well, and struggled to get by. Which is how he wound up working for Mr. Orto, the demon Gwen killed in one of her first jobs. Which means Teddy watched his sister calmly murder a bunch of dudes, then cheerfully run off to She-Hulk's Christmas party. At which time a future Miles Morales appeared and warned him of all Gwen was going to do. Gwen's still in the weird space outside the universe (but still in the story) so she learns all this, and jumps back in to confront Teddy with the fact his plan didn't work, and they're still in the comic.

Hastings may have completely lost me here. They're still in the Marvel Universe, but in some halfway dimension? Or is it an astral projection, an elaborate illusion, they borrow one of Mongul's Black Mercys?

I'm not sure whose side I'm meant to be on here. Teddy is messing with Gwen's life, not cool. On the other hand, Gwen does kill people with pretty no remorse or hesitation whatsoever. Her machine-gunning a bunch of goons in an alley was not an isolated incident. Her argument would doubtlessly be that they're fictional, and nameless unimportant characters, they're put there to die. But their lives are real to them. Gwen is mad because, essentially, Teddy is interrupting her treating the world like her private Grand Theft Auto. The fact that Teddy's time in the Marvel Universe has placed him as one of those nameless unimportant characters plays into his perspective as well. It's difficult to be on her side, given that.

But the issue felt pretty thin. I got to the end and was surprised that was it. Because it spent so much time on a flashback, there wasn't much forward momentum. Two steps backwards, one step forward.

The two panels of Teddy sitting horrified on the fire escape and then silent one of the bleeding corpses was effective. This is not something I say often, but I didn't like how Gurihiru version of a character, specifically The Thing. Because they gave him a neck. Normally he's drawn like his head sits directly on his shoulders (or else his lower jaw extends down far enough that it blocks his neck). Anyway, he just looks odd.

Outside that, though, they're doing their usual excellent work on the art. The panels of Gwen in that white void, where she's observing everything and slowly gearing up are kind of terrifying. She's casually stepping on pages of her past adventures, reaching in and helping herself to items from them. She's not raging or outwardly furious, but she's not geeking out over what seems like would be a cool experience. She's kind of miffed, in that way cosmic entities are shown to be when they see a mortal preparing to confront them and aren't worried, but are still offended someone would try to challenge them. Gwen having reached that level is not a good thing. She's going to break everything worse than Thanos usually does before he learns his latest Important Lesson.

What I Bought 7/7/2017 - Part 1

I was at the movies over the weekend - although we won't get to the actual film until next week - and I saw the trailer for The Murder on the Orient Express. I initially thought they'd tapped Johnny Depp to play Poirot. That would have been a shitshow, just Depp mugging for the camera like a clown, though my dad's reaction when he found out might have been worth it. He's a big David Suchet Poirot fan. Anyway, here's reviews of some of the comics that arrived late last week.

Cave Carson has a Cybernetic Eye #9, by Jonathan Rivera (writer/story), Gerard Way (story), Michael Avon Oeming (artist), Nick Filardi (color artist), Clem Robins (letterer) - I went with the Michael Cho variant, not because Oeming's cover was bad, but there was a copy with the variant for a little cheaper, and it's still a good cover.

Pursuit of the Whisperer continues across worlds. Cave's eye is hiding on it, watching everything, for what purpose we still don't know. The Whisperer, through the old man it merged with, gives the usual spiel about how much better everything will be when everyone is united under it's control and guidance. Cave and the others get close of for their Mighty Mole to attach, the MM Mk 2's crew, fully on-board with the Whisperer land. There's a fight, Cave's side wins, although Wild Dog survives a freaking machete to the head, takes the Mk. 2, and get dragged into yet another world, of relative giants, one of which the Whisperer controls and uses to pluck our heroes from it's hide and flings them into the distance.

Story feels like it's playing for time. Rivera and Way threw in a few bits about the justifications the Whisperer's followers are duped into making that feel like an attempt to make a point, plus some stuff about rebooted universes and things carrying over from them, but the latter especially doesn't fit in the flow of the story. It's a big, desperate chase and then blurp, here's a page of blah-blah about rebooting universes. Even the story doesn't want to listen to it (and Wild Dog's asleep during the whole thing) because it abruptly shifts to Cave and Chloe arguing in the front seat about whether alternate universe versions of people will care about you, simply because your universe's version did. Which is a pretty dumb conversation. Why would they? You're the kid of some other me, so what? This issue is not a high point for the series from the writing side of things.

Filardi adds yellow speckles to the panels set on or around the Whisperer, or in worlds he's already affected. The characters don't interact with it or notice is, so it's more like interference on our perspective. It's over everything, but not to a distracting degree, just there, evidence of its presence, or influence. The fight scene was brief, and almost entirely focused around Wild Dog fighting that one guy, so there wasn't much sense of place or flow to it, but it's questionable how important it was in the grand scheme of things. They're ants scrabbling around on the back of a whale.

That said, the panel of a blade getting buried in the top of Wild Dog's skull was an attention-getter. For a moment, I completely bought in to the notion they'd killed him off. And the following panel, of him mocking the guy with the blade still in his head (with a background of neon concentric diamonds centered on where the blade is stuck), that worked too. It's an affecting image, even if I'd expect a lot more blood, even just a moment or two after.

Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider #4, by Peter David (writer), Mark Bagley (penciler), John Dell and Andrew Hennessy (inkers), Jason Keith (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Foolish title, you can't stop those two from fighting. Don't you know you'll only wind up smashed or jumbled, like so many titles before you?

Kaine survives more attempts on his life and heads for Vegas where, in plainclothes, he's mistaken for Ben by both Aunt June and Slate, the latter is back from beating up one of the guys who tried robbing the casino. You'd think even bent cops would prefer you not rip the door off a guy's cell when you aren't supposed to be back there, but I guess there are a lot of bent cops in Vegas. Or doors fall apart quickly.

Slate drags Kaine upstairs to make "Ben" get back to work, which gives Kaine a chance to see everything Ben's up to. He winds up in Ben's lab, Ben's there, tries a sales pitch on Kaine, it doesn't work, they start fighting, including going out a window, which you'd think would attract Ms. Mercury or Slate's attention.

I thought Kaine was bigger than Peter or Ben, as a result of not being an entirely successful cloning attempt. You'd think some people would notice that, maybe not June or Mercury, but Slate, surely, from having fought with the guy a bit. But I think Kaine's died and been reborn a couple times, maybe he shrank in the cosmic laundry.

Hennessy is heavier on the inks than Dell, in that there are pages where the lines on characters' faces seem much more heavily emphasized than others. So the lines on Aunt June's face are more pronounced than they were in previous issues. Sometimes Slate's face is shaded in a way that makes the art vaguely remind me of Stuart Immonen's work. There's still a trend of characters inflicting damage to other people, and the panel being close in on the person being hurt, but very little of the character doing it is visible. So Kaine stomps a guy's hand, or kicks his face, all we see of Kaine is his foot. Which still feels like a way of implying disconnect between the act and the character. Kaine, or Ben, hurting someone, but it doesn't affect them, they don't care, it's just what they have to do (or tell themselves they have to do).

That said, I'm looking forward to what's hopefully a more extended fight sequence next issue. So far the book keeps doing these quick, one or two page skirmishes, before jumping to something else. I don't think they're strictly to keep things from getting too talky, that David and Bagley are trying to highlight some things about the participants by their actions, but it's hard to get into the flow when the fights keep ending just as they start to get interesting.

Also, in the second-to-last panel, I think Keith got it backwards and colored it in as Kaine saying, 'You wanna go? Fine.' when I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be Ben (since Ben is the one who says, "Let's go!' in the next panel.

What I Bought 6/16/2017 - Part 1

I did manage to find most of last week's books on Friday, but too late to post anything then. These are the first two books I read, so the ones I was most interested in, then.

Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider #3, by Peter David (writer), Mark Bagley (penciler), John Dell (inker), Jason Keith and Jay David Ramos (color artists), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Well, he's back in his classic duds. Not a perfect costume, but fairly simple, and when in doubt, simple is probably better.

Kaine is not killed by the people with guns, who were sicced on him by Ben, after Rita warned him. Ben has more immediate problems, as Mr. Slate jams a tracer in his neck, and Cassandra lies and says it's also a bomb. Doesn't Ben have a spider-sense? While Ben mulls that problem over, a trio of guys dressed in various Spider-costumes barge into the casino, and right into Mr. Slate, who promptly kills one. Ben, in costume, saves them, and warns them to stop this nonsense. When the one dressed in Ben's old costume criticizes the current one, Ben takes his costume.

One of the reasons I picked up this book was because I figured, with a veteran writer like Peter David, we'd get more subplots involving supporting characters. I'm still not clear if that's going to happen. Ben ran into Mandy, the redhead he rescued in the first issue, trying to get a job as a dancer at the casino. "Aunt June" is still around, shoveling quarters into the slot machines. We learned Mr. Slate has a son.

I have no idea if any of that is going anywhere. I'm still trying to get a bead on Ben. He didn't hesitate to jump and fight Slate to protect remaining two do-gooders. But he was not-so-subtly reminding Mandy she had better get him his money just prior to that. And he tried to have gunmen kill Kaine, who is, admittedly, a multiple murderer himself, albeit a somewhat reformed one. Is this going to end up being about Ben futilely trying to assemble a family around him, because he's trying to do it through threats and conniving?

I liked the coloring most in the scene in the firefight between Kaine and the hired guns. The lighting from the firearms and the bullets was shown as reflecting off Kaine's outfit, and it just looked nice. Not that the colors are muted in the other scenes. There are a lot of panels with dark or muted backgrounds, mostly in the parts involving Cassandra, since she's opted for an atmospheric darkened office.

There's a couple of quick fights scenes, lets Bagley do a little something besides draw people talking. Nothing spectacular in page layout, but some solid work, things flow well. There's a nice contrast between the panel of Ben getting backhanded, which seems almost casual, and the next panel where's he's sent flying through a row of machines. You only see Slate's hand, which means you can't judge his expression or level or exertion, which makes it seem like a very casual slap. Which makes the effect it has all the more impressive. They've established Slate as a pretty formidable physical threat, I'm curious to see how Ben's going to handle that.

The Unbelievable Gwenpool #17, by Christopher Hastings (writer), Gurihiru (artists), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - The impish Gwen who filled in the artists' names on the cover might be my favorite of the lot.

Gwen has stayed in her world, even gotten a job working the counter at a movie theater. But she can see her internal narration boxes, and the title. Gwen tries to figure out how to confirm her suspicions, and settles on thinking a lot so her caption box grows large enough she can reach it. Unfortunately she overdoes it and the box forces her out the window. So everyone thinks she tried to kill herself. Given a few moments alone, Gwen is able to breach the panels, and steps outside something. She didn't exactly break the fourth wall so much as the third wall, the border to the next panel, so I'm not sure where she is at the moment. Suffice it to say, I'm extremely curious where Hastings is going with this.

Also, her experiences working at the theater make me extremely grateful I have never worked in customer service, but I'm grateful for that every day.

So Gwen lives in New York, correct? When she reaches out to touch the panel border, and briefly succeeds before finding herself touching another person's face, everyone on the subway is gawking at her. Would people on the subway actually do that? I was given to understand from other fiction people on New York subways try to ignore everything going on around them. Don't make eye contact and all that. Perhaps not. Or perhaps it's the narrative twisting things to produce a reaction from Gwen. her father has mysteriously become much "cooler".

The various effects are illustrated well, Gwen seeing through the break in the panel she created, into the next several panels yet to occur for example. Or the page of her being launched out the window by her bloated thought caption. I'm a little surprised that in the third panel of the page prior to that, she didn't notice her head was being forced outside the panel borders by the caption, but her mind was kind of running on its own train. It's a nice visual representation of the way your thoughts can get going and prove hard to stop sometimes. Usually don't see it like that in comics, but people aren't usually trying to do that on purpose.

What I Bought 5/23/2017

Yesterday was one of those days where I was constantly stuck behind large, slow vehicles. Construction equipment, campers, truck carrying some giant cylinder. At least the weather was excellent.

Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider #2, by Peter David (writer), Mark Bagley (penciler), John Dell (inker), Jason Keith (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - OK, the point at which the mask is taking on the texture of some creepy, membranous substance is the point when you need to stop making his mouth visible beneath the mask. That's some horror movie stuff there.

Ben avoids being shot, first by being fast, then by making a bullshit promise he can cure Cassandra Mercury's daughter of her Crooks' disease, even though he's lying through his teeth. He gets them to set up his "Aunt June" with an unlimited account and a room at the hotel, not that she knows what's going on. Kaine is closing in on Ben, although he ran into some armed goons. Are they leftover security, or other people after Ben Reilly? Don't know.

The dueling phantoms of Ben-as-Scarlet Spider and Ben-as-Jackal didn't appear this month. Probably good not to overuse that, assuming it wasn't a one-off thing. It's interesting to see what aspects of Peter Parker show up, and how they're expressed differently. He's glib, he's fairly clever, but it's less about wisecracks and more about lies, or salesmanship. His lies aren't very good - he claimed he was able to awaken Cassandra's daughter because he has a telepathic ability to reach into the minds of children - but Peter told some weak stories over the years. Ben at least can manage it with a straight face. Peter's been to the afterlife a couple of times, though he doesn't usually remember it. Ben apparently remembers every death the clones experienced, and he remembers it as nothingness. Which no doubt informs his approach. No point in worrying about what comes after, because there is nothing.

I'm not sure what the end game of this whole thing with "Aunt June" is, or if he'll continue to try and collect a faux-Parker crew around him. Is he going to expect some sort of affection or gratitude from her, or is this just a joke to him? Enable some cranky, gambling addict for the hell of it? Is it the only way he thinks he can keep people around, giving them stuff, or making them feel indebted?

Bagley keeps the shades on Ben throughout almost the entire issue. Which keeps people from being able to read the eyes, which might say something about Ben's confidence in his ability to lie to their faces. The only time they're gone is when he and Mr. Slate get into it. Even then, only when Ben underestimates the guy and gets slugged, then kicked around a little. The moment when he loses any sense of control of the situation. He can't bluff his way out of it, and he seemingly can't fight his way out, either. That shocked look as he first gets punched,and then he's getting slammed into the floor.

Also, I like the way the "PUNT" sound effect is drawn. The font seems more appropriate for Calvin & Hobbes, one of the strips where Calvin's getting pummeled by Moe. Given that Ben's in the mess at least partially because he ran his mouth against someone not impressed or dazzled by his wit, that fits.

Anyway, I'm sticking with the book for the time being.

What I Bought 4/26/2017

Out of the 5 books I was at least considering buying this week, this was the only one I could find here in town. The others will have to wait until they arrive in the mail next week. In other news, it's very impressive how quickly Nick Spencer has put himself on my, "Don't buy anything this guy does" list. He's like Homer using "Line Inspector!" at Mt. Splashmore.

Ben Reilly; The Scarlet Spider #1, by Peter David (writer), Mark Bagley (penciler), John Dell (inker), Jason Keith (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Ben's attempts at a second career staging puppet shows with real people is off to a rocky start.

So this Ben Reilly, having survived the Clone Saga he created, is trying to regroup in Vegas. The new costume was one he stole off some guy he mugged in a hotel room, and he's being haunted by a hallucination of himself in the original Scarlet Spider costume, and himself as the Jackal. Angel and Devil, respectively. He's got a plan to approach a Cassandra Mercury, some bigshot he provided a clone of her dead child to, but she's less than friendly towards him. Also, Kaine is hunting him, because that's what he does, stalk Ben Reilly.

And Ben seems to be trying to collect his own little family, only instead of Aunt May, he finds June, an elderly woman with a slot machine habit and a husband who declares himself dead to her. he may or may not be trying to cultivate something with the redhead he saved from a mugging, although giving her the gun the guy was using, while demanding money for saving her, is a curious approach. I can't tell if it's meant to be a sign of how warped his perspective is, or simply part of some larger plan. Have people he can be around who won't rat him out, out of fear or indifference, so he has places to live.

I read in a recent column by Brian Hibbs that Marvel releases something like 75 different titles each month, which jibes with my general impression while reading solicits that Marvel has too many goddamn books. This is probably one that has no real business existing, but here it is, for now, and I kind of like it. A lot of that is based on potential, the possibility of where it could go, what David and Bagley could explore through Ben Reilly.

One of the things I liked about the old Ben Reilly was him trying to find a place in life, and the difficulty that arose from the fact the place all his memories and instincts told him to occupy was already taken by someone he was a copy of. Which made him superfluous, and left him struggling to find meaning and direction. This Ben thought he'd found something with his cloning people and passing them off as reviving the dead, and that got blown to bits by that same guy whose existence means this Ben can't occupy the spot his memories said he should. He's struggling between trying to distance himself from the Peter Parker part of himself, but isn't prepared to abandon everything about that guy, and isn't so sure about his past actions either.

It's a little weird being able to see Ben's smile through the mask. That's more of a Deadpool thing. Especially since at time all signs of his mouth vanishes entirely. But I like the fact Ben's almost absent from the panel of him breaking a member of the group trying to rob the casino's wrist. You can see his arm, but nothing of his reaction or emotions, just the anguish (though the mask) of the robber. And in the next panel, he's breaking the gun in half, trying to show off for his "Aunt June", and the robber is falling off panel, already forgotten. He's not really any part of Ben's life, they just happened to cross paths for a moment, Ben broke the guy's wrist, interaction over.

Although the robber is visible again after the threat is over, down on the ground, holding his wrist, ignored by everyone else in the panel. It's an effective statement about Ben - although the part earlier where he shot the mugger in the knee with his own gun for calling Scarlet Spider "Spider-Man" after Scarlet expressly told him not to probably covered that too - and the people he's surrounding himself with. June is only interested in herself, her particular fixation, and Mr. Slate is focused on his work of keeping the casino running smoothly for Ms. Mercury. And among people like that, there's no compassion or concern left for others who made bad decisions. Which Ben is probably going to need, by probably doesn't think he deserves.

Anyway, yes, I'm staying with the book for now.

Favorite Marvel Character #9 - Ben Reilly

Character: Scarlet Spider (Ben Reilly)

Creators: Ross Andru and Gerry Conway (weird how the artists' last names keep coming before the writers alphabetically)

First appearance: Amazing Spider-Man #149, as the Scarlet Spider it would be Peter Parker, Spider-Man #52

First encounter: I was getting comics as gifts from the Sears Christmas catalog, along with grabbing whatever looked good off the spinner racks at a bookstore in the mall, so the chronology is fuzzy. It was either Amazing Spider-Man #400, Web of Spider-Man #121, or the aforementioned Peter Parker, Spider-Man #52 (though it didn't add the "Peter Parker" to the title until later). I know that cover isn't from any of those books, I just picked it to appeal to the ladies.


Definitive writer: Hard to say. the Spider-books were all so interwoven during that stretch, it's probably a group effort between guys like Tom DeFalco, David Micheline, Howard Mackie, J.M. DeMatteis. I might lean towards DeMatteis, because he wrote The Lost Years mini-series, and that established certain things about Ben I find interesting.

Definitive artist: Again, hard to say. The different images I see when I think of the Scarlet Spider are a mix of artists. Mark Bagley's in there - big surprise, since he was drawing Amazing at the time. Steven Butler was drawing Web of Spider-Man, so some of it is him. And some of it is Tom Lyle, who drew the future Peter Parker: Spider-Man title. If I had to pick, I'd guess Lyle for Ben as the Scarlet Spider, Bagley for when he became Spider-Man.

Favorite moment or story: Ben cobbling together a costume and rushing out to stop Venom, when he isn't even sure of the reasons in Peter Parker Spider-Man #52, 53 is a nice one. His trying to fight Sentinels during the whole Onslaught mess was another (PP: S-M #72, Amazing Spider-Man #415). I'm always down for Spider-Folk fighting against serious odds.

What I like about him: Now I know what you're thinking.

'Calvin, we know you're going to put Spider-Man on this list. You just wanted to put him on the list twice!' But you'd be wrong.

Obviously, I put the Scarlet Spider on here to indulge in my love for hoodies. Three guesses who'll be representing on the DC list.

Seriously though, I liked the hoodie as part of the costume as a kid, and I continue to enjoy it now. It was meant to be a hurried, rushed-together costume Reilly made out of what he had handy, and questions about why he had red spandex with no webs on it, but a blue hoodie with a spider on it aside, that's what it looks like.

It might work better if he occasionally had used the hood. You know, he's observing some criminal from a rooftop, it's raining, he pulls the hood up. It wouldn't work when he was web-swinging - either it'd be blowing off in the wind, or it would impair his hearing (and possibly peripheral vision). But there are times it would have been practical. You don't always want to waste web fluid making an umbrella, or rely on old newspapers.

Moving past the hood, I find the stories of people who were essentially created to be someone else's weapon, who try to move past it/deal with the consequences of it kind of fascinating. Cassandra Cain for one, Ryoko in the Tenchi Muyo universe for another. For Ben, it might be worse in some ways. Miles Warren (or Osborn working through Warren or whatever) didn't simply create (or try to create) a perfect killing machine. He made Ben a copy of Peter up to that point, with all the memories, thoughts, and feelings Peter has, then tried to use him as a disposable weapon.

When Ben survives the initial encounter, he's left with an ugly realization. He doesn't have a life of his own. The person who created him was a crazy, evil person who tried to make him do things the person he's a copy of wouldn't do, and so Ben believes those things are wrong. Ben resents this because that morality was imposed on him. In theory, a person would develop their own beliefs over the course of their life, based on their own experiences. Ben wasn't given that opportunity, knows it, and so fights against it. He actively tries not to be a hero because that's not him, it's Parker, and he's not Parker. He rejects the idea of great responsibility tagging along with great power. Ben Parker wasn't his uncle, the spider didn't really bite him, that was all someone else.

And that's always in the background for Ben, the question of how much of what he does is his decision, and how much of it is the Parker influences he tries to reject. Whatever he might say, he couldn't stay away when Aunt May was in the hospital. And one of the enduring images for me of Ben is from Amazing Spider-Man #400, as Peter, MJ, and Aunt Anna cry over May's body as she dies. Ben had told Peter earlier he was leaving. He came to New York to check on May, she appeared to be fine (it was only a brief improvement), he should leave. But as she passes, Ben's sitting alone on the roof, crying his eyes out. Like it or not, those feelings and memories are part of him.

Even so, I still think Ben, when he decides to truly start helping people, as opposed to merely defending himself and Peter from a myriad of threats - Kaine, the Jackal, all the rest - is done from his own desire to help. I'm sure he feels Peter's guilt over Uncle Ben's death, but I think he rejects it, since it isn't his memory. Which means it shouldn't be driving him to help people as it has Peter at times. Ben's helping because like it or not, it's the right thing to do. This is the attitude I think Peter has most of the time, the guilt thing just kicks in when he starts thinking of throwing the costume in a trash can again.

Plus, there's the aspect of Ben returning to a place he remembers, a place full of people he remembers, none of whom know him. He has all the memories, but it's a one-way street because someone else already occupies the spot in their lives he would. Which makes him feel that unreality of his existence more keenly. He stays, partly for selfish reasons, partly to help Peter, and he's able to build a life of his own. Get a job, make some friends of his own, build acquaintances with people he knows from Peter's memories, but all those people know him as Ben Reilly. Being around Peter actually gives him the chance to try and define himself more fully from Peter, to show he's a separate entity by leaving a legacy of his own. One of the things I like about Spider-Girl is he's her "Uncle Ben", and it's his costume she wears, rather than her father's. Ben is able to overcome the ugly particulars of his birth and with a lot of ups and downs, formed connections, formed a life and is carried forward in the memories of others and his deeds, which is maybe the best you can hope for in life.

I enjoy how Ben is kind of a study of what defines a person, and how sometimes it's hard to tell when our actions are influenced by others. The idea that everyone has worth, and no one is just a copy to be used at someone else's discretion and tossed aside. Not to give up on people just because they get a little lost or confused for awhile. Also, he had impact webbing and those little stinger things he could fire out of his web-shooters and I thought those were pretty cool.

As a final point, having Peter retire from web-slinging to focus on being a husband and expectant father, handing the title of Spider-Man off to Ben is a heck of a lot better way to get single Spider-Man than the One More Day nonsense Quesada and Co. foisted on us.