Latest / Vigilante Vibes Podcast / Ep. 191. Who is Ben Reilly in Marvel Comics?!

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Ep. 191. Who is Ben Reilly in Marvel Comics?! · Vigilante Vibes Podcast

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  Hello Marvel fans, comic geeks, and all the nerds in between.
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  My name is Megan and I'm here from the Jalanti Vibes where I
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  am coming to give you another character breakdown.
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  Usually it's about that someone in the X-Men or some kind of
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  mutant, but today I'm going to talk about Ben Riley.
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  With everyone up in arms about Nicolas Cage being cast as Ben
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  Riley in Spider Noir instead of, I don't know, Peter Parker, I
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  thought it'd be a good time to get to know who he is.
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  So Ben Riley first appeared An Amazing Spider man #149 and was
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  created by Gary Conway and Ross Andrew.
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  Ben Riley's whole story starts when the Jackal makes a clone of
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  Peter Parker using his DNA. The Jackal hated Spider Man for
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  Gwen Stacy's death, so he basically created his clone just
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  to mess with Peter. The 2 ended up fighting with a
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  bomb about to go off and when it blew it looked like the Jackal
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  and the clone died. Spider Man even grabbed the
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  clone's body and dumped it in a smokestack.
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  Except the clone was not dead. He survived because the Jackal
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  had injected him with something earlier.
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  The Jackal later tossed a different dead Peter clone into
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  the same smokestack to confuse everyone even more.
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  It's one big mind dumpster fire. When the alive clone woke up,
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  saw Peter with MJ, he convinced himself he must be the fake
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  because he didn't believe a clone could develop those real
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  feelings that Peter had for MJ. Thinking he had no real place in
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  Peter's life, he ran off for five years, took the name Ben
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  Riley, Ben as an Uncle Ben and Riley as an Aunt May's maiden
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  name, and just drifted around the country trying to find
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  figure out who he was. He worked odd jobs with fake
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  references a scientist named Seward Trainer made for him,
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  fought crime whenever his spider sense forced him to get
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  involved, and even fell in love twice.
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  Both ended up tragically to say the least.
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  Ben spent years bouncing from place to place, working as a
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  janitor, teaching in Italy, running from the mafia in Italy.
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  When they found out how sketchy his work experience has been,
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  they didn't trust him so they wanted him dead and helping
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  police in Salt Lake City, dealing with heartbreak, even
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  trying and failing just to blend in and live quietly.
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  Eventually when he learned Aunt May was sick, he came back to
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  New York and that's when everything blew up.
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  He met Peter again. The two fought, then slowly
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  started trusting one another. Then sewer trainer dropped a
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  bombshell. He claimed Peter was the clone
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  and Ben was a real Peter Parker. This tore them both up
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  emotionally, but Peter was expecting a baby and eventually
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  stepped back from being spider man while Ben took up the
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  mantle. Ben tried to build his own life,
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  dyed his hair, worked at a coffee shop, teamed up with the
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  new warriors, fought a whole lineup of villains, got caught
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  in the endless Jackal related chaos, and tried hard to honor
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  Peters legacy while being his own spider man.
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  He faced messed up clone siblings, illusions from
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  Mysterio, weird team ups with the Human Torch, which was
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  actually endearing because that's when we found out that
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  Johnny Storm and Peter Parker met at the Statue of Liberty
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  every Christmas, which was adorable.
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  Adventures with the X-Men, run insurance with the Black Cat,
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  court cases, hobgoblin drama, fights with Daredevil.
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  More heartbreaking when Janine reappeared then died, which was
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  one of his girlfriends, only for Kane to reveal more layers of
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  manipulation. It was nonstop.
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  The Janine thing, she reappeared out of nowhere.
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  Things are going going really really well and Kane seemingly
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  killed her and turns out she was not dead.
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  He gave her, he injected her with something that made her
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  appear dead. So there you go.
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  But it was non-stop. Then came the onslaught event,
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  the return of Norman Osbourne and the final twist.
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  Norman killed Ben with his glider right in the stomach, and
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  Ben disintegrated into dust, proving once and for all that
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  Ben was the clone and Peter was the original.
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  Peter scattered his ashes from the rooftop, but because it's
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  comics, Ben did not stay dead. Miles Warren the Jackal brought
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  him back through a brutal cycle of cloning, killing,
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  resurrecting him a dozen times, dozens of times.
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  After suffering unimaginable trauma, Ben eventually snapped,
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  overthrew the Jackal, and took over the identity himself.
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  He built a company called New You Technologies, brought back
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  tons of dead characters, recruited villains, tried and
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  horribly failed to build a better world.
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  The whole thing spiraled into another clone catastrophe until
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  the entire setup collapsed. Ben barely escaped mentally and
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  physically wrecked trying for a new start.
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  Ben moved to Las Vegas and became the Scarlet Spider once
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  again. Which is I don't know if I
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  mentioned that's what he called himself.
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  When him and Peter would fight alongside each other, he was a
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  Scarlet Spider. But when he became a Scarlet
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  Spider again, he was a mess. He was haunted by fractured
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  personalities, haunted by Cain, stalked by death itself,
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  involved with demons, and constantly teetering between
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  redemption and self destruction. Eventually, he sacrificed
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  himself again, only to be revived again.
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  This time the resurrection shattered something in his soul
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  and he slid into a darker, more sociopathic mindset.
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  He tried to redeem himself during the spider get in events,
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  helped the spider army, and even got reset mentally.
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  After being killed again. He came back stable for a while.
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  Ben drifted again, joined a weird Iron Man LED space team
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  and then got recruited by the Beyond corporation to be the
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  spider man professionally. They helped break Janine out of
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  prison, gave Ben a whole support team.
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  Peter was badly injured early on so Ben became the main spider
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  man for a bit. But Beyond was super shady,
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  manipulating him, messing with his head and eventually wiping
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  huge parts of his inherited memories.
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  This broke him again. Peter eventually recovered and
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  tried to help, but things got even worse.
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  Ben, desperate to recover the memories that defined him, fell
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  into a quantum chemical bath during a fight, mutated and
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  became Chasm. Basically a broken reflection of
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  Spider Man fueled by loss and resentment.
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  Chasm teamed up with Madeline Pryor of in Limbo, dragged
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  Jeanine into it as Hollow's Eve. I feel I don't know if I've made
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  one about Hallows Eve. I know she's I've talked about
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  her but I don't think I've made a full episode about her.
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  She's a pretty cool character. She was made by Erica Schultz so
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  you should definitely check her out.
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  And got involved with the whole demonic takeover of New York.
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  After he was in limbo, it all fell apart and Madeline locked
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  him in a nice prison, which he eventually escaped.
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  After more fights, betrayals, failed, mine heists, cosmic
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  interference, and even being briefly controlled by the
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  Eternal Drouge, Ben finally broke free again.
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  He and Janine set up a quiet life on the fringes, but Ben was
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  still unstable. Cain kept tabs on him, Peter
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  tried to check in. Ben lied about wanting a normal
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  life even though deep down he desperately wanted the one he
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  lost most recently while Peter vanished.
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  Ben even impersonated him for a while before getting caught up
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  with a new spider man in town dealing with Hitman going after
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  him. He told people he did not care
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  about being Peter Parker anymore but it was clear he still did.
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  Ben Riley's life is 1. Big bummer.
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  It's he. It's like 1 big identity crisis
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  after another. He was created to masquerade as
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  Peter Parker. He genuinely believed he was
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  Peter Parker. Then that was taken away from
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  him and then he went through all these personality changes.
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  He came Chasm, Jackal, all these things and he's just a mess of a
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  character. Does he have some pretty good
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  stories? Absolutely.
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  Are they are? Are they the Spider Man
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  standard? No, Nope.
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  That's why I'm interested to see why they decided to make it Ben
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  Riley as Spider Noir, because wouldn't that mean he's a clone,
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  right? I guess.
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  Welcome to the the multiverse I suppose.
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  So before I end this episode, I have some comic recommendations
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  for you to check out so you can get to know Ben Riley even
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  better. So starting off with Spider Man,
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  the lost years, Spider Man redemption, and Ben Reilly
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  Spider man. So that is all I have for you
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  today. I hope you enjoyed this episode.
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  I hope you learned something and I hope we can go into Spider
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  Noir with an open mind because we don't know what they're going
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  to do, but I love Nick Cage and I like Spider Noir, So what can
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  you do? With that being said, be sure to
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  like and subscribe and have a marvelous day.