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Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider (Collected Editions)
Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider, Vol. 5: Deal with the Devil
For months, an occult group called the Diogenes Initiative has been resurrecting heroes and letting them run amok in Ben Reilly's town. As the Scarlet Spider, he may have a thing or two to say about that. Plus: It's Ben and Kaine vs. a pack of ravenous hellhounds as madness descends on Las Vegas! But can Kaine and Ben keep themselves from each other's throats long enough to save the city?! COLLECTING: BEN REILLY: SCARLET SPIDER 20-25
136 pages, Paperback
First published January 22, 2019
5 people are currently reading
48 people want to read
About the author
Peter David
3,569 books1,364 followersaka David Peters
Peter Allen David, often abbreviated PAD, was an American writer of comic books, novels, television, films, and video games. His notable comic book work includes an award-winning 12-year run on The Incredible Hulk, as well as runs on Aquaman, Young Justice, SpyBoy, Supergirl, Fallen Angel, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, Captain Marvel, and X-Factor.
His Star Trek work included comic books and novels such as the New Frontier book series. His other novels included film adaptations, media tie-ins, and original works, such as the Apropos of Nothing and Knight Life series. His television work includes series such as Babylon 5, Young Justice, Ben 10: Alien Force and Nickelodeon's Space Cases, which he co-created with Bill Mumy.
David often jokingly described his occupation as "Writer of Stuff", and he was noted for his prolific writing, characterized by its mingling of real-world issues with humor and references to popular culture, as well as elements of metafiction and self-reference.
David earned multiple awards for his work, including a 1992 Eisner Award, a 1993 Wizard Fan Award, a 1996 Haxtur Award, a 2007 Julie Award and a 2011 GLAAD Media Award.
Peter Allen David, often abbreviated PAD, was an American writer of comic books, novels, television, films, and video games. His notable comic book work includes an award-winning 12-year run on The Incredible Hulk, as well as runs on Aquaman, Young Justice, SpyBoy, Supergirl, Fallen Angel, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, Captain Marvel, and X-Factor.
His Star Trek work included comic books and novels such as the New Frontier book series. His other novels included film adaptations, media tie-ins, and original works, such as the Apropos of Nothing and Knight Life series. His television work includes series such as Babylon 5, Young Justice, Ben 10: Alien Force and Nickelodeon's Space Cases, which he co-created with Bill Mumy.
David often jokingly described his occupation as "Writer of Stuff", and he was noted for his prolific writing, characterized by its mingling of real-world issues with humor and references to popular culture, as well as elements of metafiction and self-reference.
David earned multiple awards for his work, including a 1992 Eisner Award, a 1993 Wizard Fan Award, a 1996 Haxtur Award, a 2007 Julie Award and a 2011 GLAAD Media Award.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
January 26, 2019
With time running out, Ben is getting desperate - he has to find a way to cure Abigail Mercury before Cassandra calls in his debt, or worse - Abby dies. Enter the Diogenes Initiative, a shady organization that has been buzzing around the peripheries of Ben's life since his move to Las Vegas. All that, plus Sauron, and Mephisto...
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. This was a series I really enjoyed, and by the time it ended I don't think anyone knew where it was going anymore. The first few issues of this volume show great promise, delivering some unexpected yet satisfying answers for some of the series' longer mysteries, as well as giving Kaine and Ben a good reason to team-up once again.
Things then take a turn for the worse in the latter half of the volume as Ben's last ditch effort to save Abigail Mercury result in time travel, Mephisto, and an unfulfilling conclusion to what should have been Ben's redemption arc. It's not like Peter David to end on such a low note, and yet here we are.
The decline in story is also met with a decline in artwork. Will Sliney pencils the first four issues of the volume with his usual skill, but then swaps out for Bruno Oliveira in the last two, who doesn't seem to have a grasp of basic perspective, leaving most of his acrobatic scenes looking super peculiar, with characters reaching unrealistic heights, plus some messy colouring.
Scarlet Spider was so good for 23 of 25 issues, and then it all goes to pot. Such a shame. Oh, and what the hell was up with Aunt June, after all that?
(For a better resolution of Ben's storyline, go read Spider-Geddon. Trust me, it's much better.)
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. This was a series I really enjoyed, and by the time it ended I don't think anyone knew where it was going anymore. The first few issues of this volume show great promise, delivering some unexpected yet satisfying answers for some of the series' longer mysteries, as well as giving Kaine and Ben a good reason to team-up once again.
Things then take a turn for the worse in the latter half of the volume as Ben's last ditch effort to save Abigail Mercury result in time travel, Mephisto, and an unfulfilling conclusion to what should have been Ben's redemption arc. It's not like Peter David to end on such a low note, and yet here we are.
The decline in story is also met with a decline in artwork. Will Sliney pencils the first four issues of the volume with his usual skill, but then swaps out for Bruno Oliveira in the last two, who doesn't seem to have a grasp of basic perspective, leaving most of his acrobatic scenes looking super peculiar, with characters reaching unrealistic heights, plus some messy colouring.
Scarlet Spider was so good for 23 of 25 issues, and then it all goes to pot. Such a shame. Oh, and what the hell was up with Aunt June, after all that?
(For a better resolution of Ben's storyline, go read Spider-Geddon. Trust me, it's much better.)
May 9, 2019
WTF? Did the writers always plan to end the series this way, or did we all just fall victim to the title being cancelled at the worst possible time?
I adore the original Ben Reilly from the 90s. I was thrilled when this series put him back in his original 90s outfit, as the costume alone is one of the big reasons I'm a fan. I started out with mixed feelings about how this series completely warped Ben's personality. He went into this series with a bizarre super-villain personality he was trying to recover from. He now struggled with opportunistic and violent tendencies. (Much like me.) They sold me on the idea that his personality and soul were damaged, and that the series would follow Ben attempting to better himself. For some of us, following the viewpoint of a tortured character fighting for redemption, with scars both figurative and literal, hits a little close to home. So after a shaky start the series sold me.
And then, this happened.
...
...
It's not just dissatisfying. It's offensive.
I adore the original Ben Reilly from the 90s. I was thrilled when this series put him back in his original 90s outfit, as the costume alone is one of the big reasons I'm a fan. I started out with mixed feelings about how this series completely warped Ben's personality. He went into this series with a bizarre super-villain personality he was trying to recover from. He now struggled with opportunistic and violent tendencies. (Much like me.) They sold me on the idea that his personality and soul were damaged, and that the series would follow Ben attempting to better himself. For some of us, following the viewpoint of a tortured character fighting for redemption, with scars both figurative and literal, hits a little close to home. So after a shaky start the series sold me.
And then, this happened.
...
...
It's not just dissatisfying. It's offensive.
September 8, 2019
Tchau, tchauzinho, Ben Reilly, foi bastante divertido acompanhar suas diabólicas e demoníacas aventuras, que culminaram com o evento Danação, do Doutor Estranho, pelo maluco escritor Donny Cates. Claro, amigo clone do Homem-Aranha, você era escrito pelo Peter David e foi desenhado pelo Will Sliney por quase toda sua jornada, mas que tomou um estilo bastante estranho neste último encadernado. Você tentou se disfarçar de médico e se infiltrar em um cassino de Las Vegas prometendo a uma magnata dos jogos que iria curar a filhinha dela, acometida de um mal desconhecido. Nesse meio tempo você lutou muito. Lutou até mesmo contra si mesmo. Mas quando digo lutar contra si mesmo é contra o seu clone imperfeito, o Kaine, que também assumiu a alcunha de Aranha Escarlate. Isso gerava uma dinâmica totalmente diferente para a história, nos levando a refletir quem era realmente o protagonista e quem era o herói e quem era o vilão. No fim de tudo, você assumiu os dois papéis, como a maioria das pessoas faz durante a sua existência. O importante é que passamos horas divertidas juntos. Foi bom acompanhar esse "novo" Aranha Escarlate.
July 10, 2019
NOTE: This Volume takes place before Spider-Geddon.
After a battle with Sauron and constant back and forth with Kaine, Ben still insists on searching for the cure for Abigail. Crossing paths with Gabriel (yes, the angel) of the Diogenes Initiative, Ben is given a tube of angel blood which will heal Abigail, as penance for their abduction of his aunt. Going directly to the hospital, he is just about to administer the cure, when Mephisto, mad about Ben going back on their deal, decides to get involved. Mephisto creates two illusions to confuse:
1)Abigail shows up from the future and tells her mom that she doesn't want the cure because it makes her immortal. She would rather die than live through all the pain of watching the world decline.
2) Due to the first illusion, the second has Kaine and Cassandra seeing Ben refuse to give her the cure and keep it for profit. This makes them both want to kill him.
Mephisto says that he will reverse the illusions if Ben can survive for one hour. Though he gave her the cure (which they didn't see) she doesn't revive for a little over an hour. For that hour, Kaine and Ben fight it out, and right at the end, Ben sacrifices himself to save someone, and dies in the process.
Ben's soul is saved by Abigail, who has kind of ascended from the cure. She offers to revive him, but he declines, not wanting to "shatter his soul" (as Death said to him), but she brings him back anyway. Ben spirals out of control, almost (or maybe he did) killing Kaine and going completely sociopath. (This gets corrected in Spider-Geddon)
Overall, the story was good, but felt a bit rushed and typical. Makes the Volume seem "just ok". Kind of a bad end to the series, but that's just my opinion. Still a recommend though.... if only to finish the storyline.
After a battle with Sauron and constant back and forth with Kaine, Ben still insists on searching for the cure for Abigail. Crossing paths with Gabriel (yes, the angel) of the Diogenes Initiative, Ben is given a tube of angel blood which will heal Abigail, as penance for their abduction of his aunt. Going directly to the hospital, he is just about to administer the cure, when Mephisto, mad about Ben going back on their deal, decides to get involved. Mephisto creates two illusions to confuse:
1)Abigail shows up from the future and tells her mom that she doesn't want the cure because it makes her immortal. She would rather die than live through all the pain of watching the world decline.
2) Due to the first illusion, the second has Kaine and Cassandra seeing Ben refuse to give her the cure and keep it for profit. This makes them both want to kill him.
Mephisto says that he will reverse the illusions if Ben can survive for one hour. Though he gave her the cure (which they didn't see) she doesn't revive for a little over an hour. For that hour, Kaine and Ben fight it out, and right at the end, Ben sacrifices himself to save someone, and dies in the process.
Ben's soul is saved by Abigail, who has kind of ascended from the cure. She offers to revive him, but he declines, not wanting to "shatter his soul" (as Death said to him), but she brings him back anyway. Ben spirals out of control, almost (or maybe he did) killing Kaine and going completely sociopath. (This gets corrected in Spider-Geddon)
Overall, the story was good, but felt a bit rushed and typical. Makes the Volume seem "just ok". Kind of a bad end to the series, but that's just my opinion. Still a recommend though.... if only to finish the storyline.
October 31, 2018
Collects Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider issues #20-25
This is the epitome of putting a title out of its misery. I loved the 1990's version of Ben Reilly. I am such a big fan of that character, that I have purchased every one of these individual issues, as well as the collections by Peter David. But other than getting to see the visual of the original Scarlet Spider in action, the stories have been bad from the start. And the characterization of Ben Reilly has been so wrong, that I don't even consider him the same character anymore. I just read the final issue of this series, and it ends without a bang. Really, the book doesn't even acknowledge that the series is now over. There is a note to watch for Ben's next adventure in "Spider-Geddon," but it doesn't appear that this title is going to continue beyond Issue #25. And I'm glad. I'm so glad. I have wanted to like this series since the start, and I've been unfailingly loyal to it, but I want Ben to be a good person, and he just isn't there yet. It goes from bad to worse in that final issue, and the story leaves Ben in a place that will be hard to come back from. To me, it appears that the creators behind this book hated the 1990's "Clone Saga", and wanted to do everything that they could to make sure that there were no more fans of Ben Reilly. That is how bad this thing got. I could be wrong about their motivations, but if they actually cared about this character, it doesn't show here. Thank you for ending this series, Marvel. It was long overdue.
This is the epitome of putting a title out of its misery. I loved the 1990's version of Ben Reilly. I am such a big fan of that character, that I have purchased every one of these individual issues, as well as the collections by Peter David. But other than getting to see the visual of the original Scarlet Spider in action, the stories have been bad from the start. And the characterization of Ben Reilly has been so wrong, that I don't even consider him the same character anymore. I just read the final issue of this series, and it ends without a bang. Really, the book doesn't even acknowledge that the series is now over. There is a note to watch for Ben's next adventure in "Spider-Geddon," but it doesn't appear that this title is going to continue beyond Issue #25. And I'm glad. I'm so glad. I have wanted to like this series since the start, and I've been unfailingly loyal to it, but I want Ben to be a good person, and he just isn't there yet. It goes from bad to worse in that final issue, and the story leaves Ben in a place that will be hard to come back from. To me, it appears that the creators behind this book hated the 1990's "Clone Saga", and wanted to do everything that they could to make sure that there were no more fans of Ben Reilly. That is how bad this thing got. I could be wrong about their motivations, but if they actually cared about this character, it doesn't show here. Thank you for ending this series, Marvel. It was long overdue.
March 11, 2019
Insultingly bad.
November 3, 2020
lol what
(read in single issues)
(read in single issues)
July 14, 2020
If you told me that this series as made by a writer who had never been involved in comics, I would believe it.
There are two Scarlet Spiders with distinctive face scarring who otherwise look like Peter Parker and are Spider-Man but with no qualms about killing.
There's an incredibly elaborate conspiracy by an all-powerful force that needs this rejected Spider-Clone to do something we'll never learn about. (Why don't they just do it?)
There's this whole thing where Ben sells his soul to Mephisto, but it doesn't really matter. And where Mephisto just keeps changing everyone's memories so they can put together a set piece totally unrelated to anyone's characters or backstories.
People loved PAD's Hulk. I'm not sure they have fond memories of the Pantheon. This whole organization of putative angels feels like a sad retread. And what happened to the whole bringing people back to life and death thing from the the previous volumes. We're just bouncing from too powerful shadowy figure to too powerful shadowy figure.
But at least I can listen to the rest of Clone Saga Chronicles now!
There are two Scarlet Spiders with distinctive face scarring who otherwise look like Peter Parker and are Spider-Man but with no qualms about killing.
There's an incredibly elaborate conspiracy by an all-powerful force that needs this rejected Spider-Clone to do something we'll never learn about. (Why don't they just do it?)
There's this whole thing where Ben sells his soul to Mephisto, but it doesn't really matter. And where Mephisto just keeps changing everyone's memories so they can put together a set piece totally unrelated to anyone's characters or backstories.
People loved PAD's Hulk. I'm not sure they have fond memories of the Pantheon. This whole organization of putative angels feels like a sad retread. And what happened to the whole bringing people back to life and death thing from the the previous volumes. We're just bouncing from too powerful shadowy figure to too powerful shadowy figure.
But at least I can listen to the rest of Clone Saga Chronicles now!
Read
May 25, 2022So when recent runs on Spider-Man proper have seen him dragged into extended death and resurrection plots, much less anything remotely involving Mephisto, those have been terrible slogs. Yet when a series about his also-ran clones ends up in the same territory, somehow that's enormous fun. Possibly it helps that this book can admit its off-brand Parkers are a bit inept, not to mention very possibly insane. Definitely it helps that, rather than getting mired in performative seriousness, this is also well aware of the situation's ridiculousness, fitting in scenes like one of the Scarlet Spiders getting kicked square in the balls by a kid he's trying to rescue, because it turns out the kid thinks the Mindless One menacing him is Cyclops and/or the Thing and wants to be his new sidekick and why is Spider-Man trying to spoil his fun? Which, based on my mercifully limited experience, is a lot closer to the sort of thing which happens when you try to protect infants from peril than the usual politely grateful mites in comics.
July 11, 2019
How often are you shocked by a book? Not offended by something being vulgar but rather amazed by what you just read?
This book wraps up Peter David's run on Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider in a way that totally surprised me yet made complete sense given things that had been happening. It ends up feeling like a long, well planned movie series or a strong season of a tv show.
I almost always like Mr. David's work, dating back to the 1990s ST:TNG novels, and this run was very good. I didn't particularly enjoy the "Damnation" event, which busted up a nice story arc in Doctor Strange too, but it is woven into this story very effectively.
It's not an entry point into the Marvel Universe, but it is a really good 25 issue run with a lot of very interesting characters. I recommend it!
This book wraps up Peter David's run on Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider in a way that totally surprised me yet made complete sense given things that had been happening. It ends up feeling like a long, well planned movie series or a strong season of a tv show.
I almost always like Mr. David's work, dating back to the 1990s ST:TNG novels, and this run was very good. I didn't particularly enjoy the "Damnation" event, which busted up a nice story arc in Doctor Strange too, but it is woven into this story very effectively.
It's not an entry point into the Marvel Universe, but it is a really good 25 issue run with a lot of very interesting characters. I recommend it!
September 20, 2021
i've never read such a mixed bag of a run. its not great, its not terrible, but it frequently fluctuates between great and terrible, and it all ends on the kind of note that makes you think "what the fuck just happened?"
the strange part is, it was an ending that was largely built up to for most the run, but it just felt so... sloppy, like there needed to be one more book after this to properly resolve things. theres plenty of good ideas in this run too, but the ending was just so bad that im glad its been largely ignored for bens character as of late.
the strange part is, it was an ending that was largely built up to for most the run, but it just felt so... sloppy, like there needed to be one more book after this to properly resolve things. theres plenty of good ideas in this run too, but the ending was just so bad that im glad its been largely ignored for bens character as of late.
September 4, 2019
I was never fully on board with the whole supernatural aspect of these Ben Reilly comics and this book really pushed things to the hilt with more Mephisto manipulations. Sure, the events of "Brand New Day" sort of cemented Mephisto as part of the Spider-family's rogue's gallery to some degree but this book just felt super messy in how it managed its different characters and plot points.
June 22, 2022
Kind of a different ending to this volume. Not disappointed by it, even though the series itself wasn't what that intriguing, but by and large I much preferred the 90s version of Ben Reilly. At least he was back in his 90s costume.
October 6, 2019
Not a fan. The only real standout bit was probably the final issue. Otherwise, I stayed for the art. 2/5.
February 12, 2022
WTF is the ending. It feels rushed and incomplete.
April 18, 2022
The cover says it all. Ben Reilly died YET again, but he had been warned . . . cancellation and we won;t know what the hell happens . . . damn Marvel sales quotas. LOL
June 19, 2023
Rubbish ending.
March 23, 2025
I enjoy almost everything written by Peter David. This was no exception. Fun. Action. Funny. A little bit of the arcane. My first exposure to this corner of the spider verse and I enjoyed it.
May 3, 2025
not a fan, ending is rushed and not a great place to leave the book.
January 28, 2023
Crappy ending. Was this series supposed to continue but got cancelled?
And the artwork in that last issue was awful.
Before that though I did love Ben and Kaine as a team. More of that please.
Note to self: if you re-read stop after Ben and Kaine in the taxi. Certainly by the time the fake girl turns up.
And the artwork in that last issue was awful.
Before that though I did love Ben and Kaine as a team. More of that please.
Note to self: if you re-read stop after Ben and Kaine in the taxi. Certainly by the time the fake girl turns up.
January 3, 2023
This reads like Peter David was told he has one issue to tie everything up before the book was cancelled and he was just like fine, well Ben breaks bad then, suck it. Which is not, I think, what anyone actually invested in Ben's story wanted.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews