At the end of The Clone Saga, Ben Reilly was impaled on the Green Goblin’s glider and crumbled into dust in Peter Parker’s hands. Ben then made his return in the pages of The Clone Conspiracy as the new Jackal with a method of bringing Spider-Man‘s greatest enemies and loved ones back from the dead and a plan to resurrect Uncle Ben to make up for the wall-crawler’s past mistakes.
That story is still playing out, but Marvel has confirmed today that Ben will take centre stage in a new ongoing series which launches this April. Titled Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider, it will reunite the creative team of Peter David and Mark Bagley, and as you can see in the gallery up above, the fan-favourite hero has been given a bold new look.
While it definitely pays homage to his classic appearance, he looks more like Spidercide than Scarlet Spider, and that could have something to do with the fact that he’ll be attempting to balance the heroic and villainous sides of his personality in this new series. In fact, David goes so far as to call Ben “unhinged,” which is unlikely to sit well with some fans of the character.
However, it’s that weird mouth which is really taking a pounding on social media and it’ll be interesting to see if it does a vanishing act between now and April based on the response. Either way, the Scarlet Spider’s return is very good news, even if it does spoil the fact that Ben will clearly make it out of The Clone Conspiracy alive and well.
