written by Zeb Wells
drawn by Patrick Gleason
colored by Bryan Valenza
And thus arrived the moment I had been anticipating with both excitement and dread for the last nine months: the ultimate fate of Ben Reilly.
Ben Reilly, having lost a whole chunk of his memories due to the tampering of Beyond, who basically lobotomized Ben when it became clear he was no longer on board with their corporate mandate, is a man on a mission; to recover who he is. He will let no one stand in his way, not even the person to whom the memories actually belong: Peter Parker. Their confrontation takes place at Beyond's HQ, which, upon the order of Maxine Danger, is currently being scrubbed clean of any trace of the Spider-Man program with a dangerous chemical now flowing through the complex. It's a heck of a showdown, and only one Spider-man will emerge from it.
Marvel were quite transparent going in that this Ben Reilly story was going to be a finite storyline rather than the status quo shakeup that the 1990s Clone Saga was originally envisioned to be, and as a result I really wondered how this was going to end. Some comics news outlets have spoiled the outcome, but I won't. It is an ending quite fitting for a character as tragic as Ben Reilly is, and it genuinely feels like something that's been given a lot of thought, which is especially gratifying since, following his resurrection in "The Clone Conspiracy" it really didn't feel like Marvel knew what the heck they were doing with the character. Without giving too much away, the solution they've found here feels, more than anything they've tried before, like they're really giving Ben a distinct identity, and I'm really interested to see how long they can keep this up. So yeah, minor spoiler, he doesn't die, but what happens to him is arguably far more intriguing.
The real reward here, however, is Patrick Gleason's glorious art, which bookends the entire saga, and which we get for thirty-plus glorious pages. I really love how this guy's art style has evolved over the last couple years since he first came on board to draw Spidey's adventures for Nick Spencer. He's absolutely firing on all cylinders here. It's rare that a comic book adorned with a cover by Arthur Adams but drawn by someone else has even better art on the inside, so when it actually happens, it's especially gratifying. I would really, really love to see this guy illustrate an entire Spider-Man story arc. Six issues, no fill-in artists. Please, at some point, make it happen, Marvel.
I'm really happy to see Zeb Wells, who's been around for a long time but has been rather unheralded as a writer, finally get his due as one of the better Spider-writers out there. He's not quite one of my favorites but he's definitely written his share of memorable stories, and I'm genuinely looking forward to his reboot of the book with John Romita Jr.
9/10
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