We last left off with Kraven stalking Ben and about to attack! Are you ready for an all-out fight-filled book of two clones gong at it? No? Well, then, this book is for you!
Credit Where Credit Is Due
Story Title: Beyond Chapter 5 – Hunt the Wumpus!*
Writer: Cody Ziglar
Artist: Michael Dowling
Colorist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramanga
Cover Artist: Arthur Adams and Alejandro Sanchez
Asst. Editor: Lindsey Cohick and Kaeden McGahey
Editor: Nick Lowe
Published: November 24, 2021
Remedial ASM 101
Ben Reilly is working for Beyond as Spider-Man. They have all sorts of scientists working to make the Ben the best hero ever, but is there a more sinister reason behind their motives?
The Story – Pay Attention, This Will Be on the Test
Some new hire at Beyond gets drunk and stumbles into an alley where something unknown happens to him. Ben is not happy that Beyond is spending so much time fine-tuning his equipment. He creates a way to turn off their monitoring and goes and visits Peter in the hospital where he has a little heart to heart before leaving to stop an armored-car robbery. After that, he goes on a call to help out a Beyond Corp big wig only to find out that he’s dead and Kraven87 is there waiting for him. Ben is pathetically not ready for this fight and barely gets out alive before getting peppered with tranq darts sending Ben off with Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
What Passed and Failed
Pass – Street-level Spidey – Give me a street-level story over a cosmic one any day.
Fail – Eye Color – Ben’s eyes are brown in one panel and blue in another. Small detail, but I would think that the colorist would certainly be on top of something like that.
Incomplete – Doug – I suppose Kraven87 got a hold of him? There is a figure on the rooftop stalking him in the alleyway while he sings his song that I am guessing is Kraven87, but I am a little unsure of why Kraven87 would be stalking Doug. Doug just started working there, so I doubt he had the kind of information that Kraven87 would need. My best guess is that this will factor into a story later.
OOTI (Onomatopoeia of the Issue)
On a scale of 1 (POW) to 10 (BLRKBQRKPQRBLNB), WHOP! Ranks a 5. I was conflicted on this one. It’s such a classic oldie that looks like it would fit right into a Batman 66 show and even has an exclamation point while breaking panel walls. However, despite these pluses, the coloring of it looks like someone had a WHOP! sticker and just slapped it on over the panel. It looks out of place.
Analysis
Ben and Peter – While the cover advertises a fight with Kraven, the fight is really not the main plot point of the issue. What do we get from the talk?
- Ben most likely did not bring in Misty and Colleen to investigate Beyond
This does not sound like someone who went into this to investigate and dismantle from the inside. This sounds like a guy who was offered what he wanted – the legitimacy, redemption, and his woman out of prison – but now has misgivings. I don’t blame Ben for jumping at this opportunity, but we have been discussing earlier if he and the women were working together on this. It does not sound like that. What it sounds like is that both will come to their conclusions different ways, but at the same time. Either that, or Colleen and Misty will figure it out before Ben does and Ben will be in a spot where he may have to fight them.
- Ben wants a relationship with his brother.
This story arc is enjoyable despite it not the Spidey I want to read, it is a fun read. I would so much like for Ben to spin off into a Ben Reilly the Spectacular Spider-Man and continue to be written by these writers with occasional team-ups with Peter. If you want a fun take that was written pre-clone saga on what would happen if the clone had lived, check out What If? #30 vol 1.
Kraven87 – I’m glad that Kraven87 is just off doing his thing and not brooding about being a clone or if he is worthy of the mantle. He just picks it up like of-course-it-belongs-to-me and goes to work. By the way, if you are curious why he said the Deadpool and Wolverine bit, that is because Kelly Thompson write a Deadpool arc that has Deadpool as king of the monsters and Kraven87 goes over there and kicks some Deadpool and Wolverine butt for a while. You can read it on Marvel Unlimited. And if you are a bit miffed at how Kraven87 got the drop on Spidey, well, just remember that the real Kraven was able to do that from time to time as well. But I will agree that Ben, despite his advance tech, seems a bit inept at this gig. First Morbius kicks his butt and now Fake Kraven is mopping the floor with him. I don’t want my hero to be invincible (unless, of course, I’m reading Invincible), but I do want Spidey to at least put up a fight.
To be fair, Ben did just get blasted by an explosion, so I can buy that for Kraven87 getting the upper hand.
The Beyond Board – The Crawlspace has been pretty hard on the concept of a group of writers. In the past, it did not play out well. This came mostly from miscommunication of the writing team. This group, though, flows seamlessly from one writer to the next. They seem very much aware of what the previous stories contained and what the tone of the story should be.
Extra Credit
This feels like it is too detailed to just be a random background scene. Does anyone recognize what is on the TV here?
Final Grade
All in all, not much happened in this story, but it was enjoyable. The plot is thickening and things are being set in motion enough that I am entertained. I can’t keep holding it against the writers that this is a Ben story, and not a Peter story, but it is hard to displace that thought from my head when it comes time to grade it.
B-
Your Turn
What grade do YOU give it?
What’s Next?
Chi-Town will bring you #80
- Kraven’s trap is sprung, and Spider-Man is sent into a hallucinatory spiral that will test his sanity like never before.
- For Spider-Man to get through this, he’s going to have to do the impossible. That’s Spidey’s M.O., but is Ben Reilly up to it?
But do not fear! I will be back for…
- With her nephew at death’s door, May Parker is not just going to sit around accepting that Peter’s ailments aren’t solvable with conventional means.
- Aunt May is going to seek UNCONVENTIONAL MEANS by way of her ex-fiancé DOCTOR OCTOPUS!!!
- One of the most controversial couples in comics history is back together, and they’re Peter Parker’s only hope of living through BEYOND!
OK folks, I’ll be back next week with not on this Doc Ock and Aunt May tryst, but also I will reveal my greatest shame as a Spider-Man fan.
And of course, Ryan is covering them all because he is just a beast like that.
* Ok, so “Hunt the Wumpus” is not the title of the issue. It is just “Beyond Chapter 5”, but that’s so boring. Now, I bet you are wondering what a Wumpus is.
‘Nuff Said!
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@Mark and Mohammed — By the way, congratulations, Mohammed, on successfully identifying the movie in Peter’s hospital room.
I tried my own approach to see if I could identity it using a different method, though, admittedly, it was not successful. Still, I thought it was a good idea for maybe similar research in the future and wanted to share, just in case:
On my PC I copied the photo of the panel into a paint application and cropped it down to the television portion, and then I uploaded it to images.google.com. It brought some rather — err, interesting — results.
I really thought I was onto something, too.
Chi-Town – to quote the great Jimmy Valvano: “I’d rather be lucky than skillful anyday.”
Hornacek – Yes, it does seem that Ben, despite all his tech that easily took out Peter earlier, is struggling with some basic villains. I’m trying to figure out if that is OK or not. I don’t want Spider-Man to be over-powered, but I don’t want him getting his butt handed to him by every B-lister out there.
Evan – Great title! I hope Marvel is looking at this and offers you a job as Titler! Maybe Kraven87 got Covid and lost his sense of smell, but hasn’t told anyone because he’s a spreader.
@Mark and everyone — I hope all of you had a happy Thanksgiving. (I went to see Ghostbusters: Afterlife and loved every second of it. My tears were from nostalgia, not because it made me feel old, I swear!)
You’re absolutely right — If I hadn’t seen the “Whop!” image, my Thanksgiving would have been completely ruined, so in this one case I’m grateful to have been a little late to the review.
This might be thinking too hard about this, and I’ve never seen A Trip to Greece, but given the synopsis of the movie that I found online, maybe the two men having a philosophical discussion on their trip is suggestive of a parallel with Ben and Peter’s meeting in the hospital. That’s all I can think of.
You’d think that Kraven8 7 would detect a different scent from Ben than Peter, but I don’t want to consider that any longer than it takes to type this sentence.
How about this for a chapter title? “A Doug at Your Heartstrings”
This really feels like a Ben Reilly that wasn’t the Scarlet Spider, or didn’t become Spider-Man, in the 90s Clone Saga. Or wasn’t the Scarlet Spider in his later solo series. This guy defeated Venom in their first battle! But here he’s woefully inept and out of practice – it’s like this is the first time he’s ever been Spider-Man. At the least he should have all of Peter’s Spidey memories before he was cloned.
“If you want a fun take that was written pre-clone saga on what would happen if the clone had lived, check out What If? #30 vol 1”
That story is pretty neat for a pre-Ben Reilly take on the clone, but the ending is totally bonkers. It sets up a new Spidey status-quo where the two of them share the Peter Parker and Spider-Man lives by alternating days. So what happens when one of them starts dating? It will inevitably lead to a David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers situation where Jeremy Irons plays twins that share a woman without telling her.
Nicely done Mark. I’m a bit envious that I had to review the BEY issue that BARELY had to do anything with Spider-Man and you get the BEY issue that probably EVERYONE wants to see. Your LUCK is improving.
Speaking of luck, Ben’s luck seems to be wearing very thin. Easily attacked by Morbius and now Copy Cat Kraven easily sneaks on him and handles him just as easy. Did you find yourself wanting more of what was said between Felicia and Mary Jane?
Clone vs. Clone!
No matter who wins, George loses.
@Mark
Don’t get me wrong, the Villain of the Week format is ok for me too, as long as the villain’s motives make sense. It’s the pattern (if really we can talk about a pattern after only two iterations) of tossing in the villain in one issue and make everything happen in the next one that I may not like much. But, again, it was only a nitpick. I’m good with how they’re managing it for now.
@Jack – I wonder if Kraven87 realizes that this is a different Spider-Man? Your point about using real hunting techniques is a good one. It would add an extra level of interest to the story.
I kind of wish they would research and use actual hunting techniques with Kraven. Hunting is a pretty developed international and ancient skill, involving all kinds of unique traps, tech, and variety weapons. That wopuld permit Kraven to move past the whole faux-Africa thing.
By the way, how could this Kraven “miss” anything about Spidey? He barely knows him. Ah well…
@Mohammed and @Aqu@
Mohammed – A+ for you! Wow! That is utterly amazing work. You other Crawlspacers need to step it up! OK, so now, does anyone have a guess as to why that particular show is on? Anyone have Ziglar or Dowling on Twitter?
Aqu@ – I must not have loaded the OOTI. I could have sworn I did. I fixed it now. Thanks for pointing it out. Evan might have come by and that might have ruined his whole Thanksgiving!
I don’t mind the villain of the week format. I like the main story being done in one or two with a larger back story brewing. That’s ’80s style.
We’ll find out next issue about Doug!
Weird, it seems I can’t see the image for the OOTI.
I agree, this was a good issue, showing that Ben is not completely aligned with Beyond Corp, that he IS smarter than they think and that he and Peter are still like brothers for him.
If I really have to nitpick, I’m not super happy of this way of introducing the “villain of the week” in the first issue and then have the main confrontation and resolution in the next one.
As for Doug, I just assumed Kraven needed him to find one of the higher-ups, even if it doesn’t make much sense since he was new to the work. But maybe you’re right and next issue(s) we will see him again.
@Mohammed
Wow! Great work! I knew it was a reference I didn’t get.
Can’t believe I found it for you @Mark
it directly from the movie, “The Trip to Greece”
all I searched for was “movie greek ruins 2 men 1 in a blue shirt”