We all know that nobody ever really stays gone for very long in comics, whether they’re defeated, imprisoned, exiled or even killed.

Once in a while, though, fans become lulled into a sense of security that they can really count on one character not to come back, either because their doing so would cause too much upheaval, because the character was insignificant or unpopular, or because losing them has too much story upside to be undone.

Seriously, last chance to turn back.

Okay – here we go…

Today’s issue of The Amazing Spider-Man seems to have tossed that notion right out the window, though, bringing back one of those characters most readers probably thought they wouldn’t see again.

It’s easy enough to wonder what kind of magic made this happen…and to wonder whether Marvel is tinkering with the events of Spider-Man’s origin again like they did when they introduced Silk last year.

But it’s also Spider-Verse right now and so, like Gwen Stacy who lives on as the alternate-universe Spider-Gwen, our guess is that the man you’re looking at here isn’t actually “our” Ben Parker, but one from a universe where he isn’t dead.

…Maybe one where he got the spider bite? Could Spider-Ben be far off?