Did Marvel's Superior Spider-Man Kill Another Spider-Man?

In Marvel's Spider-Geddon series, the spider-people eating Inheritors escape the world they were imprisoned and plan to exact their revenge on the Spider-Army -- and eat as many Spider-Folk that they can. Thus far that's included Spider-Man Noir and Spider-UK and in this week's fourth issue, they may have killed another version of Spider-Man, thanks to a little help from Doctor Otto Octavius, a.k.a. The Superior Spider-Man.

Spoilers for this week's Spider-Geddon #4 below.

After Earth-4415's Spider-Man Norman Osborn is kicked off the Spider team by Doc Ock, he and Spiders-Man (the version of Spider-Man that is literally thousands of spiders in a Spidey suit) leave for Osborne's world. Except, that's not where they go. Instead, they go to Loomworld where Osborne makes quick work of destroying the web that allows the Spiders to travel interdimensional, but more than that he walls things off to where the Inheritors are stuck on Earth-616 effectively trapping all of the Spider people there with them.

It's not a good situation and one that the Spider-Army will have to find a solution for fast. Unfortunately for one Spider-Man, that's not good enough for Superior Spider-Man. Doc Ock and Scarlet Spider Ben Reilly head off on an undisclosed mission presumably to kill the Inheritors but even that ends up not being the case. After Ben tells Doc Ock that their side quest is his chance to make things right Ock betrays him, knocking him unconscious and handing him over to the Inheritors.

It turns out that Superior Spider-Man made a deal with them: they get to "eat" Ben Reilly and thus absorb his knowledge of the cloning technology they need and once Doc Ock finds them a new world to ravage they will leave Earth-616 alone. He the departs to leave Ben to be consumed.

That right, it appears that Ben Reilly is dead once again. Reilly initially died sacrificing himself to intercept a Goblin Glider and save Peter Parker in Spider-Man Vol 1 #75. However, in 2015's "Dead No More" it's revealed that Jackal had collected Ben's remains and clones him, ultimately killing Ben 26 more times in an attempt to cure the cellular degradation of the cloning process. Ben even mentions his previous 27 deaths to Superior Spider-Man just before being sacrificed to the Inheritors.

Now, it's possible that this isn't the end for Ben. The cloning system is the main reason Ben is sacrificed to the Inheritors as he knows the system and they want his knowledge. It's possible -- maybe even likely -- that Ben will be brought back again. But, even if he is, Doc Ock's betrayal is even more pointed now that he's delivered Ben to his 28th death.

Spider-Geddon #4 is available now.