Spider-Man’s Ben Reilly Gets Wild New Alter-Ego

With Peter Parker having been out of commission thanks to a run-in with the villainous U-Foes, New York City needs a new Spider-Man, so who better than the clone of everyone’s favorite web-slinger Ben Reilly. Throwing his lot behind the shady corporation known as Beyond, the former Scarlet Spider donned a brand new costume that made him the new wallcrawler for the city, but his allegiance with the shady organization came with a price. Losing a good chunk of his memories, Reilly has donned a new costume and a new alter-ego that is wildly different from what we’ve seen.

In the latest issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, Issue #93 of the recent run, Reilly and Parker both donned their respective Spider-Man costumes and attempted to take down Beyond Corporation for their recent aggressions against them both. With the company that was originally featured in Marvel’s Nextwave working alongside Reilly, the clone lost a number of his memories in order to protect the identity of Peter, which in turn mucked with his sense of responsibility in turn. Given only one opportunity to get his memories back, by ripping them directly from Peter’s head via a helmet given to Ben by the head of Beyond. Unfortunately, Ben was unable to convince Peter as the helmet might not have been all it seemed to be. 

With Ben falling into a pool of “expunging psycho-reactive goo”, the former Spider-Man now dawns a much darker costume, while seemingly sporting tendrils not too different from those of the symbiotes such as Venom and Carnage. No longer going by the name of either Spider-Man or Scarlet Spider, Ben’s new moniker is “Chasm” and his approach to heroing is seemingly set to be much more brutal than before as he no longer has the memories of Peter Parker to help in forging his sense of right and wrong.

This would hardly be the first time that we’ve seen Ben Reilly take a darker route than Peter, with the clone previously taking on the identity of the Jackal during the crossover event known as The Clone Conspiracy. Following this event, Reilly attempted to fight crime once again as the Scarlet Spider though he was still struggling with some severe mental issues during the run.

What do you think of Reilly’s new identity as Chasm? Do you think we’ll see him return as a darker hero or a straight-up villain? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the world of Spider-Man.