Who Was Ben Reilly?

Then[1]

Ben Reilly has just confronted Damon Ryder who has altered his body using velocoraptor DNA. Ben insists that Damon get to a doctor so they can restore him to normal but he refuses and fights back against Ben. That’s when Kaine, an imperfect clone of Peter Parker, comes crashing in through the window. Ben tells Damon to run for it because Kaine is a powerful psychopath. When Kaine grabs Ben by the throat he jokes that this isn’t good time. Kaine responds by saying that it’s never a good time to die, something he knows very intimately.

Now

Peter Parker is being held at gunpoint by Damon Ryder — now calling himself Raptor — as he has mistaken Parker for Ben Reilly, whom he blames for the death of his family. Peter figures this is it unless he wants to expose his secret identity to his best friend, Harry Osborn, as well as his cousins. That’s when Kaine grabs Peter from behind. As it turns out, Kaine has agreed to work with Raptor in exchange for a cure for his degenerative illness.[2] That’s when Harry tries to come to Peter’s aid, but is knocked aside by Raptor.

Then

Grabbing Ben by the throat, Kain lifts him up off his feet. However, this allows Ben to grab onto the ceiling and rip off a chunk and drop it on his attacker. He then shoved Kaine into the nearby fireplace, lighting him on fire. Even though this causes Kaine a great deal of agony, he continues to fight, his burning body setting the house ablaze. With the house turning into an inferno, Ben went looking for the Ryder family and only found alone and confused in the fire. Ben then reminds Damon that he warned him that this experiment wouldn’t turn out well and lunges to attack him.

Now

It’s then that Raptor reveals his plan, he is going to make Peter Parker watch his family burn just like he watches his own family die so years earlier. To this end, Raptor tosses a flare against the wall of Aunt May’s house, causing it to catch fire. He then welcomes “Ben Reilly” to his personal hell.

Then

Ben attacks Damon, telling him that he had it all and threw it all away. As the flames continue to get stronger, an increasingly confused Damon pleads with Ben to help him rescue his wife and daughter. This angers Ben even more and he shows Damon that his family is already dead, killed by his own hands.

Now

Overhearing all of this, Harry Osborn asks Peter if he did anything to Raptor’s family. Although he wonders what Ben Reilly did to this man, he tells Harry not to listen to Raptor because he is insane. He tells Harry to get ready to run and when Kaine is asking him how Peter plans on that happening, Screwball comes crashing in through the window, right on time. Screwball is upset to see that Spider-Man is nowhere to be found and while everyone is busy watching her evade Raptor’s gunfire, Peter takes the opportunity to fight off Kaine. He then rushes to Harry and his cousins and helps untie them. When they ask what this is all about, Peter makes up a story that this has to do with a story he was covering for the Front Line.

As they are all rushing out the front door, Kaine grabs Peter and pulls him back inside the burning house. Thrown through a wall, Peter has the time to change into his Spider-Man costume and join the battle. He thanks Screwball for providing him a distraction and after smothering the flames with some webbing knocks her out and shuts down her webcam feed. He then begins pelting Raptor with balls of webbing and tries once again to convince Raptor that Ben Reilly and Peter Parker are two different people.[3] That’s when Kaine confirms what Spider-Man has been saying all along and pulls off Spider-Man’s mask.

Raptor is furious to see that Spider-Man is also “Ben Reilly.” However, Kaine insists that Parker and Reilly are different, telling Raptor that Ben Reilly is dead but this is his clone and to enjoy killing him anyway.[4] As Raptor prepares to make the killing blow with one of his talons, Kaine says that Peter and Ben are the basically the same person and one is capable of doing what the other has done. This finally strikes makes Peter realize that Ben Reilly couldn’t have killed Raptor’s family as he isn’t capable of committing murder himself and begins fighting back.

Then

When confronted with the truth that he killed his family, Damon refuses to accept the reality and blames Ben for murdering his wife and daughter instead. As the two struggle, Kaine emerges from the flames and is impressed that Damon has completely convinced himself that Reilly was capable of murder and says this could come back and haunt Ben some day. Ben tells Kaine that this all got out of control because the imperfect clone keeps interring with his life. Kaine is interested to see what Damon does and decides to let them both live to see what happens next and leaves them in the burning building.

Now

Peter lays into Raptor, explaining that Ben Reilly couldn’t have killed his family because he is incapable of murder himself. Meanwhile, Raptor was willing to murder an entire household of people for a misplaced revenge. To prove he’s not a killer, Spider-Man webs up Raptor for the authorities instead of killing him. When police begin storming the house, Peter quickly puts webbing around his head to obscure his face. When he turns around he discovers that Raptor, Kaine, and even Screwball all escaped and decides that it is his turn to depart as well. He then doubles back as Peter Parker and begins going through the motions of providing Harry and his cousins a convenient cover story.

Meanwhile, Kaine and Raptor have retreated to their hideout where Kaine has discovered that Raptor was lying and there is nothing he can do to help him. As the Reilly sisters point out that Kaine could had a strange resemblance to Peter, he admits that he saw a similarity and suggests that people who look alike make you stop and wonder about the path not taken. At that same moment, Kaine is strangling the life out of Raptor.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Kaine, Raptor, Harry Osborn, Alex Reilly, Amanda Reilly, Amy Reilly, Ben Reilly (flashback)

Continuity Notes

1. The flashbacks in Amazing Spider-Man #608-610 take place prior to Spider-Man: The Lost Years #1. In that story, Ben Reilly had been on the road for three years following the events of Amazing Spider-Man #151. Per the sliding timescale of Earth-616, that would place these flashbacks as happening around seven years prior to this story.

2. Kaine is an imperfect clone that has suffered from cellular degeneration. See Spider-Man #60 for details.

3. Raptor questions why Spider-Man keeps on interfering, a reference to their first clash in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #36.

4. Actually, Ben Reilly was the clone, created by the Jackal in Amazing Spider-Man #149. At the time of this story, Reilly is believed to be dead after ending up on the business end of a Goblin Glider in Spider-Man #75. Unknown to everyone at this time, Ben Reilly has since been resurrected by the Jackal who is conducting new cloning experiments, as explained in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 4) #22. He will resurface in Free Comic Book Day: Captain America 2016.