REVIEW: What If…? Vol 1, #30

“What if Spider-Man’s clone lived?”

Writer: Bill Flanagan
Artists: Rich Buckler, Jim Mooney, Pablo Marcos
Colorist: Roussos
Review: Madman

I don’t know why I do this to myself. I’ve been over the clone thing for, ohhhh, give or take 25 years, but that doesn’t matter because Marvel likes to milk the clone-cow to death…
Way past death in some cases. As in the cow shuffled off its mortal coil in the mid-90s and they’re still squeezing that mummified udder. In fact, for some great reason Marvel decided that Ben Riley needs not only make a triumphant return to the funnybooks, but he needs his own title…
Fantastic Four doesn’t get a book but Marvel decided the Earth would cease to spin if there were no Ben Riley books. I haven’t glanced at the series at all. Total boycott. A line has been drawn, and I will ignore that book until long after I’m dead.

I knew this comic would just end up making me turn green and rip my favorite corduroys, but none the less it is a What If…? book.  It did involve Spider-man, and plus! There was an untold tale of the Inhumans inside…
Ok, I didn’t really care so much about that last point but to be honest I just felt, petrified udder or not, this is something I definitely “needed” in my collection.  That “need”, no matter how dirty it made me feel, made it ok...just this once.          

The uncloned version of this story is taken from The Amazing Spider-Man #148-149. In the original story, Ben Riley is actually killed, and Spidey throws Ben’s body into an incinerator. Of course we know he doesn’t actually die at this point in time, so technically the issues’ proposed question is completely pointless. As we take this journey farther down the rabbit hole, we get a glimpse of what the writers 27 years ago had penciled in on Ben Riley’s schedule.

All that considered, I hate Ben Riley. In fact he’s probably #1 on the Things I Hate in Comics list, and Web of Spider #117 is a solid #2. Now this may make me a hypocrite of sorts as I totally dig Kaine, but I’ll pass on the Riley books. I was forced to endure three years of multiple Spider-Man books oozing with this character and hate him for it. However, my hate for this older incarnation of Ben Riley even more then the ‘90s Riley or the real time Riley…much, much more. He comes off as a total sap and he wears brown slacks.

In this reality Ben doesn’t die but instead goes all moral high ground,  ending up in a teaming up with Peter to beat down Kingpin. They then decide it’s best if they split custody of Spider-Man with Peter taking Mondays and Wednesdays and Ben taking Tuesdays and Thursdays…
It's not sure who is on duty Friday-Sunday, but I bet they go best of three with paper-rock-scissors…brown slacks.