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00:00Ben Reilly, the clone of Spider-Man, returns from exile and faces off with Venom in the origin of Scarlet Spider.
00:20What's up guys, Roman from R&S Entertainment here, and welcome to Comic History,
00:24the weekly series where I retell and explain the iconic origins, storylines, and events in the world of comics.
00:30In this video, we're going to be talking about the origin of Scarlet Spider,
00:34which occurs right at the beginning of the infamous Spider-Man clone saga in the 90s.
00:39Ben Reilly himself is a holdover from the original clone saga in the 1970s,
00:43where after Gwen Stacy's death, a villain named the Jackal emerges,
00:47cloning both Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy, and learning that Peter is Spider-Man in the process.
00:52Spider-Man and the clone, who would later take on the name Ben Reilly after Peter's uncle Ben,
00:56and Aunt May's maiden name of Reilly, fight each other and then team up,
01:00though Ben is seemingly killed in an explosion, with Peter then throwing his body into an incinerator to protect his identity.
01:07It would later be revealed that Ben had survived, and had spent five years roaming the country as a drifter with little identity of his own,
01:14helping people where he could, and taking on odd jobs to survive.
01:17When Aunt May is hospitalized following a stroke, Reilly returns to New York,
01:21still harboring emotions similar to the actual Peter Parker, and unable to ignore the longings for his original's life.
01:27This leads to a conflict and team up once again with the real Spider-Man, kicking off the 90s clone saga in earnest.
01:33I will most likely cover the story of Ben's exile and his return to New York,
01:37when I start my Clone Saga series of comic history videos.
01:41But in today's episode, we're going to be taking a look at the story directly after,
01:44which sees Reilly take up the mantle of Scarlet Spider and become a hero in his own right,
01:49leading to an epic conflict with Venom, Spider-Man's greatest enemy.
01:53Our story begins with the newly returned Ben Reilly walking the streets of New York,
01:58ruminating on his promise to Peter to not act as Spider-Man, and seeing spiders everywhere he looks,
02:03focusing on a specific blue spider symbol hoodie in a shop window.
02:07Suddenly, two armed criminals hold up a restaurant nearby at gunpoint,
02:11but the situation is diffused by the police before Ben is forced to act.
02:14Although no one was injured this time, Ben knows that he can't avoid his fate forever,
02:18and will eventually have to live up to the one truth that has defined his life,
02:22even if his memories of it are fabricated,
02:24that with great power, there must also come great responsibility.
02:28Meanwhile, Eddie Brock, aka Venom, has also returned to New York City
02:31from his new life in San Francisco as the anti-hero lethal protector,
02:35which he had made the decision to do following his final conflict with Spider-Man in Venom Attacks,
02:41which I've covered in a previous episode of Comic History.
02:43Although his truce with Spider-Man is still intact,
02:46Venom had become aware of an attack on the Ravencroft Institute,
02:49where his symbiote spawned Carnage was being kept.
02:52And knowing that Carnage is a danger to any innocent lives around him,
02:55Venom returned to take his offspring down once and for all,
02:58though that conflict had been resolved before he showed up.
03:01For more information on Carnage, you can check out my Origin of Carnage episode of Comic History.
03:06Venom stops a high-speed chase by leaping onto the vehicle and steering it off a bridge,
03:10but is hounded constantly by the police who know him only as a homicidal villain.
03:14Traveling through the city, Venom finds himself at the locations of events in his past,
03:19including the death of Gene DeWolf and the Maximum Carnage events.
03:22Ben Reilly similarly visits locations relating to his memories of Spider-Man's past,
03:27first visiting Aunt May in the hospital,
03:29though only sticking to the wall outside and not actually going in,
03:32then going to the warehouse where Spider-Man confronted Uncle Ben's killer,
03:35and then to the bridge where Green Goblin had caused the death of Gwen Stacy,
03:39killing Spider-Man's love and planting the seeds of the original 70s clone saga when Ben was created.
03:45As he thinks on these memories, Ben sees a woman about to jump off the bridge,
03:48and yelling never again, he swings in an arc and catches the girl in midair,
03:52taking her to a hospital and saving her life before disappearing before anyone can ask him questions.
03:57Later, Ben overhears a radio broadcast about Venom being in the city,
04:01and after stopping at the shop he had seen before and grabbing the spider hoodie,
04:05he returns to the fleabag motel he's staying at and dons a new costume,
04:09consisting of a red bodysuit, his web shooters, and the blue spider symbol hoodie,
04:13which he rips the sleeves off of to form a sort of vest.
04:16Donning a new costume he hopes will protect Peter Parker's identity as Spider-Man,
04:20Ben leaps from his apartment window to find and take down his greatest foe.
04:24Meanwhile, Venom returns to Our Lady of Saints Church,
04:27where Eddie Brock first joined with the symbiote in Venom's origin,
04:30which you can also check out in my very first episode of Comic History.
04:34He ruminates on his past, and also thinks about his plan to kill Carnage
04:37and stop the random killing of innocents once and for all,
04:40thinking to himself that the church seems bigger than it used to.
04:43That, or he was only half the man he used to be.
04:46As Venom leaves the church, we see Daily Bugle reporter Ken Ellis,
04:49who had been searching for Venom after hearing of his return to the city,
04:52in order to get the front page of the paper.
04:54After he does, Ellis decides to find Venom and get an exclusive interview
04:58to cement his status at the paper, but running out of the bugle to follow a tip,
05:02he's confronted by Ben Reilly in full costume,
05:05who insists that Ellis needs to help him find Venom,
05:07with Ellis agreeing to share his tip in exchange for an exclusive interview
05:11with both Venom and this new apparent superhero.
05:14Reilly tracks down Venom, who is still being hounded by the cops,
05:17and has filled a rooftop with the bodies of muggers, thieves, and killers throughout the city.
05:21And as the police see Scarlet Spider, they decide to hang back and let the two fight it out,
05:25and pick up the pieces of whoever is left after the battle.
05:28As Venom casually asks who he assumes is Spider-Man if he got a new costume,
05:32Reilly leaps at him with a kick,
05:34thinking to himself that though he has memories of fighting Spider-Man's enemies,
05:38he's never actually fought anyone on the level of Venom before,
05:41and that the real Spider-Man had only ever been somewhat successful fighting him in the past.
05:45The kick takes the fight down to the street,
05:47and Venom quickly realizes that though Scarlet Spider moves and fights like Spider-Man,
05:51the real Spider-Man and him had an agreement to leave each other alone,
05:54following their final battle and Venom attacks.
05:57So this new Spider-Man had to be a fake.
05:59Lunging forward with inhuman speed,
06:01Venom slashes Reilly's stomach open with a clawed hand,
06:04leaving him bleeding out on the street as Venom prepares to finish him off.
06:07Before Venom deals the final blow, however,
06:10Scream, one of Venom's five symbiote spawn from the Life Foundation,
06:13in the Lethal Protector storyline,
06:15which I will cover in a future episode of Comic History,
06:18appears and begs Venom to come with her before the police move in,
06:21and to help her learn to control her symbiote.
06:23Venom lunges at Scream and says that she's just like Carnage,
06:26that her and the other symbiotes spawn kill innocents,
06:29and must be killed along with Carnage.
06:31Forgotten, Reilly tries to stay alive,
06:33webbing up his wound and thinking to himself that he's in over his head,
06:36and has to get out of there.
06:38Ken Ellis finally makes his way to the fight,
06:40and rapidly writes down his account of the battle,
06:42as Venom and Scream leave destruction in their wake,
06:45ripping apart cars and wrecking the street as the symbiotes fight.
06:49Though Reilly thinks to himself that he's useless here,
06:51he does save a man who gets knocked off a balcony,
06:53and rips off the burning front half of a car,
06:56and throws it away to save a trapped driver.
06:58As Venom and Scream plow into a hanging tram,
07:01Scream says that she doesn't want to fight,
07:02she just wants to talk to Venom and learn from him.
07:05But Venom is unwilling to listen,
07:06and says maybe they'll talk after she's dead.
07:08Seeing more people in danger,
07:10and now backed by a cheering crowd who witnessed him saving civilians,
07:13Ben Reilly thinks that he has to stop feeling sorry for himself,
07:16and do something other than bleed into his new costume.
07:19Swinging up into the fight,
07:20and kneeing Venom in the back,
07:21with Scream yelling at him to stop,
07:23that she needed Venom to teach her to control her symbiote.
07:26Reilly says that talking to Venom about self-control is pointless,
07:29and that Eddie listens to every inner voice,
07:31toppling the two symbiotes from the tram,
07:33and letting them crash into the water below.
07:35Reilly then saves the tram operator,
07:38still trying not to pass out from blood loss,
07:40and as he swings the man down to safety,
07:42the crowd cheers for him,
07:43calling him a hero and showering him with adoration.
07:46Reilly thinks to himself that while the symbiotes must still be out there,
07:49that after tonight, it had to be someone else's problem,
07:51telling Ken Ellis that he's no hero.
07:54But Ellis thinks to himself that the people have decided otherwise,
07:57planning to write up a story to tell the world about a new costume superhero,
08:01and dubbing him the Scarlet Spider.
08:02Meanwhile, Venom erupts out of the river water,
08:05enraged and bowing to see both of his new enemies,
08:08Scream and Scarlet Spider, to their graves.
08:10And that wraps up today's story on the origin of Scarlet Spider,
08:14which in the comics is part of a four-issue storyline called The Exile Returns,
08:18marking the clones' return to New York City in full,
08:21following the initial Clone Saga story,
08:23where he and Peter Parker meet once again.
08:25I will be covering the last two issues of The Exile Returns in a future episode titled
08:29Comic History, The Fall of Venom,
08:32and also the beginning of the Clone Saga itself sometime down the line.
08:35So if you enjoyed this video, make sure to give it a thumbs up,
08:38subscribe to R&S Entertainment for weekly comic videos,
08:41and leave me a comment below letting me know what you think about Ben Reilly
08:44and the Clone Saga in general.
08:46Also, make sure to check out my Spider-Man Symbiotes playlist
08:48for all sorts of great symbiote and Spider-Man origins and storylines,
08:52including the origin of Spider-Carnage, where Ben Reilly as Spider-Man
08:55becomes the host of the Carnage Symbiote,
08:57the origins of Venom, Carnage, and others, and a lot more.
09:01If you want to see all of the episodes of Comic History,
09:03check out the full playlist,
09:04and if you'd like to help support my channel or even commission
09:07any episode of Comic History you'd like to see,
09:09you can check out my Patreon via the link in the description box below.
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09:21from ComicsExaminer.com,
09:23should be returning tonight.
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09:51Ben Reilly, the Scarlet Spider,
10:09cements his status as a hero of the Spider-Man clone saga
10:12in the Fall of Venom.
10:13What's up, guys?
10:28Roman from RNS Entertainment here,
10:30and welcome to Comic History,
10:31the weekly series where I retell and explain
10:33the iconic storylines, origins, and events in the world of comics.
10:37In this video, we're going to be continuing the story of Ben Reilly,
10:40the clone of Spider-Man.
10:42Following last week's episode on the origin of Scarlet Spider.
10:45So if you want to know what happened leading up to this video
10:47and the beginning of Reilly's time as Scarlet Spider,
10:50make sure to check that video out as well.
10:52In today's video, we're talking about part 3 and part 4 of The Exile Returns,
10:57a storyline somewhat early on in the infamous 90s Spider-Man clone saga,
11:01which follows Ben Reilly's return to New York City
11:04following the original clone saga in the 70s
11:06and his first 90s team-up with Spider-Man.
11:09In the origin of Scarlet Spider, we saw Reilly try to avoid his calling as a hero,
11:14but when compelled to stop the former Spider-Man villain
11:17and current lethal protector, Venom,
11:19he found himself in a battle between two symbiotes
11:21and coming out as the hero of the day,
11:23being revealed to the world after saving several civilians
11:26and being dubbed the Scarlet Spider by Daily Bugle reporter Ken Ellis.
11:30Our story begins right after the Scarlet Spider's first fight with Venom and Scream,
11:35with Ben having sustained a deep stomach wound by Venom at the beginning of the battle.
11:39Reilly manages to make it back to his rat hole apartment
11:41and ties off his wound with a sweatshirt
11:43before taking off his costume and stumbling outside to a payphone,
11:47where he tries to contact his mentor, Seward Trainer,
11:50but weakened from prolonged blood loss, he passes out before he can ask for help.
11:54Meanwhile, Venom searches for Peter Parker
11:56to get information on this new spider who attacked him,
11:59first searching Peter's new apartment to find no one home,
12:02and then breaking into Aunt May's home,
12:04which he had visited several times before,
12:06to find it, of course, empty as well,
12:08as Aunt May had suffered a stroke with her hospitalization,
12:12the reason for Ben Reilly's return to New York in the first place.
12:15Venom wonders out loud what has happened to the typical American family.
12:18Where have all the Parkers gone?
12:20Ben Reilly is found by a neighbor named Gabrielle Greer,
12:23who takes him to a low-cost clinic that agrees to treat him without insurance,
12:27stitching up his wound with Ben just wanting to get out of the city as soon as possible.
12:30Meanwhile, Scream, Venom spawned from the Lethal Protector storyline,
12:34who had sought out Venom in hopes that he would help her learn
12:37how to control her symbiote's dark and violent urges.
12:40Follows reporter Ken Ellis,
12:41who had put out a reward for information on a man with a wound
12:44that matches the one he saw Scarlet Spider sustain in battle,
12:48in hopes that his investigation would lead her to the Scarlet Spider,
12:51and in turn lead her to Venom.
12:53The story then breaks to show us what at this point is a new character being introduced,
12:57only showing that he's a high-priced mercenary with an interest in the Scarlet Spider
13:01and the ability to burn a mark into the faces of the men he kills.
13:05This character, if you're familiar with Spider-Man mythos, is Kane,
13:08an unstable first clone of Spider-Man who becomes a recurring antagonist to Ben Reilly,
13:13who he believes is actually the real Peter Parker,
13:16wanting the Peter who he believes to be the clone to have the chance at a normal life that Kane never did.
13:21Kane would go on to become a fairly important character in the clone and Spider-Man mythos,
13:26and even takes up the mantle and stars in his own Scarlet Spider series many years later,
13:31following the Spider-Island event.
13:32At the hospital, Reilly manages to avoid Ken Ellis finding out his identity
13:36by escaping through a vent to the roof,
13:39putting his mask on on the way up and finding himself face-to-face with Scream,
13:43telling her that her and Venom deserve each other, and diving off the rooftop.
13:46Scream, who has become increasingly unstable and psychotic,
13:49begins throwing a tantrum at not being able to find Venom,
13:52and rips apart the rooftop with her symbiote, endangering the people on the street below.
13:57Scarlet Spider, who had hidden underneath the ledge of the hospital roof,
14:00hoping that Scream would leave,
14:01dives off and destroys as much of the debris as he can,
14:04and minimizes the damage, though a few civilians are injured.
14:07Reilly returns to his apartment and begins work on new web cartridges,
14:11putting together projects that he had planned out over the years that he was in his self-appointed exile,
14:16somehow knowing that one day he would need them.
14:18Suiting up, Scarlet Spider resolves to take down every last symbiote in New York City before he leaves.
14:24Scream, now entirely unstable, goes to Times Square and begins wreaking random havoc,
14:29attracting the attention of Venom, who leaps in and attacks her at full force,
14:32grabbing her symbiote by the mouth and beginning to rip it off of her,
14:36pulling the symbiote off of the human host underneath,
14:38and saying that he was sick of new symbiotes and new spider people,
14:41all deluding and ruining the identity he had worked so hard to attain.
14:45Which is a pretty accurate meta-commentary on Spider-Man stories that applies to this day.
14:51With more and more spider-powered heroes cropping up all the time,
14:54the originals begin to lose their impact.
14:56As Donna begs Venom to stop,
14:58Venom is suddenly hit in the back of the head by several shots of one of Scarlet Spider's new weapons,
15:03which he calls impact webbing,
15:05that rapidly expands and creates micro-tendrils that wraps around and constricts the target.
15:10Venom rips the webbing off of his face and turns around,
15:12wrapping his symbiote around Scarlet Spider's throat and yelling at him to die,
15:16while Scream lies disoriented on the rooftop next to them.
15:20Riley initially starts to give up and allow himself to be killed by Venom,
15:23but seeing that underneath her symbiote's Scream is a human woman,
15:27he knows that he can't allow anyone else to be killed by Venom,
15:30throwing his arm back and hitting Venom in the face,
15:32thinking that he can't and won't believe that the real Spider-Man had ever made a deal with someone like this.
15:37After knocking Venom away,
15:38Scarlet Spider tries to keep his fear from getting in the way of his spider sense,
15:42like he did when Venom ripped open his stomach in their previous battle.
15:46And when Venom mentions that Scarlet Spider is slowing down due to the wound,
15:49he fires off a multitude of his impact webbing cartridges,
15:52which all expand and cover Venom in an ever-growing cocoon of webs,
15:56attempting to get a moment to breathe and recover his strength,
15:59while Venom tires himself out fighting through the cocoon.
16:02Inside the web cocoon, Venom becomes enraged,
16:05thinking to himself that the Scarlet Spider was trying to stop him from doing the right thing,
16:08and protecting innocence,
16:10that he was trying to make Venom out to be the bad guy,
16:13like all the heroes do,
16:14saying that he is good enough and that Scarlet Spider is the fake.
16:17Venom rips his way through the cocoon and launches himself at Scarlet Spider,
16:21absorbing all of the blows from Riley's attack,
16:23as Kane watches the battle from a nearby rooftop.
16:26Venom once again overcomes Scarlet Spider in hand-to-hand combat,
16:29grabbing him around the throat and preparing to kill him.
16:32But in a last-ditch effort, Riley fires off his impact webbing directly into the symbiote's mouth,
16:37which latches onto Eddie Brock's human face underneath the symbiote and begins to expand,
16:42pushing the Venom symbiote off of his face and leaving it exposed.
16:45Riley fires off another new weapon he calls a Stinger,
16:48which is pretty much just small needles that lodge themselves in Eddie's face and enrage him,
16:53distracting Eddie long enough for Scarlet Spider to throw a punch directly at his face,
16:57with Eddie screaming at him that he can't beat Venom.
17:00Riley continues his assault, hitting Eddie again and again as Kane watches,
17:04telling Venom that someone should have stopped him a long time ago,
17:07that someone should have made sure that he wouldn't be set free,
17:10toppling Eddie Brock to the ground and knocking him unconscious.
17:13The Venom symbiote rises up from Eddie, at first trying to defend his unconscious host,
17:17but on making contact with Scarlet Spider, it senses the familiarity of Spider-Man,
17:22trying to bond with Riley and form a new symbiosis.
17:25Scarlet Spider grabs the tendrils of the symbiote and rips it off of him,
17:29yelling at it to get out of his head and slamming it on the ground,
17:32somehow able to reject the symbiote out of sheer force of will,
17:36which we see again much later from Ben Riley in the Clone Saga,
17:39when he becomes bonded with the Carnage symbiote,
17:41which I've covered in my Origin of Spider Carnage video.
17:44Having used up all of his strength and energy,
17:46Scarlet Spider collapses onto the street and waits for the authorities to show up,
17:50allowing them to contain both Eddie Brock and the symbiote in separate containers,
17:54which they say they'll ensure stay far away from each other.
17:57Having defeated Spider-Man's greatest enemy out of a mix of willpower, innovation, and luck,
18:02Ben Riley swings back into the city as Scarlet Spider,
18:05having proven himself a hero in his own right and feeling ready to forge his own place in the world.
18:10And that is where we're going to wrap up this week's episode of comic history,
18:13The Fall of Venom.
18:14Fall of Venom and the Exile Return storyline that it's a part of
18:17are actually one of the most cohesive and not terrible parts of the 90s Spider-Man Clone Saga.
18:23They're self-contained, to the point, and not at all convoluted and needlessly overcomplicated,
18:28which is pretty much the opposite of most of the Clone Saga.
18:31Though as a Venom fan, I don't necessarily like Venom being used as a stepping stone or proving ground
18:37for the Scarlet Spider to prove that he's worthy of being a hero,
18:40I honestly don't mind the execution of it, and it was kind of a cool battle.
18:44The inclusion of Scream and Venom being captured in the end flow well into the next Venom storyline,
18:49Separation Anxiety, which I will cover in a future video.
18:52They actually made a video game loosely based on Separation Anxiety on the SNES back in the day.
18:58I grew up playing it and have several Let's Plays and Livestreams of it over on my gaming channel,
19:02so make sure to go check those out and subscribe over there.
19:05If you enjoyed this video, make sure to give it a thumbs up,
19:07subscribe to my channel for weekly comic videos,
19:10and check out the Comic History playlist and the Spider-Man Symbiote History playlist
19:14for more great origins and storylines,
19:16including the origin of Scarlet Spider, which leads into this video.
19:19If there's any story you'd like to see me cover in the future,
19:23you can suggest it in the comment section below,
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19:31to which there's a link in the description box below.
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19:36There's some awesome rewards that include exclusive content,
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20:16We'll see you all next time.
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