Ordinarily, I write these little tidbits about my stories at the end, but I felt a little introduction was needed this time around. Once again, I've retconned the Marvel Universe to fit my little whims, but unlike my Wolverine tales these never saw the light of day.
A year or so ago, Marvel made an attempt at letting guys like me get their foot in the door of the comics industry by restarting their Epic Comics line. That idea lasted about as long as the Nova re-launch. My idea for Epic? An alternate Marvel Universe storyline in which Ben Reilly, the clone you either loved or hated, DIDN'T die and kept on as Spider-Man. You see, unlike the vast majority of Spider-Man fans, I loved the Clone Saga. I thought it was great. Sure, it had it's failings, but Ben Reilly was, for my money, THE best Spidey out there. So, this series was designed for all the Ben Reilly fans out there, devastated by his death. I figured that the Peter fans could have Spidey's 27,000 titles a month, while the Ben fans got theirs. A win/win situation, really.
I had several arcs already plotted, wrote the first four issues and started on the fifth just in time for the Epic line to cease once again. Typical.
And so, these tales went into the obscurity that is the mess known as my desk, never to be seen again. That is, until, I stumbled across them and decided to finish them up and convert them to prose for posting on the web. Usually, when I go back to an old script I'm disgusted with how crappy it is, but these were different. I loved these. I still can't believe I wrote them. I'm convinced if I had half the opportunity these might have had a chance with the Marvel editors. But, alas, we'll never know.
So, I hope you enjoy the first story arc as much as I did, and if you want to see more of my little sub-universe say so by your ratings and reviews. If not, thanks for reading all the same and I hope you enjoy all three parts!
Anyways, onward!
C