But I maintain to this day, the main problem wasn’t really anything you talked about (you only hinted at it in one of your points, but didn’t really tackle it head on) – the problem was the people behind this saga had to insist that Ben was the original. That the Peter we had been reading about for years was in fact the clone. That was the galling part – and the only way to reverse that stupid decision was to kill Ben and show him as a clone falling apart. Had they been willing to call Ben the clone from day one, accept that and then have him work on his own for awhile – you could have had a nice set up for some future return of Peter to the role of Spidey, advisor to Ben for some time, multiple books that feature one or the other – stories of a single spidey like they seemed intent on doing (by eventually forcing it through BND)…

all because they had to claim Peter was the clone and Ben was the original. Worked out well, didn’t it.

But Peter's story isnt completly defined by his origin, indeed it's only a couple of pages in a 1962 comic, everything else dropped into his lap was the everyman journey of optimisum and hope. Yes, Peter's story is the most inspirational of all comic book plotlines, but Ben is the hard-to-fit-in morality play that Marvel have been wanting to give Spidey since the 1990s and havent suceeded in applying to Peter because his character reallisticly can't be a hard luck hero, he's too good for that…the guy appeared on JOHNNY FRICKIN' CARSON FOR GOD'S SAKE

I’m more annoyed with the fact they they seem to be bringing Kraven back from the dead, which will annoy the hell out of me if it happens … but that’s not a rant that belongs on this site.

@Nova#1: That’s a great point, and one that I never considered. Ben operating out of another large city could have been very interesting. The key would be that it would require a legitimate reason for him to be in that other city.