I just read it. Another Lost Tale, a low-key character-based one. Ben had quite a different look with the weird half goatee, which I wonder if is a tester to see how they could have Ben look if he were to return to current continuity. Although I'm not a fan of that type of facial hair, it did fit his brooding frame of mind well.
My only gripe was that it took place in Portland. When you consider what went down with Damon/Raptor there earlier in continuity, why would he go back? Maybe that's why the different name, but I really blame the Who was Ben Reilly arc for this quibble since that was built around the fact that s*** went down in Portland, when we already knew that Peter Parker would move there briefly in The Final Adventure, and now we learn Ben himself went back there for seemingly no reason! Editors should really be catching this stuff.
So point is, Portland really should be let go as the "random location" chosen for Lost Tales of Ben to be told in. Heck, JM has Ben say in this story that he has even travelled the WORLD - now there's some possibilities for stories. What if Reilly hit up Europe and caught up fighting the criminal empire secretly led by Osborn during that 'retirement' time, thus inadvertantly being the cause Osborn decided to return to America and incite the climax of the clone saga when he did.
Okay, I'm rambling... what I meant was, great story!
