Rating: *** 1/2*

Part one of the “Who was Ben Reilly” story arc left me a bit disappointed two weeks ago.  This week, the story continues and picks up right where we left off.  This issue was a much better read as there wasn’t as much silliness here in this issue than there was in the last.  For whatever reason the silliness annoyed me and here we have some serious action with a sprinkling of the Spider-Man wit mixed in. 

When we last saw Spider-Man, he was fighting Kaine at Raptor’s abandoned hide out.  Spider-Man wants to know the connection as to why Kaine has showed up at the same time Raptor has shown up thinking Peter is really Ben Reilly.  Kaine reveals to Spider-Man that he is not here to fight him, but is instead looking for Raptor aka Damon Ryder as he maybe the only man who can stop his cellular degeneration. 

Like the previous issue of Amazing Spider-Man, we flashback to the days before Ryder became the Raptor and he was simply a scientist with his lab assistant Ben Reilly.  Ryder was working on finding out the evolutionary connections between man and dinosaurs.  He decided to test his experiments on himself.  Ben of course finds out and decides to get Ryder some help.

Back in the present, not only does Kaine escape from Spider-Man, but Screwball decides to call out Spider-Man via the Internet.  She wants to stay in business with her website and since she gets the most hits when she battles Spider-Man she wants to go another round.  Its not easy being Spider-Man.

Spider-Man changes out of his costume and returns to his civilian life as Peter Parker.  In the last issue we saw that Peter’s roommate Michelle was paid a visit by Ryder; leaving one to think that he was going to hurt her.  Thankfully no, but Ryder does leave Peter a “present” in the form of burnt teddy bear.  We flashback to the past where Ben arrives at the lab with an EMT to help assist him in taking care of Ryder - only Ryder is missing.  Ben heads to Ryder’s house to see if he’s there.  Ben is greeted by Ryder’s wife who says he’s here.  We see Ryder’s children playing on the floor and we see that his son has the same teddy bear.

We flash forward to the present with Peter donning his Spider-Man costume and heading over to Aunt May’s house.  He changes back to his street clothes and enters the house only to discover that Harry Osborn and his cousins the Reillys are held captive by Raptor. Everyone is confused as to why Raptor is holding them captive.  Raptor challenges Peter to tell them who he really is and in typical comic book cliffhanger fashion, Peter begins to lift his shirt to reveal his costume underneath.  He says to himself that if he has to, he will reveal his secret identity in order to save Harry and the Reillys.  We end there.

Do I think Peter will reveal his identity?  No.  I think Kaine will come in and save the day so to speak and battle Raptor while Peter gets everyone to safety and then change to Spider-Man in order to join the battle.  The artwork is a minus here as again I wish they went with a different artist instead of the Marco Checchetto, Luke Ross, and Rick Magyar combination.  However, it’s still good enough and it’s not a huge drawback.  I do like Screwball.  I was shocked to see her back so soon.  I could see her as an interesting character for Spider-Man to face off against.  Maybe a story could be done where she discovers Spider-Man’s identity and she decides to blackmail him by threatening to reveal his secret identity via the Internet.  A lot of possibilities with her.

Marc Guggenheim is a very good writer.  Not sure if I mentioned this, but I wish Marvel would drop the rotating creative teams and make Amazing Spider-Man a monthly again with Guggenheim at the helm.  Looking forward to the rest of story.  Pick this one up.