michaelminneboo asked:

Hi Tom. Recently I've been reading The Complete Ben Reilly Epic from the 1990s. I was wondering the following: A) Was it Marvel's intention to replace Peter Parker as Spider-Man by Reilly permanently, but did you guys change your minds halfway the story when sales started to drop drastically because fans didn't like it and then decided to reinstated Parker as the one and only Webhead? B) It was Marvel's intention to return to Parker as Spidey eventually from the get go? Thanks!

brevoortformspring answered:

Not exactly either. But it was more A, the intention of the story was to replace Peter with Ben permanently. But even once we’d gotten up to releasing the issues with the revelation in them, enough personnel had changed behind the scenes that people were already having second thoughts and backtracking, even before there was any reaction. And sales didn’t crater on the Spidey books at that point, anything but–which is one of the reasons why there was such pressure to keep that story going.