Warning! This article contains spoilers for The Amazing Spider-Man #86
Two of the most iconic Marvel Comics characters are unarguably Spider-Man and Wolverine, and now those separate heroes are getting a shared experience as Marvel is giving Spidey his own version of Weapon X. Like Wolverine, who was abducted by and forced to work for the Weapon X Program, Spider-Man is trapped in the clutches of an evil corporation. While Spider-Man volunteered to sign over his heroism for profit, he is quickly learning that the company he's partnered with isn’t as heroic as he previously thought. Now, after learning some things he shouldn’t have about his employer, Spider-Man is being subjected to the same torture Wolverine went through with Weapon X.
In The Amazing Spider-Man #86 by Zeb Wells and Michael Dowling, Ben Reilly, who has taken over as Spider-Man since Peter Parker was put in the hospital, is in a therapy session with the Beyond Corporation’s house psychiatrist. Spider-Man’s doctor tells him that everything he says is between them, with no way of Beyond hearing what they discuss. Unbeknownst to them, Beyond higher-ups are listening in to the whole session and hear something Spider-Man doesn’t intend them to. Spider-Man admits that he has uncovered some dark secrets about the Beyond Corporation and he doesn’t know how to process the revelation. Before he can finish his thought, Spider-Man is shot with poisoned darts and falls unconscious before being taken away by Beyond security.
Ben is strapped to a table by Beyond's in-house scientists with a helmet placed on his head, one that is designed to erase his memories. Wolverine went through the same process when he was held captive by Weapon X. Logan would be brainwashed into conducting missions for the evil organization and then his mind would be wiped after each mission to make room for his next set of orders. This had the added benefit of preventing him from retaining any level of humanity and acting only as a living weapon. While Spider-Man’s situation is less severe in that Beyond only wants to erase one particular memory to keep their dark secrets hidden, the impact the mind-wiping has on Spider-Man could be the same as it had on Wolverine.
While Beyond is inside Spider-Man’s mind, the corporate scientists attempt to only erase the one incriminating memory Spider-Man has of Beyond's secrets. Unfortunately, the process goes awry and the machine starts to delete every single memory in Ben Reilly's mind. While the issue ends before fans can know the impact of this process, Spider-Man could very well find himself in the same situation as Wolverine before Logan joined the X-Men. Wolverine had almost no knowledge of who he was or what had happened in his life prior to escaping from the Weapon X facility before he worked with Charles Xavier to recover those lost memories.
Just as Wolverine’s life was stolen from him by Weapon X after the organization wiped his mind of his memories, it seems as though Spider-Man will now experience the same trauma. Marvel is giving Spider-Man his own version of Weapon X, and he will now seemingly have to go through the same struggles Wolverine suffered on his road to recovering his stolen sense of self.