Time for a real question: Sins' Past, Clone Saga, or One More Day

[RD155]

I thought Peter going back in time to earlier in the JMS run was a good dramatic moment. The showdown with Iron Man in the first issue was satisfying, and I liked the moment when Jarvis pays for May's medical expenses, and we see how much it hurts him to see her like that.

One More Day isn't just a story where Peter and MJ sell their marriage to Mephisto. That's the conclusion to a larger story, which actually may be one of the problems with it (It might be more satisfying if it was entirely about Peter, MJ and Mephisto.)

Thanks for elaborating. To me..... There was plenty wrong about what was going on during this story but one thing that always seemed ridiculously irresponsible to me was the deal with Mephisto. You had a company in Marvel who at one point had an issue with something as silly as characters smoking. Yet making a deal with the devil never crossed their minds as ridiculous from a responsibility and characterization standpoint? The reasoning as to why the comics couldn’t have a married Spider-Man was always faulty and weak on their end. I’m not even disputing if the character should be married or not. There reasoning and justification behind it as well as consistently pretty much stating that marriages limits people was and is still backwards. What part other then having different girlfriends limited the essence of the character?

It’s interesting how everything comes full circle though because it seems that everywhere you turn regardless of the media platform....there are Peter and MJ together. Marvel tried to bury that poor girl lol but the red head just keeps kicking.

[Lee]

Sins Past. It was tacky, the flashbacks and reveals didn't make sense in the continuity, it greatly changed the context of "The Night Gwen Stacy Died", it made Gwen look bad, it made MJ look bad, it made Norman Osborn a more ridiculous character, the accelerated aging ninja super villain children were hokey, the Grey Goblin was dumb.

Thanks for elaborating. To me..... There was plenty wrong about what was going on during this story but one thing that always seemed ridiculously irresponsible to me was the deal with Mephisto. You had a company in Marvel who at one point had an issue with something as silly as characters smoking. Yet making a deal with the devil never crossed their minds as ridiculous from a responsibility and characterization standpoint?

Smoking is an imitable act that gives people cancer, making a deal with Mephisto isn't.

[HypnoHustler]

I agree with consensus here that OMD is worst by a mile. I don’t even have to go into why, as we all know why. Its shadow hangs over the books to this day.

Sins Past is also very bad, but it’s mostly ignored now and had no real lasting ramifications on the books, so it’s a distant second. It did some bad things with Gwen’s character, but it can be easily ignored.

Maybe because I was 12-14 when it came out, but I have a soft spot for the 90s clone saga. It’s hard to say a 2 year storyline that ran through hundreds of issues from five different series (plus many minis) is definitively good or bad, because there were really bad parts (Peter backhanding MJ, Maximum Clonage, that whole Scarlet Spider virtual reality storyline) and some pretty great parts (Lost Years, ASM#400, Redemption, Blood Brothers, Revelations). Plus, like others have said it gave us Ben and Kaine. I reread the entirety of the clone saga a few years ago when Ben came back in ‘Dead No More’ (which is a very bad story incidentally) and some parts made me roll my eyes at the silliness, but overall it was a fun read. If you have like 2 weeks to spare, and a lot of money you don’t mind blowing on those 11 or 12 Epic collections covering it, then I recommend everyone give it a reread

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Maybe because I was 12-14 when it came out, but I have a soft spot for the 90s clone saga. It’s hard to say a 2 year storyline that ran through hundreds of issues from five different series (plus many minis) is definitively good or bad, because there were really bad parts (Peter backhanding MJ, Maximum Clonage, that whole Scarlet Spider virtual reality storyline) and some pretty great parts (Lost Years, ASM#400, Redemption, Blood Brothers, Revelations). Plus, like others have said it gave us Ben and Kaine. I reread the entirety of the clone saga a few years ago when Ben came back in ‘Dead No More’ (which is a very bad story incidentally) and some parts made me roll my eyes at the silliness, but overall it was a fun read. If you have like 2 weeks to spare, and a lot of money you don’t mind blowing on those 11 or 12 Epic collections covering it, then I recommend everyone give it a reread

The Clone Saga had moments where it looked like it might be worthwhile. And yeah #400 is great. The Clone Saga and Sins' Past have stuff in common in that the writers behind both stories went in thinking the story might be good and interesting and it just turned into this mess. In the case of the Clone Saga it was an entire group of writers who thought that, while Sins' Past was thought by one guy. OMD is a case of a story that nobody believed was good. Even Quesada doesn't think OMD is defensible on a creative level. He always justified it in corporate terms.

To me OMD is unpardonable for that very reason...the fact that Quesada thought that he didn't need to do a good story and that people would automatically buy in.

So basically OMD is unpardonable, Sins' Past is disappointing (because it came from a talented guy who was in the middle of doing good work before and after), Clone Saga is just this great sadness.

Before the Clone Saga, Spider-Man was a continuity on the realistic side. Dead was dead. No grand retcons. Writers worked in the sandbox and built stuff layer-by-layer rather than manufacturing a new slate that over-rode everything. Spider-Man resisted that stuff longer than others did whether it was the X-Men with Jean Grey's resurrection or in other places. The Clone Saga totally shattered all those norms for good. After that, Spider-Man became just like any other comic book.

[H-E-D]

Ooh, honestly, I'm going to say Sins Past. The thing with OMD is that you can tell it was a story invented purely to get to a new status quo. It's about getting from A to B by any means necessary. Sins Past doesn't have any excuse

[KurtW95]

Sins Past because it was an abomination that ended with a core element of the Stan Lee era being heavily retconned in a disgusting manner.

[Exciter]

Nothing was worse than Sins Past.

[Vortex85]

The Clone Saga and Sins Past don’t bother me. I read them when they came out and kept reading after with no issues. I do remember thinking “wow that’s crazy” when seeing the Gwen/Norman affair but I never got the urge to quit over it.

OMD was the story that made me immediate drop the book after reading for over a decade. I had absolutely no interest in reading the new status quo they were celebrating. I felt the way they got there was disgusting to both Peter and MJ and I just told myself “I’m done with Spidey until this is reversed”. Well, while not reversed, Spencer’s #1 had enough of the spirit of Spider-Man I was looking for to make me start collecting again. But I still do long for OMD to be addressed and resolved sometime in the future.

[NC_Yankee]

The Clone Saga and Sins Past don’t bother me. I read them when they came out and kept reading after with no issues. I do remember thinking “wow that’s crazy” when seeing the Gwen/Norman affair but I never got the urge to quit over it.

OMD was the story that made me immediate drop the book after reading for over a decade. I had absolutely no interest in reading the new status quo they were celebrating. I felt the way they got there was disgusting to both Peter and MJ and I just told myself “I’m done with Spidey until this is reversed”. Well, while not reversed, Spencer’s #1 had enough of the spirit of Spider-Man I was looking for to make me start collecting again. But I still do long for OMD to be addressed and resolved sometime in the future.

I come pretty close to that position ( I just took a little longer: Slott's introduction of Silk and Pete presented as a frat boy finally ended Spider-Man for me until Slott left the book). I really like Spencer's work on Amazing and makes me look forward to Amazing again.

[Celgress]

IMO

Sins Past
OMD
Clone Saga

The only reason I rank OMD lower than Sins Past is that at least OMD setup some great stories (Big Time, Spider-Island, Superior Spider-Man & Spiderverse to name but a few). Could these stories have happened with a married Peter Parker, perhaps? Would the stories have worked as effectively, who knows? Sins Past, on the other hand, contributed nothing of value to Spider-Man or his mythos. It tarnished the memory of a character whose death had arguably the second greatest impact of any death on Peter Parker's development as a hero.

[RD155]

IMO

Sins Past
OMD
Clone Saga

The only reason I rank OMD lower than Sins Past is that at least OMD setup some great stories (Big Time, Spider-Island, Superior Spider-Man & Spiderverse to name but a few). Could these stories have happened with a married Peter Parker, perhaps? Would the stories have worked as effectively, who knows? Sins Past, on the other hand, contributed nothing of value to Spider-Man or his mythos. It tarnished the memory of a character whose death had arguably the second greatest impact of any death on Peter Parker's development as a hero.

That was my main issue with the decision to separate Peter and MJ. The stories could have happened even if they were married. Other then some personal obsessive agenda from Joey Q and company there just never seemed like a logical reason for it. There were literally no stories that couldn’t have worked with me a married Spider-Man.

[TimeCrash]

One More Day for sure, really taught me the evils of editorial. The fact I still buy ASM is quite astonishing, Spencer bringing MJ back as an important part of Peter's life has certainly helped.

[Celgress]

One More Day for sure, really taught me the evils of editorial....

In comic books, editorial interference has a long and sordid history of ruining, or nearly ruining in some case, many a character and/or storyline.

PS One of our mods Mr. Mets claims the stories I outlined, especially Superior, couldn't work with a married Spider-Man whereas I claim they could. He and I have gone back and forth several times regarding the claim. Our little debates inspired me to create a What If? story to prove my point which has become quite successful (if I do say so myself) -

"Another Strand in the Great Web"

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/1281972...-The-Great-Web

[Scott Taylor]

Sins Past is only still canon because of OMD. So OMD takes the blame for itself and for Sins Past.

Therefore the answer is OMD.

Can't go with Clone Saga because it was cleaned up at the end completely and has no significant bearing on continuity or the current status quo.

[Snoop Dogg]

The most good came out of Clone Saga, but it is such a monstrous read. Thinking about actually reading it again makes me wince. When I have to reread other things I don't like, they're usually not taking chunks off my lifespan.