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

[Revolutionary_Jack]

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.

The major lasting contribution of the Clone Saga was Norman's resurrection, which was something nobody behind that wanted because, to quote Glenn Greenberg, it would break continuity and disrespect a classic story.That sentiment always fills with outright contempt and disdain for the entire Clone Saga group. These guys misread a classic story (The First Clone Saga) were actively s--ting on 20 years of continuity in their conjob but suddenly Norman comes back to clean their messes and they all start bleating about "disrespecting a classic story". The hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness is something there.

I actually think that bringing Norman back was a good idea but it could have been executed better and could ideally have been done without the Clone Saga. And certainly as soon as Goblin came back we had great stories like Revenge of the Green Goblin, A Death in the Family, The Pulse, and so on.

[Scott Taylor]

The major lasting contribution of the Clone Saga was Norman's resurrection, which was something nobody behind that wanted because, to quote Glenn Greenberg, it would break continuity and disrespect a classic story.That sentiment always fills with outright contempt and disdain for the entire Clone Saga group. These guys misread a classic story (The First Clone Saga) were actively s--ting on 20 years of continuity in their conjob but suddenly Norman comes back to clean their messes and they all start bleating about "disrespecting a classic story". The hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness is something there.

I actually think that bringing Norman back was a good idea but it could have been executed better and could ideally have been done without the Clone Saga. And certainly as soon as Goblin came back we had great stories like Revenge of the Green Goblin, A Death in the Family, The Pulse, and so on.

For me, Norman's return is a classic case of the end (almost) justifying the means. In my heart I probably wish he were still dead, as a kind of symmetry to Gwen still being dead. But his return has at times been pretty interesting.

Plus I like Ben Reilly and Kaine.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

For me, Norman's return is a classic case of the end (almost) justifying the means. In my heart I probably wish he were still dead, as a kind of symmetry to Gwen still being dead. But his return has at times been pretty interesting.

I think it's been entirely interesting. Spider-Man's corner feels menacing and threatening with Norman back, unrepentant, remorseless, and more dangerous than before.

But again the fact that you get good stories doesn't justify the circumstances that led that to come in. "Turning a sow's ear into a silk purse" is a credit to the laborer and not the supplier. I think a lot of people loved JMS' run and the way he wrote Aunt May. The reason he could do that was the undoing of May's death by Byrne-Harras-Mackie. But the insulting manner in which the latter did it, in no way allows them to take credit for what JMS did with their concept. Especially since his portrayal of May was closer to ASM #400 than what came before.

I think Norman could have been resurrected in a good story without connection to the Clone Saga. The manner of Norman's resurrection (the Goblin serum giving him a healing factor) doesn't contradict established lore, and healing factors play fair with the rules of the Spider-Man brand of science-fiction. Why Norman would spend years in Europe hiding from the world and doing weird conspiracy stuff and so on makes less sense but a decent writer working with that concept could have improved on that...Norman has amnesia, Norman's been kidnapped by government agents and so on.

[Mister Mets]

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

To be clear, my main argument was that it would be a different story.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

To be clear, my main argument was that it would be a different story.

Superior Spider-Man is merely KLH with padding and a villain who doesn't entirely fit the concept.

So the idea that Superior Spider-Man could be done only with a single Spider-Man is redundant, because the original plot it stole its concept from was done, and done far better, with a married Spider-Man, and in a 6 issue series moreover rather than a 30 issues overlong mess that still ended anti-climactically and in a rushed half-assed way.

Superior Spider-Man and for that matter Kraven's Last Hunt only work with a Spider-Man who is A) Older, B) Achieved (i.e. has some amount of fame and reputation of a superhero with a lot of successes). That's why the cartoon adaptation that's upcoming is going to be a failure because it doesn't have the older achieved Spider-Man you need to make that concept work. Aside from that the concept can more or less work with a single/married Peter. You will need some tweaking here and there which is the case anyway. In KLH, Mary Jane immediately realized that Kraven-Spider-Man was a fraud...in Superior it took her several more issues to do that. In KLH, MJ is written in-character, in Superior she isn't. So in the former she serves as a rock and source of strength for Peter and is loyal to Spider-Man, in Superior, she indulges in victim blaming and cuts herself off Peter anyway.

I'll also add that Peter having his identity stolen and hijacked was also done by Bendis in his Chameleon Twins storyline in Ultimate Comics Spider-Man which ran just a few years before Superior. And in both stories it worked better because the concept of hijacking Peter's identity and the motivations for doing so make sense with Kraven and Chameleon but doesn't in the case of Otto. Bendis did with Post-Ultimatum Peter...so Ultimate Spider-Man had a reputation, renown, and exprience, and some amount of fame as well. So it worked well there.

[Lee]

Superior Spider-Man is merely KLH with padding and a villain who doesn't entirely fit the concept.

A very loose concept is not a story. By that logic, practically all Spider-Man stories are the same. Villain commits crime, Spider-Man stops them.

Although it could be argued that every thread on this forum ends up being the same story.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

A very loose concept is not a story. By that logic, practically all Spider-Man stories are the same. Villain commits crime, Spider-Man stops them.

A villain kills the hero and then takes over the Spider-Man identity and outright calling himself “superior” while becoming a dark antihero who crosses boundaries isn’t a loose concept it’s intentionally borrowing the template and reconfiguring it while extending it far beyond normal length.

Superior Spider-Man is quite obviously inspired and derived from KLH.

[AlexCampy89]

Personally I liked Superior Spider-Man, and excluding few skin deep details, there are almost no connections with KLH

Kraven "becoming" Spider-Man is more a symbolic thing. Kraven kills himself because old age is taking its toll on his body and mind. In the end Kraven realizes that he lost his will to live, that his main reason to live was useless. He became Spider-Man and in his own twisted way in his own mind he managed to accomplish what Spider-Man did. But in the end the effort was not worth the result, Kraven was still his old self. So he killed himself having no other reason to exist.

Doctor Octopus, on the other hand, had tried to leave his mark on the world at least a couple of times, but failed, Ends of the Earth being the worst offender to his ego.
Octopus felt he needed more time and he needed a better body. Octopus actually wanted to prove himself a better Spider-Man and A BETTER PETER PARKER.

Octopus funded the Parker Industries, Peter just took advantage of it. Octopus messed Peter's relationships with Black Cat and MJ, but gave him Anna Maria Marconi.
Superior Spider-Man managed to face some top rankings villains with better efficiency than Peter, because he fought with no morals holding him down. Yeah, in the end the real Peter is needed to save AMM, but that's because he is better at saving people, despite being an inferior fighter. So Peter took over Octopus not because he is a better Spider-Man, but because he is a better person. For the first time Spidey used all of his powers and "assholeness" just to beat the **** out of people. Yeah, it felt redundant because of Kaine/Scarlet Spider, who is the same concept, kinda, but I see no great resemblance between Kraven's last hunt, which is more subtle and metaphorical, and Superior, which is a main slice of continuity in itself.
If I have to make a guess, Superior is more reminiscing of the 90s Clone Saga than KLH, imo.
Kraven was never intended as a serious replacement of Peter, Ben Reilly/Octopus were.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Kraven "becoming" Spider-Man is more a symbolic thing.

Of course it is. Kraven openly tells you why it's so. As a hunter, any prey he kills he stuffs, he skins, and turns to rugs. By killing prey, the hunter absorbs the animal's totem. So if he defeats Spider-Man he gets to wear Spider-Man's pelt (i.e. his costume) and so on, thereby absorbing and embodying the totem of Spider-Man.

And of course, the symbolism is also there in Superior. The entire concept is founded on the misconception that Otto is somehow an embodiment of a dark version of Peter or an older version of him, all based on backstory created in the '90s.

Kraven kills himself because old age is taking its toll on his body and mind.

Kraven isn't old in KLH. He's in his physical prime and capacity. He kills himself because he's a suicidal nutcase who wants to go out on an all-time high.

He became Spider-Man and in his own twisted way in his own mind he managed to accomplish what Spider-Man did. But in the end the effort was not worth the result, Kraven was still his old self. So he killed himself having no other reason to exist.

Kraven killed himself because he realized that Spider-Man's defined by his humanity, his vulnerability, and compassion and not the animalistic brute that Kraven obsessed over. Kraven can't comprehend that Spider-Man's a man deep down. All Kraven cares about is the totem Spider-Man embodies, i.e. the version of Spider-Man that exists when he puts on that costume.

Octopus actually wanted to prove himself a better Spider-Man

Which was also Kraven's goal. He tells Spider-Man much that by defeating Spider-Man and capturing Vermin on his own, Kraven is the "superior", the exact word was used in KLH multiple times. Superior Spider-Man is longer and more padded than KLH. KLH is very focused, tight, eyes-on-the-prize in everything it does. Superior Spider-Man is a padded mess that makes it about the entire supporting cast in the scattershot scatterbrained BND style. Because of its digressive nature, it's easy to mistake and confuse Superior as trying to say something big. But at the end of the day it's just a gimmick and stunt with nothing to say and nothing valuable to take home.

At it's core, KLH is a tragedy, and Superior Spider-Man is a parody/satire. The latter is a (failed, unfunny) parody of Peter Parker while the former is a tribute to him, so on that level it's different but essentially Superior is just a redone and padded take on KLH.

[AlexCampy89]

Of course KLH is the better story overall, I am not denying it, but it had no long lasting effect on the main continuity.

superior, on the other hand, was great for the reasons bove. It shook Peter's life in a meaningful way. The worldwide/Parker Industries angle was low as hell, buy Superior had the balls of shaking things up, exactly what Amazing needed after the whole OMD/BND fiasco.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Of course KLH is the better story overall, I am not denying it, but it had no long lasting effect on the main continuity.

Kraven was dead and gone for 21-22 years. 1 year longer than Osborn’s time AWOL. The time Peter was missing was a plot point that factored in Kaine’s first stories. So it had a pretty big impact on the continuity.

superior, on the other hand, was great for the reasons bove. It shook Peter's life in a meaningful way. The worldwide/Parker Industries angle was low as hell, buy Superior had the balls of shaking things up, exactly what Amazing needed after the whole OMD/BND fiasco.

Worldwide is dead and gone, superior trash second volume is ending soon. Eventually octopus will be the villain he was once again. Peter’s legacy is Miles. So I don’t see how Superior made any lasting change.

[Lee]

A villain kills the hero and then takes over the Spider-Man identity and outright calling himself “superior” while becoming a dark antihero who crosses boundaries isn’t a loose concept it’s intentionally borrowing the template and reconfiguring it while extending it far beyond normal length.

Superior Spider-Man is quite obviously inspired and derived from KLH.

They're different stories.

[Hybrid]

Overall, OMD. However, the Clone Saga is something also worthy of its hate. Sins Past, while terrible, is something that I can more easily ignore.

One More Day. It's so bad, it's almost astonishing, in that it fails at every level. It's straight-up character assassination for everyone involved, and nothing more than a vehicle for an editor with an agenda. It's bad for Peter, MJ, it makes the entire Marvel Universe look ridiculously incompetent (the super-geniuses, wizards, and people who's power is the ability to heal can't treat a simple bullet wound?), and hell, it even ruined Mephisto. Before this, Mephisto was someone people actually took seriously and had a following for being the awesomely evil stand-in for Satan. Now he's just the guy who ruins marriages because he has nothing better to do. What makes it the worst is that, 12 years later, we're still being affected by it. The story hasn't been completely undone. It should be undone, but Marvel is just too proud to do it, even though the company and adaptations elsewhere have even made fun of it.

Sins Past is disgusting and it tarnished a piece of history. I try not to think about it. However, the effects aren't as wide-reaching, Spidey was still mostly intact, and things continued despite this. If I don't think too much about it, I can still appreciate JMS' run, and the mythos as whole.

Clone Saga is a mixed bag leaning heavily to negative. Overall, I'd say it's terrible and a blight on Marvel Comics history, but it's the victim of a greedy marketing team taking over. It had some cool ideas, there were some good stories within it, and it had some positive effects on the MU afterwards by giving us Ben Reilly and Kaine, and though the writing that retconned Norman Osborn to have survived was crappy, there were still good stories involving Osborn that came afterwards, which in and of itself is a mixed bag. However, it needs to be said that it destroyed the logic and identity of Spider-Man's corner and that is something we can't forgive it for.

It's actually important for the shared universe that the various settings have their own niche, their own way of doing things, so that each one feels like a true entity and not all the same. That's how a shared universe works, and how it's interesting. Each part has a "hat", if you will, that actually makes them worth reading.

Which brings me to...

• Avengers is defined by epic stories involving many characters and elements drawing from different sources.
• Doctor Strange is defined by its psychedelic and sometimes horror-esque lovecraftian fantasy.
• X-Men is defined by soap opera-like plots, use of social commentary, and science fiction with occasional magic.
• Daredevil is defined by the focus the grim and gritty, down and dirty, noir-esque stories with slight mysticism.
• Fantastic Four is defined by being adventure stories with themes of family, extensive worldbuilding, and the call of something greater.
• Hulk is defined by his constant struggle both internally with himself, and externally with the outside world.

You get the point.

Spider-Man is defined by being the corner where realism reigns; Spidey struggles with the mundane, characters develop, dead is dead, and the status quo changes have actual and meaningful consequences. One may not like it, but it's understood and agreed that they shouldn't just throw it all away. There was a definite science-fiction element, but it was perceived through the eyes of the mundane, and nowhere near as embraced to a fantastical degree of the other titles.

Clone Saga ruined that, and nothing was ever the same. The heavy use of retcons, characters coming back in unrecognizable form, trying to play Peter Parker as being a clone (which would ruin 20 years of good continuity), and characters coming back to life by pretending they never died, plus the heavy use of fantastic sci-fi and the arcane, just spits on what Spider-Man is supposed to be.

For that, I'd rank this as the worst if not for the few redeeming elements, and the fact for as bad as Clone Saga is, OMD manages to be even worse by way of a magical retcon with the devil.

[boots]

clone saga is the only one of the three that has anything close to a fan base

[Hybrid]

clone saga is the only one of the three that has anything close to a fan base

In fairness, that's only because it was so massive that it housed some good stories and ideas in the mountain of **** that comprises it, and was a victim of internal politics and greed (this being a time when bankruptcy drew nearer by the day). I'd say 5% of the Clone Saga was good, and theoretically you could make a good movie by adapting different elements of it and removing everything bad, while going in a different direction similar to Civil War. Sins Past and OMD are small stories that only exist to make things worse, and have nothing that could be considered "good" by virtue of there not being enough time for anything good to come of it.