Revisiting the Clone Saga for its 25th Anniversary

[jackolover]

Until the Clone Saga, Spider-Man's continuity was on the realistic side.
-- No characters came back from death,
-- Nobody said 20 years of stories didn't happen,
-- Stories progressed organically, logically, coherently. There was growth and progression.

The Clone Saga destroyed that forever.

That is it's chief lasting important contribution. It took everything that made Spider-Man special, which still distinguished it among other comics in Marvel and DC, and threw it into the trash. The Clone Saga made Spider-Man like any other superhero comic.

Pity-driven think-pieces reconstructing the Clone Saga need to address that and own up to that before anything else. I am glad that Tom Defalco at least in this article is pushing back on this nostalgia.

Writers like Kavanagh especially should...well, take some responsibility for that. Instead, there's blame passed around at management and others, and never to himself. Kavanagh blathers again about how hard he found it to write the marriage, which I would buy if there was ever a moment he proved capable of writing a decent Spider-Man comic, married or unmarried based on his published stuff.

I don’t see the Clone Saga that way. I hadn’t read any Marvel comics since 1969, until the Clone Saga had already started. I found it intriguing and I was immersed in it the whole time. I never understood why readers saw the CS as disrupting the Spider-Man ethos. I never saw it. I enjoyed CS, and went and got all the back-issues so I didn’t miss any of it. The Ben Reilly stuff was great, because you had to switch between two different characters, and the differences made them both interesting subjects of research. You had two guys that look alike, and they behave in completely different ways.

[deadboy80]

Is the clone saga a perfect story...no. However it was a lot of fun. Lots of twists and turns. I loved Ben, always will. I wish they had not killed him then, but kept him as the brother figure he developed into. On this point they should have kept baby may as well. It has been my favorite spider tale.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I don’t see the Clone Saga that way. I hadn’t read any Marvel comics since 1969, until the Clone Saga had already started.

Well it's possible with the internet to actually track and look at the continuity, different runs and so on, and identify and track patterns. You can do it at a quicker pace too then when comics came out once a month and information was pretty inaccessible and selective. These patterns might not have been apparent in the period of monthly comics and hard to find back-issues as well as the heavy grapevine and rumor that cluttered about.

If you do that, then The Clone Saga is undoubtedly the point where Spider-Man's continuity lost its integrity. That much is an objective fact. Whether it's still worth something, or enjoyable is another thing. You know, "Yes, and...". The Yes part is the Clone Saga destroyed realism...the "and" part is whatever you want to make of it.

[Lee]

If you do that, then The Clone Saga is undoubtedly the point where Spider-Man's continuity lost its integrity. That much is an objective fact.

No it isn't. You're just treating your opinions as though they're the objective truth.

[Spiderfang]

I'm planning on reading it again along with classic 2029, I know there's a lot that could be cut from the Clone Saga but it provided entertainment for the time. Ben is till my favorite creation from this era (despite originally/chronologically being conceived in the 70's "original clone saga"), and admittedly Kaine did not grow on me yet, though I remember him terrifying me as a kid. The various and seemingly random crossover/guest appearances were wild and varied, and both served to spice up the story and confuse the reader.

EDIT: I just wanted to tack on that while as a kid in the 90's I didn't understand all of the dialogue in the CL saga chapters I picked up from various nerd venues (MediaPlay), I did enjoy reading them purely out a love for Spider-Man, which itself was almost a kind of feeling of solidarity (for lack of a better word) or weird sense of duty. I realize that twenty years and on, the Clone Saga hasn't aged the best out of all of the Spider stories out there, but I won't have my opinion for the series trivialized to "nostalgia", If it was pure childhood memories I would have dropped it upon my second re-read 2 years ago. People who are genuine fans of Spider-Man, Ben Reilly and maybe the Clone Saga don't keep reading it for the memberberries, they read it because they like it. Childhood me on the other hand read it because liking Spider-Man and comics in general was in-style at the time, and me and my friends would read the issues (Clone Saga was at the forefront at the time) and then discuss the issues either over the phone or in person, but I also recall all of us being obsessed with the animated Spider-Man show as well so if nostalgia has anything to do with it I would argue we were all nostalgic for Spider-Man himself rather than the saga; learned behavior from parents, cousins, older siblings who may have had Spider-Man posters, comics, and related memorabilia that we thought were cool so we imitated their interests to be more like them or to seem more adult or because we needed a hobby/role model and Spidey fit that mold. My opinion is that while the clone saga had its ups and downs, and hasn't quite transitioned well into modern times (but really has?) I can say that I like the saga, and I'm grateful for all of the characterization it gave to my second favorite spidey of all-time.

[xpyred]

I know there's a lot that could be cut from the Clone Saga but it provided entertainment for the time.

I've probably said it a dozen times here but I still think the first half the saga was great up until Maximum Clonage. Maximum Clonage was awful. Exiled and Greatest Responsibility were not bad either. I wasn't a fan of the brief 2 issue renaming of the titles. Those stories didn't seem to really do much for Ben at all. I am curious though; what stories would you guys have omitted completely or tweaked as far as the whole Clone Saga goes?

[bob.schoonover]

I've probably said it a dozen times here but I still think the first half the saga was great up until Maximum Clonage. Maximum Clonage was awful. Exiled and Greatest Responsibility were not bad either. I wasn't a fan of the brief 2 issue renaming of the titles. Those stories didn't seem to really do much for Ben at all. I am curious though; what stories would you guys have omitted completely or tweaked as far as the whole Clone Saga goes?

Revelations. I hate everything about it - Norman being behind it all (I don't mind him returning from the dead necessarily, but I hate people w/o a cosmic cube or infinity gauntlet being functionally omniscient), Mayday being taken, Ben dying, the inanity of Norman's plot, etc. If I'm going through w/an ax instead of a scalpel, I'd cut out a lot of the the stuff in the latter half that was part of the spinning wheels of no direction. But Revelations, specifically, offends me as the culmination of all that nonsense, direction changing, and "throw our hands in the air and figure out the mystery next month" attitude.

In the tweaking category, I'd have kept Traveller and Scrier w/their initial situations instead of a crazy guy and a cultist working for Norman, respectively.

I liked everything up to Clonage (and even that was big and dumb in a mostly fun way), I liked Pete and MJ getting to ride off into the sunset happy (of course that could never stick forever), I liked Ben running around on his own trying to figure everything out, The Lost Years, etc. Heck, I really would have been okay w/Ben sticking around forever as the one true Spider-man (don't care who the clone is, just that Pete retired and Ben took over).

[Nathan84]

Uh, Maximum Clonage was really bad. Only the cover for Amazing Spider-Man 404 was AMAZING. And that´s it.
Ben was great, Kaine as well. Spidercide..had some potential. Like the Good, the Bad and the Evil. Did not care for Judas or the Scrier. They were weird. Jackal needs a make over. He could be a great villain. Like this, he is a stupid knock off of Joker. Only without the charisma.

[Mistah K88]

You know, I often wonder why when Spider-Man adaptations tend to steer clear of this story line despite using elements of it. You would think that something like this would be ripe for an adaptation to iron out the kinks (This Gwen is a clone, No she's a genetically modified lady named Joyce Delaney, JUST KIDDING she IS a clone).

Uh, Maximum Clonage was really bad. Only the cover for Amazing Spider-Man 404 was AMAZING. And that´s it.
Ben was great, Kaine as well. Spidercide..had some potential. Like the Good, the Bad and the Evil. Did not care for Judas or the Scrier. They were weird. Jackal needs a make over. He could be a great villain. Like this, he is a stupid knock off of Joker. Only without the charisma.

Jackal is one of those characters they didn't know WHAT to do with design wise. I don't know what's worse, the original or the 90's redesign.

[Huntsman Spider]

You know, I often wonder why when Spider-Man adaptations tend to steer clear of this story line despite using elements of it. You would think that something like this would be ripe for an adaptation to iron out the kinks (This Gwen is a clone, No she's a genetically modified lady named Joyce Delaney, JUST KIDDING she IS a clone).



Jackal is one of those characters they didn't know WHAT to do with design wise. I don't know what's worse, the original or the 90's redesign.

And the one great, or at least decent, design he had turned out to not even be Miles Warren, but Ben Reilly after a psychotic break from being killed and resurrected 27 times by Warren.

[Nathan84]

And the one great, or at least decent, design he had turned out to not even be Miles Warren, but Ben Reilly after a psychotic break from being killed and resurrected 27 times by Warren.

Yeah, Reilly looked cool as the new Jackal.

Where is Miles Warren anyways? Has been a while...

[Pattern_Maker]

Where is Miles Warren anyways? Has been a while...

He was pursuing Spider-Gwen in Seanan Mcguire's Ghost-Spider series. Now Miles Warren is on Earth-65 and with Ghost-Spider canceled we'll have to wait for Nick Spencer or another writer to use him again.

[NC_Yankee]

Until the Clone Saga, Spider-Man's continuity was on the realistic side.
-- No characters came back from death,
-- Nobody said 20 years of stories didn't happen,
-- Stories progressed organically, logically, coherently. There was growth and progression.

The Clone Saga destroyed that forever.

That is it's chief lasting important contribution. It took everything that made Spider-Man special, which still distinguished it among other comics in Marvel and DC, and threw it into the trash. The Clone Saga made Spider-Man like any other superhero comic.

Pity-driven think-pieces reconstructing the Clone Saga need to address that and own up to that before anything else. I am glad that Tom Defalco at least in this article is pushing back on this nostalgia.

Writers like Kavanagh especially should...well, take some responsibility for that. Instead, there's blame passed around at management and others, and never to himself. Kavanagh blathers again about how hard he found it to write the marriage, which I would buy if there was ever a moment he proved capab
le of writing a decent Spider-Man comic, married or unmarried based on his published stuff.

Clone Saga is the “Plan 9 From Outer Space of Spider-Man. There are comics that suck more ( see OMD/BND), but it lives on in infamy. I really despise Jackal as a character and along with Silk the only two I flat out hate of Spider-Man characters. What do I hate about that series more then anything else? Marvel refuses to admit it sucks ( despite the fact it almost bankrupted them). Even today they used Jackal in Ghost Spider Gwen. What should they do with the story? Treat it like The Other and ( especially) Year One and erase it as best as they can. How? Simply do not use Jackal or Clones in Spider-Man anymore.

[Huntsman Spider]

Yeah, Reilly looked cool as the new Jackal.

Where is Miles Warren anyways? Has been a while...

He was pursuing Spider-Gwen in Seanan Mcguire's Ghost-Spider series. Now Miles Warren is on Earth-65 and with Ghost-Spider canceled we'll have to wait for Nick Spencer or another writer to use him again.

And there was a bit in the briefly relaunched Marvel Team-Up last year where Jackal tried to steal a device invented by a former college classmate of Peter's that could store and back up memories in a digital cloud and accidentally caused Peter to switch bodies with Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel. Fun times.

[kingaliencracker]

The Clone Saga was the culmination of a lot of bad editorial decisions over several years with regards to Spider-Man, motivated by a "getting back to the basics" approach but pushed as a clear money-grab to capitalize on all the other character events going on around that time. Either you believe Marvel was simply doing a quick story to create a new Spider-character in Ben Reilly or they were trying to replace current Peter Parker with a new-old Peter Parker that didn't carry with him the "baggage" of the marriage. Either way it was never going to work unless Marvel committed to the idea that new-old Peter was the real Peter Parker and presented him as such, but that's not what happened. Instead they made him blonde, called him "Ben Reilly", and took all the amazing (no pun intended) supporting characters away in the process.

I can look back more fondly on the actual saga itself now because of the benefit of hindsight and that it was such a crazy soap opera. But it was doomed to failure once it became clear no one really knew what to do with Ben & Peter once the latter was revealed (erroneously as it was later written) as the clone. And no, Norman Osborn did not work as the mastermind behind everything.

For those that are interested and have a ton of time on their hands, here's a link to some amazing insight on the behind-the-scenes of the Clone Saga. It's heavy reading but definitely worth the time - I even go back every few years or so to re-read it:

http://lifeofreillyarchives.blogspot.com/2008/03/