Revisiting the Clone Saga for its 25th Anniversary

[boots]

Well, it was interesting to hear the creative minds give their thoughts on the subject.

i thought so too...i'm actually more interested in the variance of views between the 3 creatives than the views themselves (which are nothing we haven't heard before).

did the clone saga Ruined FOREVER spidey-man? ymmv. for me, it's a non-issue.

[WebLurker]

i thought so too...i'm actually more interested in the variance of views between the 3 creatives than the views themselves (which are nothing we haven't heard before).

did the clone saga Ruined FOREVER spidey-man? ymmv. for me, it's a non-issue.

Yeah, I get that. I mean, I don't anything ever ruined anything forever. There's a difference between "ruined forever" and "I don't like the new direction."

[Revolutionary_Jack]

did the clone saga Ruined FOREVER spidey-man? ymmv. for me, it's a non-issue.

In terms of overall sales and loss of readership it absolutely did ruin Spider-Man in the short term. The Clone Saga's initial sales boom driven by curiosity and interest ended when they told the story they had (i.e. Ben Reilly is the real Peter) and then the story crashed and burned by the end and Spider-Man fell into a slump until JMS arrived.

In the long term, on a creative level it damaged the integrity of the continuity which again we can objectively consider when we see before and after the clone saga.

It's a non-issue for readers who came into comics in a time when large scale retcons, resurrections and so on, are old hat. I am technically a reader in that age gap but I started when that was still only a recent occurrence and there were people around who talked about how this was still a new thing and not always common. Likewise, the JMS era was heralded by many as a return to form after the Clone Saga days and a time when it seemed like Marvel was learning its lesson. Then OMD happened. And I noticed that around the time OMD happened, you had Clone Saga nostalgia really seep in. And some of this was driven by Joe Quesada himself who in interviews started saying that maybe the Clone Saga wasn't bad after all, he said that around the time "The Real Clone Saga" went into print.

In a large sense the nostalgia people have towards the Clone Saga is astroturfed by Marvel. Obviously some people like parts of the Clone Saga, and so on, they like Ben Reilly and Kaine but the way Marvel kept the Clone Saga alive via "The Real Clone Saga" (which was printed in part to co-opt and defuse tension with the marriage fans) and after that, is part of that revisionism. And of course there's the mercantile interest of selling comics and raising value of stuff put out in the 90s. The fact that JMD's Harry Osborn stories in Spectacular Spider-Man isn't in print despite being far superior and far more important than the Clone Saga in terms of adaptations (since those stories inspired and were adapted in Spider-Man 3, while the Clone Saga remains largely absent in any Spider-Man medium) as far as Spider-Man stories in the 90s are concerned. Compare that with the Clone Saga which has an Epic collection in multiple volumes.

We also see this revisionism in how the Clone Saga is discussed. I mean when OMD and other stories happened, they kept saying how they tried to undo the marriage before and they said "The Clone Saga was an attempt to end it" and it was said as if the blame for that was to the marriage for causing it. Rather than itself for telling a bad story.To me it's a bit like that reaction people have towards someone "failing upwards". You know when the white guy who makes numerous screwups keeps getting second chances and promotions because he's white. The Clone Saga failed miserably in its time and it wrecked the continuity but apparently just because it wanted to stick it to the Spider-Marriage, somehow that was absolved even if it was clearly vastly inferior, and sold vastly fewer, comics than the stories that did the marriage straight.

Yeah, I get that. I mean, I don't anything ever ruined anything forever. There's a difference between "ruined forever" and "I don't like the new direction."

I think comics fans don't like the idea of something being "ruined forever". They don't like to think it's possible. And I guess it affects them if the Spider-Man continuity they are reading is "fallen" and somehow lesser. I understand that but I think people are in denial if they don't acknowledge or consider the possibility of it being so. Take Hank Pym. I happen to like the "Hank slaps Janet" saga of Avengers #211-230 and I appreciate where Jim Shooter was going, in terms of the fact that Hank Pym was a hot mess before the story and what Shooter did was define for all times that Hank Pym is the cautionary tale to the Marvel Universe..."you guys can be flawed and have foibles all you want, but you never go full Hank Pym". He has to be the lowest of the low in the hero community so that all the rest can go "At least I'm not him". But it can't be denied that the story did finish Hank Pym forever as a major superhero...to the extent that the Ant-Man movie had his legacy character as the main hero.

Carol Danvers was likewise finished as a superheroine for some thirty years thanks to Avengers #200. She was intended by Lee and Conway to be Marvel's Wonder Woman, and that story, led her to become the "elephant in the room" so that she wasn't Ms. Marvel and became Warbird or Binary, and then an alcoholic and hot mess, until Kelly Sue DeConnick and McKelvie arrived.

Real storytelling values in Spider-Man have been lost thanks to stories like The Clone Saga and OMD. I mean consider the fact that the most influential stories of Spider-Man in the 21st Century are exclusively AU -- USM, Spider-Gwen, Spider-Ham and others like that. A lot of that is inspired by the Clone Saga. Bendis said that part of the reason why USM was greenlit was because Bill Jemas then Marvel president was disappointed by the sales and the state of Marvel Continuity in the late 90s, where Peter was a widower, and he was becoming really poor and the stories were depressing. All of that can be traced to the Clone Saga.

[Prof. Warren]

In terms of overall sales and loss of readership it absolutely did ruin Spider-Man in the short term.

You can't ruin something "in the short term."

Either something is ruined and it stays ruined or you're just talking about a bump in the road. The Clone Saga was a bump in the road.

Comics are a resilient medium. Their ability to constantly course correct means that nothing is ever "ruined." There's always another creative team to step in and take things in a new direction.

In the long term, on a creative level it damaged the integrity of the continuity which again we can objectively consider when we see before and after the clone saga.

Peter is a character who's over fifty years old in our time who, in his fictional life, will never celebrate his thirtieth birthday - even if ASM is still being published in another fifty-plus years.

It was easy for the first couple of decades for Peter and the rest of the Marvel universe to seem as though it was aging in semi-real time and, in turn, the series' continuity was easy to keep relatively clean. To believe that Peter was a real person growing old at an almost believable rate, all it required was a little squinting on the part of the reader.

Once he got into his third decade as a character and beyond, though, the "integrity of the continuity" was always going to start to crack.

Peter's adventures are going to keep growing at the same relentless pace while his forward progression is, some might say, slowed to a trickle but, really, it's completely stopped. He's about 28 now, in universe, and that's where he's going to stay at, give or take a day, into infinity.

So trying to make a case for maintaining the integrity of the continuity, as if that means anything, is a joke. The only integrity that has to be adhered to is that everything that happens in the pages of the books still counts towards Peter's history. Integrity in the sense that there still has to be the same level of quasi-plausibility that managed to exist for a few decades, no. That's been out the window for ages. The Clone Saga can't be blamed for that.

Real storytelling values in Spider-Man have been lost thanks to stories like The Clone Saga and OMD. I mean consider the fact that the most influential stories of Spider-Man in the 21st Century are exclusively AU -- USM, Spider-Gwen, Spider-Ham and others like that. A lot of that is inspired by the Clone Saga. Bendis said that part of the reason why USM was greenlit was because Bill Jemas then Marvel president was disappointed by the sales and the state of Marvel Continuity in the late 90s, where Peter was a widower, and he was becoming really poor and the stories were depressing. All of that can be traced to the Clone Saga.

"Real storytelling values" is a silly term to try to apply to the kind of serialized fiction that Spider-Man represents.

Comics, with their endless narratives and shared universes, play by a different set of rules.

AU stories have less continuity to bear so, of course they're going to be able to evince "real storytelling values" in a way that ASM can't.

Long running titles like ASM still have storytelling values but they also are playing a long game that never ends. That requires a trade-off. You can't tell true self-contained stories with real, permanent consequences. To criticize ASM for lacking those things is to not understand what you're reading in the first place and not getting what the goals of this form of storytelling even is. A book like ASM is a constantly unfolding mythology, a quilt that is forever being added to. That means you can't be precious about it. That means that you have to accept that there is going to be creative lulls, that there will be ebbs and flows, that it will be subject to storytelling trends - both good and bad - that run through various eras. That means it's never "ruined" but instead always changing, always evolving.

Spider-Man in its true, pure form ended when Ditko left the book. As soon as Romita Sr took over, the idiosyncratic personality that ASM had under Ditko was gone for good and was replaced by a slicker, sleeker, more mainstream, less complicated "product." Past Ditko, you have to accept that Spider-Man was no longer a individual piece of art, imbued with an unique sensibility, but a creation that was going to be forever handed over to other writers and artists. Some will carry that baton with more success than others but that's just the nature of the beast. You have to look at each era for what it is and understand that they are all just chapters in a book that will never be closed. Individual readers can decide to stop reading at whatever point the narrative stops appealing to them but new stories are always going to be there for those who want to know what's next and those who decide to jump back in.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

You can't ruin something "in the short term."

Yes you can. Damage caused by fire in a building and so on can be doused, repaired and fixed, but in the period between that, your house is definitely ruined. In Roger Stern's Avengers story Under Siege, the entire Avengers Mansion gets destroyed and razed to the ground, becoming a ruin. It didn't stay that way but it was definitely ruined.

The Clone Saga was a bump in the road.

A bump in the road whose negative consequences lasted from 1994-2000. That's six years, a huge chunk in any period of comics continuity and certainly shocking and exceptional for a title as consistent as ASM was previously. Is Avengers #200 a "bump in the road" for Carol Danvers because that lasted for 30 years in terms of consequences.

Comics are a resilient medium. Their ability to constantly course correct means that nothing is ever "ruined."

Some things can't be course-corrected. Hawkman for instance is a character that's virtually unusable due to the multiple occasions his continuity is damaged.

And you know the Clone Saga itself is a story that can't be course-corrected since whole running subplots and character beats from that story have never been mentioned or addressed. This includes - Peter slapping MJ while she's pregnant, it includes Peter taking Jackal's hand and agreeing to his plot to kill all humans and replace them with clones, it also includes the miscarriage/death/kidnapping of the Parkers' child. Addressing even one of those events will utterly transform the character and story, and for the worse, in the continuity succeeding that. Which is why it's buried and never referred to again.

Peter is a character who's over fifty years old in our time who, in his fictional life, will never celebrate his thirtieth birthday - even if ASM is still being published in another fifty-plus years.

Not really what we are discussing here.

It was easy for the first couple of decades for Peter and the rest of the Marvel universe to seem as though it was aging in semi-real time and, in turn, the series' continuity was easy to keep relatively clean. To believe that Peter was a real person growing old at an almost believable rate, all it required was a little squinting on the part of the reader.

Peter graduated high school in Issue #28 and spent his 20s for two decades from 1970 to the mid-90s, so that wasn't really an issue for the readers at any period. To the extent it is, the reason for that is the Clone Saga. During the course of that events, MJ became pregnant, Peter was becoming a father, and so on. That was a decision made by the Clonistas themselves in an attempt to kneecap Peter as the "clone" since obviously that would never be done to the real Peter, right?.And it became ridiculous at the end of that, when they downplayed and ignored all of that. Peter wasn't aging rapidly before, but during the Clone Saga he aged really really fast. And then they had to de-age him even more and pretend this didn't happen.

There was a bed before and after the Clone Saga. There wasn't any s--t before but there was after. So the logical conclusion is that the Clonistas s--t the bed to the extent that the stench has occluded people from considering how things were before.

"Real storytelling values" is a silly term to try to apply to the kind of serialized fiction that Spider-Man represents.

Which is disrespectful to the creators and others who placed value on that, and to the ones who tried to revive it afterwards. The likes of Conway, Stern, Defalco, Michelinie, Paul Jenkins, JMS among others.

To criticize ASM for lacking those things is to not understand what you're reading in the first place and not getting what the goals of this form of storytelling even is.

The Clone Saga was the first time that kind of stuff was attempted in ASM. This wasn't a normal occurrence in serial comics it was indeed exceptional and widely decried by everyone at the time for being so.

Spider-Man in its true, pure form ended when Ditko left the book.

Ditko never intended Spider-Man to be a closed story. He always saw the character as a commercial gig (as he did all his Marvel work) with a serial story. The Marvel characters he had more personal investment with, as per John Romita Sr. and others (in Blake Bell's biography) was Doctor Strange and even that wasn't intended by him to be a permanent story.

Marvel Comics at its origin promised that they would tell both serial stories and have real character growth and progression. That was its promise and Marvel at its best periods has always returned to that.

[Prof. Warren]

Yes you can. Damage caused by fire in a building and so on can be doused, repaired and fixed, but in the period between that, your house is definitely ruined. In Roger Stern's Avengers story Under Siege, the entire Avengers Mansion gets destroyed and razed to the ground, becoming a ruin. It didn't stay that way but it was definitely ruined.

A physical object can be ruined but a creation that lives strictly in the imagination cannot.

A bump in the road whose negative consequences lasted from 1994-2000. That's six years, a huge chunk in any period of comics continuity and certainly shocking and exceptional for a title as consistent as ASM was previously. Is Avengers #200 a "bump in the road" for Carol Danvers because that lasted for 30 years in terms of consequences.

It's still a bump in the road. And six years is a drop in the bucket when you think that ASM will keep going on for many decades to come.

And, of course, the fact is that the Clone Saga era isn't universally disliked. It was a formative era for many fans so it has value. I'm more interested in why people like it than trying to insist that it was terrible.

Some things can't be course-corrected. Hawkman for instance is a character that's virtually unusable due to the multiple occasions his continuity is damaged.

Well, now you're talking DC where continuity is more problematic. But even then, it's entirely possible that someone, someday could come along with a great take on Hawkman that reconciles all the previous takes or distills the character into a purer form.

And you know the Clone Saga itself is a story that can't be course-corrected since whole running subplots and character beats from that story have never been mentioned or addressed. This includes - Peter slapping MJ while she's pregnant, it includes Peter taking Jackal's hand and agreeing to his plot to kill all humans and replace them with clones, it also includes the miscarriage/death/kidnapping of the Parkers' child. Addressing even one of those events will utterly transform the character and story, and for the worse, in the continuity succeeding that. Which is why it's buried and never referred to again.

Of course it can be course-corrected. If a story contains elements that are unwelcome or poorly received or that are difficult to reconcile with other elements that take higher importance, they are either explained away or forgotten. In a long running narrative, many moments and story threads are quietly shelved.

It's impossible for every step taken to be the right step. But you have to keep moving.

Not really what we are discussing here.

In a way, we are. The fact that Peter doesn't age affects his continuity. It means that the idea of lasting consequences are different for him and his supporting cast.

Peter graduated high school in Issue #28 and spent his 20s for two decades from 1970 to the mid-90s, so that wasn't really an issue for the readers at any period. To the extent it is, the reason for that is the Clone Saga. During the course of that events, MJ became pregnant, Peter was becoming a father, and so on. That was a decision made by the Clonistas themselves in an attempt to kneecap Peter as the "clone" since obviously that would never be done to the real Peter, right?.And it became ridiculous at the end of that, when they downplayed and ignored all of that. Peter wasn't aging rapidly before, but during the Clone Saga he aged really really fast. And then they had to de-age him even more and pretend this didn't happen.

Again, not every step is going to be the right one.

When looking at a long running narrative, I find the bad decisions and the wrong steps to be more fascinating than frustrating.

They are inevitable so it helps to not regard them as destructive but rather instructive.

There was a bed before and after the Clone Saga. There wasn't any s--t before but there was after. So the logical conclusion is that the Clonistas s--t the bed to the extent that the stench has occluded people from considering how things were before.

I read Spidey for quite a long time before the Clone Saga came along so I'm very aware of how things were before.

But while the Clone Saga was definitely not my cup of tea, it's worth remembering that the periods prior to it had more than its share of mediocre stretches.

Which is disrespectful to the creators and others who placed value on that, and to the ones who tried to revive it afterwards. The likes of Conway, Stern, Defalco, Michelinie, Paul Jenkins, JMS among others.

Creators are still telling very good stories with Spider-Man and no doubt will continue to. But they do so in the tradition of past creators within a certain context that is understood up front. Every writer that touches the character does so knowing that there are limitations.

The Clone Saga was the first time that kind of stuff was attempted in ASM. This wasn't a normal occurrence in serial comics it was indeed exceptional and widely decried by everyone at the time for being so.

No one would argue that mistakes were made with the Clone Saga. As I said, though, I find these kind of missteps to be more fascinating than frustrating.

Ditko never intended Spider-Man to be a closed story.

Of course not.

He always saw the character as a commercial gig (as he did all his Marvel work) with a serial story. The Marvel characters he had more personal investment with, as per John Romita Sr. and others (in Blake Bell's biography) was Doctor Strange and even that wasn't intended by him to be a permanent story.

Ditko was a guy working a gig. But the fact is he brought something to Spider-Man that no one could have anticipated and that no one since has been able to duplicate. His Spidey had an uniqueness that was lost when he left.

Marvel Comics at its origin promised that they would tell both serial stories and have real character growth and progression. That was its promise and Marvel at its best periods has always returned to that.

At its origin, no one at Marvel could have possibly imagined that these characters would still be in publication fifty years or more later. That would have been past the most far-flung dreams anyone could have had.

So holding people working with these characters many decades past the MU's inception to the same promises made in the early '60s is a bit preposterous. Of course there will be changes, of course plans will alter with time. The underlying spirit can be the same but the details and the particulars will not. "Growth and progression" can still occur but just not in the manner that it does in more traditional, conventional storytelling.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

A physical object can be ruined but a creation that lives strictly in the imagination cannot.

So stuff like the Cosby Show isn't ruined by revelations about the main creator of that production? I think it has for a substantial consensus of people.

Anything can be ruined whether it's material or an idea or a work of imagination. Even stuff in the imagination. In fact, that's actually a theme in a lot of Alan Moore's recent stuff.

Heck, even Joe Quesada agrees that stuff can ruin characters. In a podcast with Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman, Cates said that the characters are bulletproof and he talks in favor of adding stuff rather than subtracting. But then Quesada rebuked him by telling him that adding stuff can ruin the character and he says Spider-Man's marriage is an example of that. I obviously disagree with that, but I agree with Quesada when he says stuff can ruin the character. To me what ruined the character is stories like Clone Saga and OMD which nullified and overturned the continuity and greatly limited the kind of stories and takes one can do with the characters going forward.

And six years is a drop in the bucket when you think that ASM will keep going on for many decades to come.

Six years is substantial because Spider-Man and ASM has been Marvel's most consistent title, and its flagship. There's a reason why no matter what, that title can't be delayed and always has to be published on time.

And, of course, the fact is that the Clone Saga era isn't universally disliked. It was a formative era for many fans so it has value. I'm more interested in why people like it than trying to insist that it was terrible.

There's that, but the newsarama article above is kind of framing this in a too rosy view. And as seen by a few posters here, not many seem to appreciate why the Clone Saga was radical (in the entirely negative sense of the term).

In a way, we are. The fact that Peter doesn't age affects his continuity. It means that the idea of lasting consequences are different for him and his supporting cast.

The Clone Saga was about the marriage and not about sending Peter back to high school.

Ditko was a guy working a gig. But the fact is he brought something to Spider-Man that no one could have anticipated and that no one since has been able to duplicate. His Spidey had an uniqueness that was lost when he left.

Yeah, but people returned to the stuff, and the values, that Ditko was doing and set-up multiple times. Ditko's Spider-Man spent most of his time with adults rather than at school, he grew up, changed, and grew in the original stories. And Ditko's final issues with Norman Osborn set up as the villain and Mary Jane set up as Peter's great love (her first "Appearance" behind the shades is in ASM#25, the first issue on which Ditko had plotting credit, and her second was in his final issue, heck the final pages of ASM#38). Gerry Conway made it clear that part of the reason why he focused on building up MJ in his run was that as a reader, the story as plotted out clearly set up Mary Jane as the leading lady but then Lee turned things around by making it Gwen, and when he took over as writer, he finally brought home the subplot forgotten for some 60 issues.

Spider-Man is closest to Ditko when the story grows, progresses, and changes and less so when people try and overturn and reverse that. It was Ditko who made the decision to age Peter up and sent him to college.

In the words of the great man, "A mythological demon made the whole Peter Parker/Spider-Man world a place where nothing is metaphysically impossible." In other words, Ditko believed there had to be, what he called "metaphysical limits" to what made Spider-Man work. So by those grounds one can condemn the Clone Saga.

At its origin, no one at Marvel could have possibly imagined that these characters would still be in publication fifty years or more later. That would have been past the most far-flung dreams anyone could have had.

Except that was still exceptional. Go back to Siegel/Shuster Superman and Finger/Kane Batman...those stories in the early years when no one knew those characters would go big didn't have real-time progression and changes. The same applies to the early stories of Fawcett's Captain Marvel (the biggest hero of the '40s). In the case of Captain America, continuity and progression was introduced in the '60s in Kirby/Lee's take rather than Simon/Kirby's Cap, same with Namor the Submariner who was re-introduced as a hobo in Fantastic Four #3.

The idea that a timeline with changes and progression happened because people didn't know how successful these characters would be has no evidence. Because it was exceptional in any context and situation. And the fact is Jim Shooter's tenure returned to that to great success. Shooter didn't set a lot of truck in "illusion of change".

[Prof. Warren]

So stuff like the Cosby Show isn't ruined by revelations about the main creator of that production? I think it has for a substantial consensus of people.

But not everybody, surely. So it's not universal.

And of course now you're talking about a real world person and their real world actions tainting a production they were involved in, not about a creation of the imagination.

Anything can be ruined whether it's material or an idea or a work of imagination. Even stuff in the imagination. In fact, that's actually a theme in a lot of Alan Moore's recent stuff.

Alan Moore's recent work can say anything it likes and people can, as individuals, believe that something is "ruined for them" but that does not mean that it is, objectively speaking, ruined.

Heck, even Joe Quesada agrees that stuff can ruin characters. In a podcast with Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman, Cates said that the characters are bulletproof and he talks in favor of adding stuff rather than subtracting. But then Quesada rebuked him by telling him that adding stuff can ruin the character and he says Spider-Man's marriage is an example of that. I obviously disagree with that, but I agree with Quesada when he says stuff can ruin the character. To me what ruined the character is stories like Clone Saga and OMD which nullified and overturned the continuity and greatly limited the kind of stories and takes one can do with the characters going forward.

Cates is right. Quesada is wrong. These characters are bullet proof.

Bad decisions can be made in their handling but nothing that can't be righted.

And Quesada is clearly trying to justify his own actions regarding the marriage, so I would take his comments in that context.

You're saying that the Clone Saga and OMD ruined Spidey. He's saying that the marriage did.

You're both wrong in trying to impose your own opinions as being "correct."

Six years is substantial because Spider-Man and ASM has been Marvel's most consistent title, and its flagship. There's a reason why no matter what, that title can't be delayed and always has to be published on time.

Any book that is in continuous publication is going to have periods that aren't to everyone's taste.

And every book that ships that much is going to have periods that are widely agreed to represent a dip in quality.

This is unfortunate but it's not the end of the world. And having actually been collecting comics during the Clone Saga, I can tell you that six years isn't that long.

It passes by relatively quickly. The Mackie/Byrne era, in comparison, was much shorter but seemed to last oh so much longer.

There's that, but the newsarama article above is kind of framing this in a too rosy view. And as seen by a few posters here, not many seem to appreciate why the Clone Saga was radical (in the entirely negative sense of the term).

Most posters are more sanguine about the Clone Saga because it was, you know, twenty five years ago. Not much sense in being so uptight about a past storyline.

You can get why the Clone Saga was a bit of a botch job and still either hold nostalgic affection for it or just realize that it's not worth being angry about.

The Clone Saga was about the marriage and not about sending Peter back to high school.

But marriage is one of those things that falls under the umbrella of "lasting consequences."

Yeah, but people returned to the stuff, and the values, that Ditko was doing and set-up multiple times. Ditko's Spider-Man spent most of his time with adults rather than at school, he grew up, changed, and grew in the original stories. And Ditko's final issues with Norman Osborn set up as the villain and Mary Jane set up as Peter's great love (her first "Appearance" behind the shades is in ASM#25, the first issue on which Ditko had plotting credit, and her second was in his final issue, heck the final pages of ASM#38). Gerry Conway made it clear that part of the reason why he focused on building up MJ in his run was that as a reader, the story as plotted out clearly set up Mary Jane as the leading lady but then Lee turned things around by making it Gwen, and when he took over as writer, he finally brought home the subplot forgotten for some 60 issues.

Ditko's run ended at ASM #38. Having him grow up and change in that short, formative run was relatively simple.

And of course subsequent writers picked up on elements contained in those issues. That's the bedrock Spider-Man is built on.

ASM will be well into its thousands and god knows how many volumes down the line and writers will still be influenced by the Ditko years.

Spider-Man is closest to Ditko when the story grows, progresses, and changes and less so when people try and overturn and reverse that. It was Ditko who made the decision to age Peter up and sent him to college.

Again, you're talking about the first three years or so of ASM. If Spider-Man kept aging and progressing at the pace he did in the Ditko era, he'd be very old or dead by now. Get over using the progression of the Ditko years as a realistic yardstick to measure Peter's progress five decades later. We're past that and we've been past it for decades, well before the Clone Saga.

In the words of the great man, "A mythological demon made the whole Peter Parker/Spider-Man world a place where nothing is metaphysically impossible." In other words, Ditko believed there had to be, what he called "metaphysical limits" to what made Spider-Man work. So by those grounds one can condemn the Clone Saga.

No, you cant'. Not any more than you can condemn the multiverse and all the wild permutations of Spider-Man and his world that it's brought.

Ditko is a genius but not all of his ideas of what Spider-Man is should be considered inflexible, unbreakable rules.

Ditko was dealing with the character at the earliest point in his history and also in the history of the Marvel Universe.

It's ok for things to change and expand. Not all those changes and expansions will be wholly successful but that doesn't mean they can't be attempted.

You can condemn the Clone Saga for not telling its story well. And even for not being smartly conceived to begin with.

But that's just a failing of the storytellers. It's nothing that breaks any cardinal rules of Spider-Man.

Except that was still exceptional. Go back to Siegel/Shuster Superman and Finger/Kane Batman...those stories in the early years when no one knew those characters would go big didn't have real-time progression and changes. The same applies to the early stories of Fawcett's Captain Marvel (the biggest hero of the '40s). In the case of Captain America, continuity and progression was introduced in the '60s in Kirby/Lee's take rather than Simon/Kirby's Cap, same with Namor the Submariner who was re-introduced as a hobo in Fantastic Four #3.

Yes, we all know that Marvel introduced the then-novel idea that these characters could change and progress. But one could also say that Lee did so because he felt he had nothing to lose and that, well, the whole industry could go belly-up at any time so why not do something different?

Once it became clear that these characters were successful and that the Marvel Universe was not going anyplace, they were never going to age these characters to the point where they would not exist in the iconic form that readers were attached to.

The idea that a timeline with changes and progression happened because people didn't know how successful these characters would be has no evidence. Because it was exceptional in any context and situation. And the fact is Jim Shooter's tenure returned to that to great success. Shooter didn't set a lot of truck in "illusion of change".

The evidence would be something called "common sense." We know why these characters don't age in a realistic fashion. We don't need an official document to prove it. Shooter's era did nothing to progress any of these characters forward in a substantial way. He presided over many a great run but it's not like the MU characters suddenly started celebrating their birthdays every year. They were still as evergreen as they ever were.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

And Quesada is clearly trying to justify his own actions regarding the marriage, so I would take his comments in that context.

You're saying that the Clone Saga and OMD ruined Spidey. He's saying that the marriage did.

You're both wrong in trying to impose your own opinions as being "correct."

So does that mean, in your opinion, that OMD isn't necessary, that it didn't really fix Spider-Man? You would have been okay with the marriage continuing?

We're past that and we've been past it for decades, well before the Clone Saga.

You are the one using age as an excuse for justifying the Clone Saga's attempt to retcon stuff. I was simply focused on the overall continuity and progression in character and emotional terms rather than aging and so on. Spider-Man had been in his twenties from the late 60s to the early 90s. Readers could believe that he was in mid-20s to late-20s since that was not made clear and you could take it or leave it.

The Clone Saga was the first time Spider-Man comics had a hard measure for time passing. Like Jackal said that five years had passed between the First Saga and the Second Saga, so that meant Peter Parker was around 25-26 around the time of the second. SO again, the second clone saga is the comic more than anything before which aged Peter, which is again part of the entire cycle of hypocrisy and projection that went on behind the scenes during the Second Clone Saga. Terry Kavanagh and others felt Spider-Man was aging too much, so they age him even more at a faster rate than ever before. Later Glenn Greenberg and others warble about Bob Harras coming in and fixing their mess by bringing Norman back, saying that it was wrong to undo a 20 year story when they spent 2 and a half years riding roughshod over 20 years of continuity.

Yes, we all know that Marvel introduced the then-novel idea that these characters could change and progress. But one could also say that Lee did so because he felt he had nothing to lose and that, well, the whole industry could go belly-up at any time so why not do something different?

The entire concept of Marvel Time lasted well after the initial "honeymoon" period of success.
http://zak-site.com/Great-American-N..._universe.html

There are of course rough edges sanded off between the inception of a serial story and the consolidation that comes with success. Like originally Ben Grimm was aggressive in the very early issues and not really such a nice, jolly guy as he later became. Spider-Man, Jonah, and the characters in the L-D era were more extreme in the earlier issues before moderating, even in Ditko's final issues and around that period, Peter was nicer than he was when he started out.

But stuff like continuity and consequences and so on, is too big and broad to be covered in that.

[boots]

In terms of overall sales and loss of readership it absolutely did ruin Spider-Man in the short term. The Clone Saga's initial sales boom driven by curiosity and interest ended when they told the story they had (i.e. Ben Reilly is the real Peter) and then the story crashed and burned by the end and Spider-Man fell into a slump until JMS arrived.

In the long term, on a creative level it damaged the integrity of the continuity which again we can objectively consider when we see before and after the clone saga.

It's a non-issue for readers who came into comics in a time when large scale retcons, resurrections and so on, are old hat. I am technically a reader in that age gap but I started when that was still only a recent occurrence and there were people around who talked about how this was still a new thing and not always common. Likewise, the JMS era was heralded by many as a return to form after the Clone Saga days and a time when it seemed like Marvel was learning its lesson. Then OMD happened. And I noticed that around the time OMD happened, you had Clone Saga nostalgia really seep in. And some of this was driven by Joe Quesada himself who in interviews started saying that maybe the Clone Saga wasn't bad after all, he said that around the time "The Real Clone Saga" went into print.

In a large sense the nostalgia people have towards the Clone Saga is astroturfed by Marvel. Obviously some people like parts of the Clone Saga, and so on, they like Ben Reilly and Kaine but the way Marvel kept the Clone Saga alive via "The Real Clone Saga" (which was printed in part to co-opt and defuse tension with the marriage fans) and after that, is part of that revisionism. And of course there's the mercantile interest of selling comics and raising value of stuff put out in the 90s. The fact that JMD's Harry Osborn stories in Spectacular Spider-Man isn't in print despite being far superior and far more important than the Clone Saga in terms of adaptations (since those stories inspired and were adapted in Spider-Man 3, while the Clone Saga remains largely absent in any Spider-Man medium) as far as Spider-Man stories in the 90s are concerned. Compare that with the Clone Saga which has an Epic collection in multiple volumes.

We also see this revisionism in how the Clone Saga is discussed. I mean when OMD and other stories happened, they kept saying how they tried to undo the marriage before and they said "The Clone Saga was an attempt to end it" and it was said as if the blame for that was to the marriage for causing it. Rather than itself for telling a bad story.To me it's a bit like that reaction people have towards someone "failing upwards". You know when the white guy who makes numerous screwups keeps getting second chances and promotions because he's white. The Clone Saga failed miserably in its time and it wrecked the continuity but apparently just because it wanted to stick it to the Spider-Marriage, somehow that was absolved even if it was clearly vastly inferior, and sold vastly fewer, comics than the stories that did the marriage straight.



I think comics fans don't like the idea of something being "ruined forever". They don't like to think it's possible. And I guess it affects them if the Spider-Man continuity they are reading is "fallen" and somehow lesser. I understand that but I think people are in denial if they don't acknowledge or consider the possibility of it being so. Take Hank Pym. I happen to like the "Hank slaps Janet" saga of Avengers #211-230 and I appreciate where Jim Shooter was going, in terms of the fact that Hank Pym was a hot mess before the story and what Shooter did was define for all times that Hank Pym is the cautionary tale to the Marvel Universe..."you guys can be flawed and have foibles all you want, but you never go full Hank Pym". He has to be the lowest of the low in the hero community so that all the rest can go "At least I'm not him". But it can't be denied that the story did finish Hank Pym forever as a major superhero...to the extent that the Ant-Man movie had his legacy character as the main hero.

Carol Danvers was likewise finished as a superheroine for some thirty years thanks to Avengers #200. She was intended by Lee and Conway to be Marvel's Wonder Woman, and that story, led her to become the "elephant in the room" so that she wasn't Ms. Marvel and became Warbird or Binary, and then an alcoholic and hot mess, until Kelly Sue DeConnick and McKelvie arrived.

Real storytelling values in Spider-Man have been lost thanks to stories like The Clone Saga and OMD. I mean consider the fact that the most influential stories of Spider-Man in the 21st Century are exclusively AU -- USM, Spider-Gwen, Spider-Ham and others like that. A lot of that is inspired by the Clone Saga. Bendis said that part of the reason why USM was greenlit was because Bill Jemas then Marvel president was disappointed by the sales and the state of Marvel Continuity in the late 90s, where Peter was a widower, and he was becoming really poor and the stories were depressing. All of that can be traced to the Clone Saga.

yeah nah, it's not just about when i got into spidey, it's that i reject the entire premise that pre clone saga Spider-Man was inherently better. we have different metrics for measuring that stuff and it's really as simple as that.

and the tongue-in-cheek trope is " ruined FOREVER" not "ruined SHORT TERM".

[Revolutionary_Jack]

we have different metrics for measuring that stuff and it's really as simple as that.

What's your metric, then?

[Prof. Warren]

So does that mean, in your opinion, that OMD isn't necessary, that it didn't really fix Spider-Man? You would have been okay with the marriage continuing?

Yes, absolutely.

My personal preference is for a single Peter but having him married isn't anything that ruins or breaks the character.

It simply makes it harder to continue the illusion of change, which clearly was the biggest impetus to do away with it.

You are the one using age as an excuse for justifying the Clone Saga's attempt to retcon stuff. I was simply focused on the overall continuity and progression in character and emotional terms rather than aging and so on. Spider-Man had been in his twenties from the late 60s to the early 90s. Readers could believe that he was in mid-20s to late-20s since that was not made clear and you could take it or leave it.

I'm just justifying anything. I'm not saying anything done in the Clone Saga was right. I'm just observing what happened.

As far as Peter's age, I do think that the effort to keep him young plays a large part in efforts to undo any storyline that may appear to age him.

The Clone Saga was the first time Spider-Man comics had a hard measure for time passing.

Whether or not there was a "hard measure" for time passing, after a few decades go by, you don't need a hard measure to know that, hey, Peter logically can't be in his mid to late 20s anymore. It just doesn't track, even by the most generous application of "Marvel Time."

The entire concept of Marvel Time lasted well after the initial "honeymoon" period of success.

"Well after the initial honeymoon" can cover a good stretch of time.

But "Marvel Time" has been slowing down for years to the point where it's now an imperceptible, incremental crawl.

[Pav]

Prof and Jack, I think, both make compelling arguments for their respective perspectives.

But it's not like there's only one valid position to hold on the issue.

-Pav, who forgets sometimes...

[boots]

What's your metric, then?

pretty fluid i'd say

a lot of your non negotiables are more matters of taste to me

[bob.schoonover]

On a completely different note, am I the only one that wants to see someone do a new spin on Judas Traveller and (the) Scrier(s)? Maybe a "Geoff Johns on Green Lantern" style pulling all the pieces together to make something vaguely coherent and interesting. I don't have a specific idea of what that'd be, but I really enjoyed the mystery surrounding them before and around ASM 400 (that is my mark for where the whole thing started to go off the rails) and thought they brought a different element to Spidey (not so much his cosmic-level powers, but his interest in the nature of Peter and Ben). What they ultimately became was much, much less interesting.

I think the broad brush the Clone Saga is painted with sweeps away a shocking number of new characters (mostly villains) to bolster the already filled roster of Spidey villains and it's a bit of a shame so many of them were either swept away in the tumult that was wrapping up the story or ignored since. It'd be nice to move past just little appearances here and there (Lady Octopus in Spencer's run is appreciated, but she's not really the face of the Syndicate) - maybe the next satellite title can be "The Forgotten Foes of Spider-man" and highlight some of them and give them new missions for the current era.