Revisiting the Clone Saga for its 25th Anniversary

[Lee]

That doesn't change the context - this was a point in time when Gwen Stacy had recently been killed off and Stan had decreed that she be brought back. I don't know how you could extrapolate that he was talking about Mary Jane.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

That doesn't change the context - this was a point in time when Gwen Stacy had recently been killed off and Stan had decreed that she be brought back.

Which he said impulsively out of the backlash affecting him at college tours and not because he was invested in Gwen emotionally. I don't think Stan was invested in any of his characters that much tbh. The First Clone Saga was a plan to bring a Gwen clone and not the real Gwen after all.

I don't know how you could extrapolate that he was talking about Mary Jane.

He was talking about the future in the context and across all Marvel titles. Asking writers to not rupture stuff so much, or basically do stuff that would cause him trouble.

[Lee]

Not everything is about Mary Jane.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Not everything is about Mary Jane.

She's the second most important character in Spider-Man after Peter Parker. She has the most appearances after Peter.

And certainly both the First Clone Saga and the Second Clone Saga (which is what we are discussing here) revolve around her becoming the emotional center of the entire story.

[Prof. Warren]

She's the second most important character in Spider-Man after Peter Parker.

No, false. Aunt May is the most important member of Peter's supporting cast, period.

And while you can rattle off of the number of times Mary Jane has appeared vs. the number of times every other character has appeared but the bottom line is that Aunt May is the most indispensable, most irreplaceable member of Spider-Man's cast, no matter how much or how little we see her on page.

Mary Jane is Peter's #1 love interest, certainly his most popular and widely known, but Aunt May is the living reminder of his failure to save Uncle Ben and the beacon from which his sense of responsibility will always shine.

Absolutely everyone else in Peter's cast could be dropped or swapped out for someone who fills the same function. They not prove to be as popular but it can be done. There can - and have been - other love interests. Peter can have another abrasive boss - and Spider-Man can have another thorn in his side - besides JJJ. But Aunt May is Peter's blood. You can even bring other relatives into his life, like Teresa, but no one can be to Peter what Aunt May is.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

No, false. Aunt May is the most important member of Peter's supporting cast, period.

That’s your opinion. Valid but subjective. As it is, Aunt May isn’t a relevant character to the Clone Saga which is why ASM#400 happened.

Absolutely everyone else in Peter's cast could be dropped or swapped out for someone who fills the same function.

You can technically replace Peter in a spider suit and tell the same stories as well. That’s what the Second Saga is about.

[Prof. Warren]

That’s your opinion. Valid but subjective.

Hmm, yeah. Making declarative statements can be problematic...

She's the second most important character in Spider-Man after Peter Parker.

Still, I think you can peel everything away from Spider-Man save for Aunt May and the book still works.

The connection that Peter has to May is the underlying engine that drives the concept of Spider-Man.

Everything else, even very popular elements, is an add-on.

You can technically replace Peter in a spider suit and tell the same stories as well. That’s what the Second Saga is about.

...And at the end of the day, it comes back to Peter being the one true Spider-Man. You can tell stories where the hero is temporarily replaced - whether it be Knightfall, the Death of Superman, Bucky Cap, or Superior Spider-Man - but the point of those stories is always about rediscovering the importance of the original and re-affirming that no stand-in is ever truly the same.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Still, I think you can peel everything away from Spider-Man save for Aunt May and the book still works.

Empirically speaking, not a lot of evidence in favor of that. But that’s off topic anyway.

[Mister Mets]

I'm not going to quote specific posts, but there is a lot.

The Clone Saga did feature major departures from the earlier status quo. Aunt May died. Peter Parker was revealed as the clone. Peter and MJ were expecting a kid. And then all of that was reversed.

There had been some artistic compromise in order to keep the series going indefinitely well before that. There is the argument that Spider-Man went in a different direction after the first 150 issues. Len Wein had a run in which interesting stuff happened to the supporting cast (Jonah got a girlfriend, Harry & Liz hooked up, Ned & Betty got married) but everything stayed the same for Peter Parker. Marv Wolfman consciously adopted an illusion of change approach, where there were new developments that didn't change much (Peter & MJ broke up but could always get back together, Peter graduated college/ started grad school.)

The Clone Saga did have the additional problem of poor execution. Some of that was due to crappy trends at the time (it was crossover heavy which meant that different portions of the same story were written by different creative teams, and readers had to pick up every book in order to follow the character, there were so many generic 90s villains) but it makes sense for the era to be memory holed, until better creative teams or at least creative teams without the unnecessary 90s restrictions were able to tell decent stories with the concepts.

[Lee]

She's the second most important character in Spider-Man after Peter Parker. She has the most appearances after Peter.

And certainly both the First Clone Saga and the Second Clone Saga (which is what we are discussing here) revolve around her becoming the emotional center of the entire story.

There is absolutely nothing to suggest that Stan was alluding to Mary Jane. You brought that yourself. Not everything is about Mary Jane.

[twenty2]

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.

I agree that this happened to Spider-man. It was amazing how from the 60s to the early 90s you could easily feel you were reading Peter Parker's biography. It is kind of ruined forever now. I do feel it's just like other super hero comic nowadays with each writer making his own interpretation of the Spider-man universe generic concept/template.

The main event that spoiled it IMHO was final chapter/gathering of five with the return of Aunt May and the final nail in the coffin regarding Peter's daughter Mayday.

Up to that point there several messes coming from the clone saga but that could be more easily fixed.

With JMS run I started to forget all of this and feel connected to the character (s) again. Until OMD... I couldn't - and honestly still can't - believe One More Day was happening. Marvel completely lost me has a regular reader of new content there.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I agree that this happened to Spider-man. It was amazing how from the 60s to the early 90s you could easily feel you were reading Peter Parker's biography. It is kind of ruined forever now. I do feel it's just like other super hero comic nowadays with each writer making his own interpretation of the Spider-man universe generic concept/template.

Absolutely.

Compare the first thirty three years of Superman, the first thirty three years of Batman, and likewise first 33 years of other Marvel titles (FF, X-Men, Daredevil), and it's not even close in terms of consistency and integrity, which is what separates Spider-Man from the crop.

With JMS run I started to forget all of this and feel connected to the character (s) again. Until OMD... I couldn't - and honestly still can't - believe One More Day was happening. Marvel completely lost me has a regular reader of new content there.

Same here. I recently came back for Spencer's run which feels better than most but it's still not as good as the JMS or the Classic Era (Pre-Clone Saga).

JMS single-handedly salvaged Spider-Man from the disaster wrought by the Clone Saga. He doesn't get enough credit for that. Not that all his stuff was always good or great of course.

[Lee]

JMS single-handedly salvaged Spider-Man from the disaster wrought by the Clone Saga. He doesn't get enough credit for that. Not that all his stuff was always good or great of course.

This is untrue. The Clone Saga had been over for years when JMS started writing Spider-Man.

[Prof. Warren]

JMS single-handedly salvaged Spider-Man from the disaster wrought by the Clone Saga. He doesn't get enough credit for that. Not that all his stuff was always good or great of course.

No, JMS single-handedly salvaged Spider-Man from the disaster that was the Mackie/Byrne relaunch.

The Clone Saga wasn't even an issue by the time JMS arrived.

Believe me, I was there. I know. The sad train wreck of the Mackie/Byrne era was what Spidey needed saving from.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

This is untrue. The Clone Saga had been over for years when JMS started writing Spider-Man.

Its aftermath and aftershocks negatively affected and hampered Mackie's run, handing him a major mess further hampered by Bob Harras and John Byrne's even worse ideas.

The Clone Saga may have ended in 1996 but the damage it inflicted lasted a good while longer. The readership it drove away didn't come back when Mackie took over.