Ben Reilly : Spider-Man (2022)

[boots]

My hopes for whatever is gonna happen in the main Spidey books with either Clone Conspiracy's Not-Ben or a Beyond/Multiverse New-Ben remain exceedingly low.

But this? Actual new stories with actual proper, our Ben. And written by DeMatteis!??!? I haven't picked up an actual physical comic for a good few years now, instead just grabbing trades of the few characters Marvel/DC are still occasionally getting right. However, when #1 of this hits the stands, I'll be standing outside my nearest comic-book store, waiting for 'em to open.

exactly my response. this will be the first time i go into a physical store and buy a monthly since the 2000s for all the same reasons.

[Marvel Man]

Hey folks! Maybe you can help me? What's your opinion about this comic? Spider-man: the clone saga.

https://www.comixology.com/Spider-Ma...l-comic/286545

Thank you!

[IamnotJudasTraveller]

Hey folks! Maybe you can help me? What's your opinion about this comic? Spider-man: the clone saga.

https://www.comixology.com/Spider-Ma...l-comic/286545

Thank you!

It's a fun little reimagining of the Clone Saga where DeFalco and Mackie trimmed it to the barest essentials and kept it to their original ideas (mostly).

[boots]

Hey folks! Maybe you can help me? What's your opinion about this comic? Spider-man: the clone saga.

https://www.comixology.com/Spider-Ma...l-comic/286545

Thank you!

i liked a lot of the story beats in this, it was a cleaner leaner version of the 90s saga with a better ending imo.

but something felt...missing? i'm not sure what it was, i read this ages ago. less punch or something. structurally superior, more consistent but less engaging.

[boots]

jmd briefly touches on the clone saga, the difference between peter and ben, kaine and his upcoming ben reilly series at 47:55.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1EBAFoB2Uw

i also finally know how to pronounce his surname correctly.

[HypnoHustler]

Hey folks! Maybe you can help me? What's your opinion about this comic? Spider-man: the clone saga.

https://www.comixology.com/Spider-Ma...l-comic/286545

Thank you!

I'm going to disagree with my fellow cloneheads here. I was not a fan of this extremely truncated version. I didn't hate it, but it just didn't recapture the magic for me. People talk about how drawn out the clone saga was (which is true) but condensing it into six issues just made it feel rushed. I didn't feel like any of those quiet classic Peter/Ben moments were recaptured properly. Plus, I question how true to its mission statement it was. DeFalco claimed he would retell the clone saga as it was originally intended. Well, the mini seemed more like a summary of story beats from the 1990s clone saga, with some tweaks to make it less convoluted or more condensed.... than whatever was originally planned in that 1994 writer's conference. I suspect those notes were long lost, and Tom D. just brainstormed ways to make the clone saga more readable. I love DeFalco to death, but I can see him shrugging his shoulders and just winging it. Plus, I remember the finale being pretty dumb (spoilers ahead) spoilers:

(I haven't read it since it came out over 10 years ago, but it had something to do with a Harry clone sacrificing himself and getting impaled with a glider, I think.... hey, now we know where Spencer got his ideas for the Kindred conclusion!). It was nice that Ben lived in the end though,

end of spoilersand the art was decent, (I especially like the Chinatown cover of issue 4, I think). But overall, I never revisit it. It's not offensive like Slott's Clone Conspiracy or PAD's last two issues of 'Scarlet Spider'.... it's just kinda meh. I'd rather re-read the 90s clone saga, warts and all, if I'm in the mood to revisit that era.

[Shunt]

I'm going to disagree with my fellow cloneheads here. I was not a fan of this extremely truncated version.

Neither was I. Very forgettable imo.

[IamnotJudasTraveller]

i liked a lot of the story beats in this, it was a cleaner leaner version of the 90s saga with a better ending imo.

but something felt...missing? i'm not sure what it was, i read this ages ago. less punch or something. structurally superior, more consistent but less engaging.

Yeah, it's fun and all but I agree it's missing a good punch. If you just trim it down to 6 issues it's inevitable - Ben and Peter reconcile lighting fast and all, and as far as they were trying to stick to an original outline (down to Harry Osborn as the mastermind), they could have kept Maximum Clonage out of it.

This was also the first time Kaine was depicted as a quipster as well. I may be wrong on this but I think some of this bled into some of his appearances before becoming Scarlet Spider.

[Shunt]

jmd briefly touches on the clone saga, the difference between peter and ben, kaine and his upcoming ben reilly series at 47:55.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1EBAFoB2Uw

i also finally know how to pronounce his surname correctly.

Really enjoyable interview, thanks for sharing.

I doubt that's the actual correct pronunciation, since vowels in Italian doesn't sound that way, though

[Huntsman Spider]

I'm going to disagree with my fellow cloneheads here. I was not a fan of this extremely truncated version. I didn't hate it, but it just didn't recapture the magic for me. People talk about how drawn out the clone saga was (which is true) but condensing it into six issues just made it feel rushed. I didn't feel like any of those quiet classic Peter/Ben moments were recaptured properly. Plus, I question how true to its mission statement it was. DeFalco claimed he would retell the clone saga as it was originally intended. Well, the mini seemed more like a summary of story beats from the 1990s clone saga, with some tweaks to make it less convoluted or more condensed.... than whatever was originally planned in that 1994 writer's conference. I suspect those notes were long lost, and Tom D. just brainstormed ways to make the clone saga more readable. I love DeFalco to death, but I can see him shrugging his shoulders and just winging it. Plus, I remember the finale being pretty dumb (spoilers ahead) spoilers:

(I haven't read it since it came out over 10 years ago, but it had something to do with a Harry clone sacrificing himself and getting impaled with a glider, I think.... hey, now we know where Spencer got his ideas for the Kindred conclusion!). It was nice that Ben lived in the end though,

end of spoilersand the art was decent, (I especially like the Chinatown cover of issue 4, I think). But overall, I never revisit it. It's not offensive like Slott's Clone Conspiracy or PAD's last two issues of 'Scarlet Spider'.... it's just kinda meh. I'd rather re-read the 90s clone saga, warts and all, if I'm in the mood to revisit that era.

spoilers:

It was actually a clone of Norman created by Harry Osborn, though the Norman clone, being somehow considerably saner than either the real Norman or Harry, realized what Harry was doing and plotting was wrong and tried to intervene to stop Harry, which was how clone Norman ended up dead, getting impaled on a Goblin Glider in place of Peter or Ben.

end of spoilers

[IamnotJudasTraveller]

spoilers:

It was actually a clone of Norman created by Harry Osborn, though the Norman clone, being somehow considerably saner than either the real Norman or Harry, realized what Harry was doing and plotting was wrong and tried to intervene to stop Harry, which was how clone Norman ended up dead, getting impaled on a Goblin Glider in place of Peter or Ben.

end of spoilers

I particularly liked that ending because the end of Clone Saga basically did everything wrong to get where they wanted to be (they even wanted that to split Peter and MJ, but Harras was convinced that was way too much all at once. Didn't stop him from telling Mackie and Byrne to kill MJ off though!) - we're seriously flushing character progression from expanding the lore by giving Peter a brother and making him a family man so we can undo a story from the 70s and just kinda park our cars there again (Jill Stacy, anyone?)

That feels like a rebuttal. Let the past stay in the past. If you want a Goblin, the OTHER one matched the modus operandi in this a whole lot better.

[JustLuke]

BRSM2022001_Jurgens-Var-scaled.jpg
BRSM2022001_Maleev-Var-scaled.jpg
Loving these variant covers

[Sr. Bungle]

I posted it in the appreciation thread but I guess it belongs here too-

Nice interview with JMD about Ben and the upcoming mini:

https://joshlink.substack.com/p/jm-d...eb&utm_source=

[Huntsman Spider]

BRSM2022001_Jurgens-Var-scaled.jpg
BRSM2022001_Maleev-Var-scaled.jpg
Loving these variant covers

Same here.