ASM 74 - End of Kindred Saga (SPOILERS)

[federicodettofred]

So, what do you think of the big ending? I liked the issue, but I still think there is a lot of unsolved material. OMD wasn't addressed in a definitive way and this left a sour taste in my mouth.
1) Why do the Kindreds hate Peter so much? He saved them during Sins Past!
2) Are the twins independent individuals or not? In 73 AI Harry spoke through them, but here they act as themselves attacking Norman and Peter.
3) What was Mysterio all about when he spoke of "something Peter and MJ did"? OMD is cleraly hinted, but no trace of it in 74.
4) Is it really all about Harry's tormented soul? Really?
Anyway, I still like Spencer's run and I'm looking forward to Spider-Man Beyond, but this saga was dragged for way too long and the ending is just not enough in my opinion. I think its biggest sin is being a Osborn tale, and not a Spider-Man one.

[NC_Yankee]

So, what do you think of the big ending? I liked the issue, but I still think there is a lot of unsolved material. OMD wasn't addressed in a definitive way and this left a sour taste in my mouth.
1) Why do the Kindreds hate Peter so much? He saved them during Sins Past!
2) Are the twins independent individuals or not? In 73 AI Harry spoke through them, but here they act as themselves attacking Norman and Peter.
3) What was Mysterio all about when he spoke of "something Peter and MJ did"? OMD is cleraly hinted, but no trace of it in 74.
4) Is it really all about Harry's tormented soul? Really?
Anyway, I still like Spencer's run and I'm looking forward to Spider-Man Beyond, but this saga was dragged for way too long and the ending is just not enough in my opinion. I think its biggest sin is being a Osborn tale, and not a Spider-Man one.

I think the ending is far worse then I expected ( I mentioned before dragging Mayday into OMD). This is something that actually makes me angry when I think about it. I do not know who is responsible ( Spencer, Gage or someone else), but even Quesada did not go that far. Between that, the lack of humor ( shocking after superior foes), killing off the two best characters Spencer did ( Gibbon and Boomerang) and Peter as Pathetic Parker/Damsel In Distress make this run the most depressing in the history of Spider-Man. I am glad it is over. Thank God for the Yankees, Islanders and Penn State at least they offer hope: Unlike this hopeless depressing run. Good riddance to Spencer.

[JungleBatman]

Do you want something hilarious? The reveal of Mayday being the one to defeat Mephisto was done in and I'm not making this up in "Breaking the Deal" a fanfic made in 2010, so Spencer was borrowing storytelling abilities from FANFIC writers... This is still a better run that his Captain America run though.

[Celgress]

Do you want something hilarious? The reveal of Mayday being the one to defeat Mephisto was done in and I'm not making this up in "Breaking the Deal" a fanfic made in 2010, so Spencer was borrowing storytelling abilities from FANFIC writers... This is still a better run that his Captain America run though.

I've read that fanfic so you are indeed telling the truth lol. It was basically a fan stand-in revenge story directed against a thinly veiled Marvel Editorial.

Um, yeah, I think this conclusion is terrible. Spencer flubbed the landing, IMO.

Edit - I'm curious what has been going on behind the scenes with Spencer headed to Substack. Perhaps the infamous specter of editorial inference strikes again?

[David Walton]

Well I think Joe Quesada strongly hinted in OMD that Peter and MJ's future daughter was the reason Mephisto was invested in destroying their marriage, and he said OMD and OMIT were part of a trilogy.

Pure speculation, but I imagine it would have ended along these same lines; Peter and MJ with a possible not confirmed future that readers and creative teams can take as they will going forward.

[Lukmendes]

Do you want something hilarious? The reveal of Mayday being the one to defeat Mephisto was done in and I'm not making this up in "Breaking the Deal" a fanfic made in 2010, so Spencer was borrowing storytelling abilities from FANFIC writers... This is still a better run that his Captain America run though.

I think Celgress once posted a fanfiction that suggested this idea too, was one where OMD didn't happen because Peter was the one who got shot in Back in Black I think?

Well I think Joe Quesada strongly hinted in OMD that Peter and MJ's future daughter was the reason Mephisto was invested in destroying their marriage, and he said OMD and OMIT were part of a trilogy.

Pure speculation, but I imagine it would have ended along these same lines; Peter and MJ with a possible not confirmed future that readers and creative teams can take as they will going forward.

You can't have kids outside of marriage according to Quesada .

Either way, This sucked.

There was ASM#74 where Sarah talked about herself and Gabriel as "They" instead of "us", so it still looked like Kindred was Harry and not those two, and Sins Past was brought up awkwardly, then this issue reveals it was those two all along.

Why does Sarah in ASM#74 talks about herself and Gabriel as "they" more than once? What the **** does it mean that her and Gabriel are Harry's vessels? The better question is, who cares?

The Kindred mystery was always lame, it long overstayed its welcome, but wasn't that different from the Green Goblin mystery, now that we have this switch, this became like Hobgoblin mystery, with the Sarah/Gabriel twist being as dumb as the Ned twist, hell, probably even dumber since at least Ned was one of the suspects back then.

It's also pretty dumb that Spidey got killed a bunch of times in Last Remains by one Kindred, then all of a sudden he can fight two of them well enough? Despite being in an even worse condition in Sinister War? Meeeh...

I guess this shows another of Spencer's weak points, he's not really that good at finishing stories...

It's honestly kinda funny how this issue is the opposite of ASM#49/850, in that one, the main story was fun, while extra stories from the same issue were meh, now this one, the main story was meh, but I did enjoy that Uncle Ben related, and when reading the next one, well, I read Spider-Man Redemption only this year I think, and I thought Janine was a cool character who I believed would stay in jail forever, then I'm reading this other extra story, and then see the woman's name being mentioned, and I'm like "Yo, that Janine? YOOOO", so at least, for now, Ben's annoying gimmicks are over and he can get some of his supporting cast back, or at least Janine.

Now do the same for Kaine Marvel, him and Aracely have been separated for too long, maybe bring him back to Houston.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Well I think Joe Quesada strongly hinted in OMD that Peter and MJ's future daughter was the reason Mephisto was invested in destroying their marriage, and he said OMD and OMIT were part of a trilogy.

Pure speculation, but I imagine it would have ended along these same lines; Peter and MJ with a possible not confirmed future that readers and creative teams can take as they will going forward.

My hunch about the rumored (whispered? threatened?) third part of Quesada's 'trilogy' was that he would have had Mary Jane killed Post-OMD and when she dies, Peter regains his memories of his marriage and attacks Mephisto and that would have been his way of getting out of OMD, but the outrage was so great with OMD and OMIT was even worse received that they decided to backtrack and keep things in a frustrating hopeless steady-state. And certainly it does seem that Mary Jane's death is off the table alongside Jonah and Aunt May. She's become an immovable.

[JungleBatman]

I must admit I thought for a while even after it was revealed that Kindred was Harry, was that it was Gabriel as Kindred mostly because of his obsession with Gwen Stacy, which Harry did not have as much, but her son on the other hand... I'm fine with the lone twist thought, better than the Clone on and on saga.

[Celgress]

I think Celgress once posted a fanfiction that suggested this idea too, was one where OMD didn't happen because Peter was the one who got shot in Back in Black I think?....

You are correct lol.

[Obsidian Spider]

You know what this issue DIDN'T need to be? A big slugfest by a jarring number of artists with very different styles.

I agree with Lukmendes that I hate when strength levels change as the plot requires.

Also, this was A LOT of anger aimed at Peter by two characters that... he had nothing to do with?

Ugh, who cares about undoing OMD at this point anyway? Peter and MJ are back together so it's moot.

Now, let's have some more clone fun with my boy Ben back in the big boy pjs. (But hopefully still sporting a hoodie from time to time)

[HypnoHustler]

I've read that fanfic so you are indeed telling the truth lol. It was basically a fan stand-in revenge story directed against a thinly veiled Marvel Editorial.

I mean, it could be a coincidence or an example of parallel thinking. Mephisto breaking up Peter and MJ to prevent their daughter from taking him on one day, is not exactly the most original idea in the world. It’s an easy enough conclusion to draw if you’re trying to reverse engineer OMD to make a modicum of sense.

[Lukmendes]

You know what this issue DIDN'T need to be? A big slugfest by a jarring number of artists with very different styles.

One of the most annoyingly consistent problems in this run was random artist changes.

Even ASM#49/850, a big celebration issue, kept changing artists per "chapter".

I agree with Lukmendes that I hate when strength levels change as the plot requires.

Yeah, the best way to justify this could be, say, Peter was super tired after being beaten up and poisoned by the Spider-People, so Kindred never actually fought Peter at full strength, then Sinister War could put him in a situation where he's not as tired.

Even this attempt to "fix" doesn't work too, because Kindred's magic has seemingly no real limits because Spencer is really lazy when it comes to magic, if the powers he/she/they gave to Sin Eater, which's essentially "Regent, but better" is any hint, so "mostly rested Spidey" beating Kindred would still be questionable lol.

But what we got is even worse, two Kindreds in Sinister War all of a sudden look weaker than just one Kindred from Last Remains.

I guess you could say they were at their limit of the clone degeneration so they were weaker, but I have no idea why magic powered beings would need to care about that, specially with Kindred's seemingly limitless powers... Eh, whatever.

Also, this was A LOT of anger aimed at Peter by two characters that... he had nothing to do with?

Kindred twins are in a weird situation where they don't really seem to know what's going on despite talking like they do, they didn't even know they were clones so it seems they were just being pre-death Harry/AI Harry's puppets, so they're blaming Peter because Harry blames Peter.

Basically they're just plot devices, plot devices for AI Harry/pre-death Harry to still be doing stuff, while also retconning away their connection with Gwen.

Ugh, who cares about undoing OMD at this point anyway? Peter and MJ are back together so it's moot.

Yeah it's honestly annoying that fans demand it so much, OMD was garbage, whatever, this is a comic book, horrible stories happen and they don't necessarily have to be retconned away for us to move on from it.

Now, let's have some more clone fun with my boy Ben back in the big boy pjs. (But hopefully still sporting a hoodie from time to time)

Dude, I was so surprised when Janine showed up, after I got over the initial shock of her returning at all, the whole thing about her being in jail, means Marvel is remembering that this was her last status (A lot of times characters just return with no explanation, ignoring whatever previous **** happened with them, that feels empty, like when that Charlotte Spider-Woman randomly returned, completely ignoring she was in a coma before), and that she's now out of jail and joining Ben again, that really made me think "Oh, Marvel's respecting Ben again, at least for now...".

[lordozone]

Loved the story of Janine, but I was a big fan of the clone saga, never understood the hate. And the story of Kaine, Ben Reilly and Janine was one of the best story that my 12 years old self had ever read.

[Lukmendes]

Loved the story of Janine, but I was a big fan of the clone saga, never understood the hate. And the story of Kaine, Ben Reilly and Janine was one of the best story that my 12 years old self had ever read.

Clone Saga has the problem of having alright or even good stories among the pile of crap.

I read Spider-Man Redemption (Which's the story you're referencing), it was fun, the story that used Kaine right before was Maximum Clonage, which was terrible.

[Dzika_Sowa]

I'll sum up my feelings about Kindred Saga the best way I can think of:

"I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed."

But it was more about the Journey, wasn't it? The fun of mystery, Boomerang, the creepy yet funny Kindred drawings by Ottley. I can see this run becoming somewhat a guilty pleasure of mine.

Oh, anyone remembers Spencer line in an interview - it's not important who Kindred is, but what he wants? Well... Whatever it was, I suppose he didn't get it.