What verdict would you give the Clone Saga?

[fin5]

Who had a Fondness for the Clone Saga From the 90s.I know Hate it or love it but I thought it was a great event,i know it want on long but it was a important moment in Spider-mans life and it had some great stores.If you think back to it it was a very fun read well I thought so
And I loved the covers from it so post pic covers or any thing about it you liked or not

[boots]

Who had a Fondness for the Clone Saga From the 90s.I know Hate it or love it but I thought it was a great event,i know it want on long but it was a important moment in Spider-mans life and it had some great stores.If you think back to it it was a very fun read well I thought so
And I loved the covers from it so post pic covers or any thing about it you liked or not

there were a lot of horrible things about it, but i loved it anyway. it kept me on my toes as a reader and gave me a version of peter i enjoyed more than peter himself.

the young me was so devastated by reilly’s death that i even…fanfic’d about it. i feel like i can admit that now.

[JBatmanFan05]

I gave it a D grade. Because most of the material is usually not worth reading. The run is excruciatingly tedious to read.

The ending saved it some, with Norman Osborn. Norman would go on to do many forgettable tales (making one really wonder if he was better off dead), but in Revelations, I thought he was great and very classic Green Goblin.

[Pav]

Ben Reilly and Kaine are awesome characters, and I’m glad that Kaine has been brought back. I’m also glad that Norman’s back too, although that was a lucky accident.

Agreed. There were definitely low points, but the character-work done with Ben and Kaine remain, to this day, some of the most compelling comics I've ever read.

Yeah, a lot of legacies sprung from the Clone Saga, that wound in and out of the Spider-world right up to the present day. The Big Corporate Osborn from Dark Reign came from the Clone Saga, and the Mayday Parker MC2 came from there as well. The Spider-world and the MU owe a lot to the Clone Saga.

QFT. And at the time when the regular Spidey comics were trying to ignore all the Clone Saga stuff, it was great to have Spider-Girl as a spiritual successor.

Now, when the Clone Saga was good, it was borderline ex-ce-llent! Ben Reilly was a compelling character and a major balsy move by Marvel building up a thematic that was not easy to write, which I think should be given credit for. His struggles despite having the same moral value of Peter was must reading, Kaine is just another amazing character with a different voice that inserted another interesting point of view. Stories or arcs like "Web of Death", "Lost Years", the original Dematteis origin for Ben during the initial Saga are just classics (or just his writing stint as Scarlet Spider altogether). So to me the good outweights the bad in terms of controversy (the good kind), quality and legacy. All these years past and the Clone Saga ramifications are still felt today, from the built of MC2, to the upgraded profile of Norman as not only a Spider villain but a Marvel universe villain, to bring Kaine down the front of the Spider Verse.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Agreed. And at it`s best I think the Dematteis Scarlet Ben stories were on a whole other level. Sequences such as the one in my sig you just don`t forget, no matter how many years it`s been. From shouting at the rain "I am the clone!" to listen outsider the house Peter give the classic Barry line to Aunt May while she passes on, the emotional beat, the tragedy of someone truly alone who doesn`t even know if his memories make him real or not, that is masterful writing.

The line that still gets me? Ben has been given "proof" that he is the real Peter Parker, and instead of using it, he throws it away, saying, "Life is in the living."

I've said it a million times and I'll keep saying it: I owe so much of my life philosophy to reading about Ben Reilly as a kid.

While there were some good stories like Media Blizzard and Web of Carnage, Ben's stint as Spiderman just never really took off and developed a life of its own. Revelations was awesome but it couldn't redeem what happened before.

Web of Carnage was awesome. As great as Ben's Spidey costume was, there has perhaps never been a cooler look than his Spider-Carnage look.

there were a lot of horrible things about it, but i loved it anyway.

For sure. Even some of the bad stuff has massive nostalgia factor for me. Say what you will about the Scarlet Spider comics from the period - that nothing in those stories mattered; that they were aimless and boring - but man oh man did I love Ben's team-up with Phil Urich as the Green Goblin. Kid!Pav was so hopeful that Ben as the Scarlet Spider and Phil as the Green Goblin were going to be a permanent partnership, taking the Spider/Goblin thing in a whole new direction.

-Pav, who also didn't mind Ben on the New Warriors...

...and also liked Helix...

[Tuck]

I'm going with D.

Part of me feels like I should be more forgiving and move up to C (Aunt May's death stands out as a good issue), but the fact is that I got so bored during the Saga that I dropped the book until JMS came on board.

[Tuck]

Ben Reilly was supposed to be Peter, and his name back, right? It would have been a better solution than having Pete make a deal with Mephisto. And "our" Pete could have retired with MJ, even having the baby, eventually being forgotten, and we'd have a younger, single Spidey again. It could have been easy.

People didn't like the idea that for 20 years they had been reading about a fake Peter. It's a gut thing that you can't write your way past. There's no execution of art that could have overcome this.

[Tuck]

24 positive votes vs. 17 negative ones?

Who'd have thought!

I'd be curious how it breaks down by both age and when the voter started reading Spider-Man comics. (But that's too prying for a message board poll.)

[Tuck]

One More Day =/= Brand New Day

Exactly.

Mephisto wrote Brand New Day, sir.

Norman getting amnesty for killing Gwen and celebrating with infanticide is just as bad.

[Odd Rödney]

I gave it a C. It had a lot of promise but didn't really deliver on a lot of it. Also, it was way too long.

[Aioros22]

In that case, Satan wrote the Clone Saga.

I can`t dispute Satan being the much better writer and storyteller. It just goes with the experience.

Exactly.


Norman getting amnesty for killing Gwen and celebrating with infanticide is just as bad.

Definatly. A one year build streched up for another year by the Marketing department because sales were that good is not a good creative decision. The CS most absolutely got a low bar in places that reek of sales maneuvers, Infanticide being one of a bunch. The other being Osborn as the mastermind, thought that one is more arguable depending on taste. To me it sprung him way too high (but hey, that was the start of modern Norman "Avengers" Osborn) when the story was about a character I read as darker than him: The Jackal.

But in the end, the saving grace is that the meat of the bone got Ben Reilly, Peter, Kaine and Dock Ock in some of the most poignant, balsy, well written spider tales of all time. The boring mess that is OND/BND lacks that sort of high standard quality.

[JTait]

It depends on which stories you include. The period leading up to Ben taking over as Spidey is a bit of a mess, with a few good stories but far more very poor quality ones.

Ben's time as Spider-Man on the other hand was pretty consistent, with a couple of excellent arcs and largely great artwork.

Overall though it is difficult to rate it higher than a C. Maximum Clonage is a particular low point, and has to go down as one of the most technically inept Spider-Man stories of all time.

[Gordonstar]

Worst Story ever.

[CaptainLiberty76]

If Marvel had stayed with their original premise that Ben Rielly was the true Peter Parker I think it would have been awesome. It would have been a gutsy move to replace a long-standing character with himself. So, yeah, it was interestingBut it could have been awesome.

[Mister Mets]

If Marvel had stayed with their original premise that Ben Rielly was the true Peter Parker I think it would have been awesome. It would have been a gutsy move to replace a long-standing character with himself. So, yeah, it was interestingBut it could have been awesome.

Revelations wasn't that bad. It's hardly the reason the Clone Saga was so maligned.

[oldschool]

Revelations wasn't that bad. It's hardly the reason the Clone Saga was so maligned.

Actually, I love "Revelations"---one of Mackie's best scripts and outstanding art from JR Jr. If Norman were better used after this story, I suspect it would be more fondly remembered.