Reilly2040's Blog

When I first got back into comics in a big way, it wasn’t Green Lantern that did it.  It wasn’t even DC.

Nope, it was Spider-Man.  Specifically, the Clone Saga.  A time of huge controversy in the Spider-titles as what started as an interesting idea, got thrown wildly out of control by marketing excess.   By the time the dust settled, the various elements introduced were brushed away with a seemingly unspoken promise at Marvel to never speak of it again.

A great shame though, as for all the problems with the Clone Saga it had its highlights as well.  Aunt May’s death was a beautifully written issue that moved the character of Peter Parker forward, Kaine was a compelling new villain, and Ben Reilly a brilliant new character that added something new to the franchise by giving Peter a brother.   I’ve always maintained that the whole thing went wrong only when phrases involving the words “one, true” came into the mix.  Until that point it had been great fun having the two brothers running around.  Something that was briefly recaptured towards the end of the story albeit with Ben now in the Spider-Man role rather than as the Scarlet Spider.

Despite the unravelling of the Clone Saga I actually stuck with the Spider-titles for a while afterwards, only eventually dropping them in protest over Aunt May’s resurrection.  It was a horrible story and a worse retcon.  And subsequent storylines such as Mary Jane’s “death”, Spider-totems, Sins Past and One More Day only served to underline my decision to walk away.

Until now.  Now they’ve managed to do the one thing guaranteed to bring me back to the fold.  The Clone Saga is back, and not just in the form of the new mini-series that started this month.  Nope, its turned up in Amazing Spider-Man as well, with flashbacks to Ben Reilly, and Kaine himself appearing (and due to be the focus of a story in this week’s Web of Spider-Man).  For me, this is really exciting, and makes so much more sense than the previous “pretend it never happened” ethos.  Obviously, partly this will be due to the amount of time that’s passed, so now readers and fans of the clone saga will be the writing professionals, so why shouldn’t Marvel embrace those pieces of the storyline (which occupied a fair chunk of the 90s) that actually worked?

Of course, sadly this is all unlikely to result in Ben Reilly actually coming back (a pity as I’d love new stories with Ben back as the Scarlet Spider), but the return of Kaine should be very interesting, as he was always a powerful opponent and his very personal links to Peter should be interesting to see what he’s actually up to.

And of course, I have to mention the first issue of the Clone Saga mini-series, which is re-presenting the series, altered to present something more along the ideas of the original writers.  It was definitely fun to see the story being revisited, although I personally found the first issue a little rushed.  Its hard to criticise it for that though, given it was trying to set the scene, and had to incorporate about a years worth of events in the Spider-titles in order to get the reader to the point where the main story of the Clone Saga can be told.   It was definitely fun to see the new spin on Peter and Ben’s meeting and it was so nice to see the characters working together again.   I’ll be very interested to see what the rest of the series brings, especially now the necessary evil of catching the reader up is out of the way.

So, an update on the Ben Reilly rumours doing the rounds.  It looks like its definitely happening, at least in one form.

Bleedingcool.com has the solicit (via SuperPouvoir) for Spider-Man: The Clone Saga.  A 6 issue mini series which will tell the Clone Saga in the way it was originally intended.

Now this should make for interesting reading.  For anyone who’s a fan of the Clone Saga, (or is just interested in what actually happened to cause it to go wildly wrong), I can’t recommend the Life of Reilly column enough.   Its a long read, but breaks the whole saga down and gives detailed accounts from the various people involved at the time as to what actually happened.

Going from what was said in Life of Reilly, I’m presuming this series will show the original “out” (which wasn’t too different to what actually happened) in that it would’ve been revealed that Seward Trainer had faked the test results that proved Ben was the real Peter Parker (although I forget who he was working for.  Must re-read Life of Reilly myself).   It’ll be very interesting to see this bit of Spider-Man history addressed and its a great idea to give the original creators a chance to revisit the story and tell their version of it.

As an amusing aside, given the Bleeding Cool article references both One More Day and the 101 Ways to End the Clone Saga one-shot, its worth pointing out that one of the original ideas touted to resolve the Clone Saga was to reveal that Mephisto had been behind it.   Amusingly this idea was rejected as the writers felt it wasn’t appropriate for Spider-Man, and that it should be a more grounded explanation, rather than a mystical one.

I’m looking forward to this a lot.

At least, that’s the way the rumour mill is heading at the moment…

From my point of view, its something I would be very excited about.   It’ll be no surprise that this character is where half of my domain name comes from.   For me, the big mistake in the clone saga was introducing the whole “one, true Spider-Man” guff.  While I understand that the writers desperately wanted to give the series a clean slate (in a similar way to One More Day), they eventually ended up in such a mess that killing Ben was obviously seen as the only way to put the Clone Saga behind them.

The thing is, Ben was popular.  Very popular.  Ok, not so much as Spider-Man, but as a character in his own right.  As the clone of Peter Parker who’d wandered the US trying to figure out his own identity, and then later, as Peter’s brother.   It put a great new spin on the series, with Aunt May’s death, it still gave Peter that other family member, but with a very different spin.  Someone who knew him possibly better than he knew himself.

So if Ben is coming back, then I’ll be a very happy reader.  I just hope it all doesn’t end up some cheap trick, and if its done, its done well.   I can’t really see them keeping two Spider-Men around as they were doing at the time of the Clone Saga though, so if Ben is brought back as the Scarlet Spider, he’d end up heading off into the sunset to have adventures of his own somewhere, but its something I’d like to see.  And as someone who has generally avoided the Spider-titles ever since the terrible Gathering of Five (honestly, never mind the Clone Saga, half the stuff that happened afterwards was worse), Ben Reilly is probably the one character they could bring back that would get me to buy Amazing Spider-Man again.

Heck, it could be very interesting, given that Norman Osborn was the one who killed Ben all those years ago, to see exactly how Ben would react to Dark Reign.