Now, the Scarlet Spider ID has been used previously since the clone saga, turning up in Avengers: The Initiative where an elite unit of 3 Scarlet Spiders were discovered to be a secret part of the Initiative (and appropriately enough, clones of another character), as well as in the MC2 universe.  However this is the first time the identity is making a big return to the main Spider-Man franchise itself since the Clone Saga wrapped up (to the best of my knowledge).

This time, in a bizarre twist of fate, its Kaine that’s under the mask.  Having been cured of his degeneration (and subsequent mutations) during the events of Spider Island, he’s relocating and finding himself with his first honest chance at a normal life since he was first created.   However, while he may not possess Peter’s memories, the spirit of Peter Parker looms large in his life, and its not long before he finds himself donning a costume of his own.

I must admit, despite the fact that I’d really love to see Ben Reilly back (it’ll never happen), I really like the idea of Kaine taking over the role.   And the setup actually harks back to the old “Lost Years” era of Ben Reilly, which was such a big hit at the time.   Like Ben at that time, Kaine finds himself on the road, and struggling with who he is.  Both are clones, and both live in the shadow of Peter Parker.   But while Ben was on the road purely to escape Peter and avoid Peter’s life, Kaine is genuinely on the run since he was previously arrested for various murders he committed both before and during the Clone Saga.

Its a setup that seems to be borrowing heavily from what made Ben successful as a character, so I’ve got high hopes for the series.  The fact that it seems to be specifically targetting that “Lost Years” vibe really appeals to me, as does the idea of Kaine trying to figure out who he is.  He’s definitely been played as a more sympathetic character since his origins as a clone were revealed, despite his murderous tendancies during the years he tormented Ben, so it’ll be interesting to see how they address that side of the character.  With the degeneration gone though, its a real fresh start for the character.

The only thing I have to say against the series so far, is that I’m not a big fan of the new costume.  I do really like the black mask with red eyes, but I’m on keen on the fingers being a different colour to the rest of the gloves, and I do kind’ve miss the hoodie Ben wore (a nice nod to it in the Point One book though, pity they didn’t keep that look).  However its not nearly enough to kill my excitement for the book.

Roll on issue 1.  Can’t wait

However, for me, without a doubt Spider Island has been the event of the year.  Heck, to be honest I found it the most enjoyable comics event I’ve read since the Sinestro Corps War.  For me it was pretty much perfect.  And as someone who fell out of love with the main Spider-Man books years ago, it really felt brilliant to be picking them up again and enjoying them that much.  So be warned, what follows is a bit gushing.

Ok, I’ll admit, as someone who got into regularly collecting comics during the Clone Saga, in many ways Spider Island felt like a love letter to fans like me who got into Spider-Man during that time.  Ever since the Clone Saga ended, and Marvel adopted its “lalala we’re pretending it never happened” policy, it had always felt like they were ignoring the good elements of that story.  Throwing the baby out with the bath water.   And as I’ve talked about before on this blog, over the last few years, its been a joy to see that policy slowly be reversed.

And its affects were no more apparent than in Spider Island, with the Jackal returning to orchestrate events, infecting the inhabitants of Manhattan with a virus that gives them all spider-powers.  Throw into the mix Kaine, recently further mutated by the events of the Grim Hunt and the Jackal into a spider monster called Tarantula, and there’s a lot to appeal to those fans of the clone saga.   Especially in the final issues, when Kaine is finally cured and joins the fight by borrowing Peter’s stealth suit (before leaving town to head towards his own new series, as the new Scarlet Spider).

But despite all this, this story wasn’t about Dan Slott showing some love to the Clone Saga.  Not at all.  This was about him celebrating the character and his history.   All of Spider-Man’s friends turn up to help contain the situation in Manhattan, as criminals are also gaining powers, and later, as the population start mutating into monsters.  Peter’s scientific mind is at the fore-front of the story as his new job at Horizon Labs finds him in the middle of trying to find solutions to the plague (and infact, Peter eventually saves the day without throwing a single punch).  Its about Peter being free to use his powers publicly without fear of recriminations.  To let him be himself without hiding behind a mask (although, in true Spider-Man style, it does eventually backfire on him).  More recent stories play heavily into things as well, when the main villain who the Jackal is working for is revealed as the Spider Queen, and of course, it wouldn’t be a Spider-Man story if the old Parker luck wasn’t around to kick Peter just as things are going great.

And as a fan who was never impressed by the One More Day thing (to be honest, its something that I suspect will be more successful over at DC, due to it being a line-wide reboot, rather than the more specific changes Marvel brought on Spider-Man – also the reasoning works better without damaging any of the characters in the same way), seeing Mary Jane get a big role was a thrill as well.  Initially stuck on the side lines as everyone around her gets powers, the issue where her own powers finally kick in was a lot of fun.  While they may still be split up,seeing the two characters working together in the story, and drawing on that past relationship strikes me as exactly how things should be handled.  Despite not being a fan of the break up, and having previously tried an failed to get into the Spider-books post One More Day, their relationship here really worked for me.

Of course, being a cross over, the other Spider-characters all have their own part to play in the story.  I must admit, I was a bit light on picking up the other tie ins to this story line.  I haven’t much interest in the current Spider-girl, or the Cloak and Dagger stuff, but I did like Julia Carpenter as the new Madame Web in the story itself.  However one book I have been picking up was Rick Remender’s Venom series which has been excellent.   Thrown into the middle of the Spider Island events.  Remender still managed to stay focused on the character arcs he’s been telling, especially in terms of Flash and Betty’s relationship.  I’ve been greatly enjoying this new take on Venom, and thought the big role he ended up playing in Spider Island was great.   Likewise Eddie Brock became an important part of the story and events in Spider Island make me wonder what they’re planning next for the character.

So, as I said, pretty gushing.  But then, I did really love the storyline.  Unlike many of the longer stories I’ve read over the past few years, it kept up the pace throughout, with no real filler jumping out at me.   The love to the history of Spider-Man felt great, with Jameson, Spider slayers, and the Clone Saga all playing their part, and there’s loads of interesting setup in place, while still feeling like the last issue was more concerned about wrapping up the storyline (a particular complaint I’ve had with DC events).  Dan Slott’s always been a writer whose work I’ve enjoyed, but reading this has made me keen to not just keep collecting Amazing Spider-Man, but also to go back and grab the issues of his run I’ve missed.  Great stuff.

I do love a good Spider-Man game.  For my money, the best one money could buy was the Spider-Man game on the PS1, however subsequent games brought in some fun innovations.  Spider-Man 2 on the PS2 had the rendered version of Manhatten, and the reworked web slinging mechanics, which was great fun just web swinging around, although the missions themselves didn’t work too well, often distracting from the web swinging fun.

With this latest game, the developers decided to take a step backwards with the gameplay style.  Out goes the free-roaming Manhatten, and back in comes a more traditional level structure.  And I have to say, I think the game is all the better for it, as it allows them to build up a stronger narrative that the free-roaming makes trickier to do.

However, they’ve also introduced something else that I don’t think any other Spider-Man game so far has done.  Rather than focus exclusively on the traditional Peter Parker Spider-Man, the developers decided to embrace the Marvel Universes in all their shapes and forms, and have set the game across 4 distinct universes in the form of Amazing, Ultimate, Noir and, much to my delight, 2099.  Its another reason for abandoning the free roaming aspect, as coming up with four distinctive cities would’ve been a huge undertaking and possibly not worked as well, with the players having to get acquainted with all four, rather than learning every nook and cranny of the previous digital Manhattens.

There’s a lot of love gone into developing these different Spider-Men.  For a start, just that the game brought them all in was terrific, but then they brought in some great voice acting talent as well, as various Spider-Man voice actors from previous cartoons all get to play each of the distinct Spider-Men.  Neil Patrick Harris (who voiced the character in the 2003 MTV cartoon) takes on the main Amazing Spider-Man, Josh Keaton (who voiced the 2008 Spectacular Spider-Man) providing the voice of Ultimate Spider-Man, Christopher Daniel Barnes (from the brilliant 1994 animated series) voicing Spider-Man Noir, and the one I got a real kick out of was hearing Dan Gilvezan voice Spider-Man 2099.  A voice very familiar from my youth, as he voiced Spider-Man in  Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends.  Just brilliant!

The script as well is full of nice nods, with Spider-Man 2099 in particular quickly building up his world by mentioning Alchemax and the Public Eye being some of the first baddies you need to beat.  As Madame Web augments each of the Spider-Mens powers (explaining the game’s implementation of Spider Sense), you’ve also got Noir mentioning that she’s upgraded his web slinging and wall crawling powers (I’ve only read issues 1 and 2 of that series, so I have to assume they were traditional powers that this incarnation lacked).

So far, I’ve completed the tutorial levels, and the Kraven and Hobgoblin 2099 levels, so I’m not that far into it, but my first impressions are overwhelmingly positive.  As well as the above, you’re automatically invited into the game by a great voiceover from Stan Lee.  Something that’s been omitted from the last few Spidey games I’ve played, and was really welcome to hear.  From the tutorials, most of the Spider-Men are pretty similar, however as you go on, you unlock additional powers and bonuses that’ll start to to set them apart more, building on their unique backgrounds For example, Spider-Man 2099 gets accelerated vision powers, while Ultimate Spider-Man gets strength bonuses from the symbiote suit he’s wearing (to differentiate him from Amazing Spider-Man and explained in the plot as being Madame Web’s doing).

Totally different though, is Spider-Man Noir.  Weaker than his counterparts, this Spider-Man is much more stealth oriented.  To a large extent, its in these sections that the impact of Batman: Arkham Asylum is felt, as the designers have clearly borrowed from its gameplay.  You’re invited to stick to the shadows, zipping from vantage point to vantage point with your webbing, silently taking out enemies using stealth attacks in much the same way as Batman.

The main difference though is Spider-Man Noir is a lot less tough than his caped counterpart, so if you get into a fight with even one enemy goon, odds are you’re taking a kicking unless you can get out of there.  Batman was more forgiving in this regard in that you could tend to fight your way out of smaller groups (as long as they didn’t have guns).  I could see this having the potential to get a bit frustrating depending on how these levels are laid out later in the game, but at least in the initial tutorials its fun, and helps add some variety to the game.

There’s also thought been given to replayability.  The game includes what it calls, the Web of Destiny, which effectively charts the various challenges available in the game throughout the various levels.  Completing challenges unlocks the next set of challenges, but also gains you points and opens up new sets of unlocks you can purchase to add new abilities to the Spider-Men, boost their stats, or provide them with a range of different costumes.

Its not all roses in the game.  There’s a familiar bugbear with these games which again raises its head which is the in-game camera.  The viewpoint for the game is the traditional third person, however as you start quickly web swinging around and changing direction, the camera can get confused which can sometimes get you a bit stuck until you can find a ledge to rest on and get your bearings.  For me though, the great, solid fun that the game has been so far outweighs this.

So overall, so far I’m really enjoying the game.  The audio is top notch and has loads of recognisable voices, the graphics are great, and the different dimensions have their own identities and keep things interesting.  From what I’ve seen I’d really recommend the game.

So I really hope this game brings a similar great feeling of having captured what it would be like to be Spider-Man, to the next generation consoles.   And its got different costumes in it which catches my attention straight away.  Especially the unexpected appearance of Spider-Man 2099.   I’ve seen that the Scarlet Spider can be unlocked too.

Can’t wait for the first reviews and demos to appear.  The game’s got a lot to live up to, especially with the recent Wolverine and Batman games being great fun.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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.

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.

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.

Timestorm #2 saw Miguel O’Hara get his powers, and his origin is expanded on further here, whereby, after discovering his new powers, he quickly finds himself caught up in a battle against the new Scorpion 2099 with the original Spider-Man (who escapes from the Public Eye with embarassing ease).

The big problem is the reinvention of Miguel O’Hara.  This seems like a move designed only to push away those fans of the original 2099.

 In issue 1 I was praising how Brian Reed had taken the original comics and crafted a new world that was similar enough to the old 2099 to still be appealing while doing something new.   However, with Miguel O’Hara he’s scored an amazing own-goal, by completely ditching the original character in favour of turning him into a carbon copy of Peter Parker.  I really have to wonder what the point of that is?  The point of Miguel was that he was the exact opposite to Peter Parker.  When Peter got powers he was a kid, so Miguel was an adult.  Peter was quiet out of costume, mouthy in-costume, so Miguel was quiet in-costume and mouthy out of it.  Frankly this seems like a huge disservice to the character and is in danger of putting me off this whole Timestorm mini-series.

(Not to mention Miguel’s powers seem to have now changed to be more like the original Spider-Man’s.  He still possesses the organic webshooters of the original Miguel, however there’s no sign of his signature talons, aside from a scene where Miguel has managed to destroy his shoes which suggests they may be there, and this Miguel now has Peter’s signature spider-sense.)

I could’ve lived with Miguel now being younger if his character could’ve at least been recognisable, but sadly no.

I didn’t mind the way in which he and Kron got their powers.  The fact they were doing a school experiment in genetic alteration when caught in an explosion I thought worked quite well, managing to provide a way to explain their powers within a busy, 4-issue series, and also to give us a look at a genuinely futuristic approach to schoolwork.  Okay, it doesn’t beat the original, but then Miguel’s original origin had the benefit of 3 issues dedicated to it.

One thing about this I did enjoy though, was the elder, more experienced Peter coaching Miguel in the use of his powers.   Miguel has literally just discovered his new abilities when he’s caught by Spider-Man (during a failed web-swing) and then drawn into the fight against the Scorpion (the less-fortunate Kron Stone).  The scenes where Peter gives Miguel advice in how to sling webs more accurately and control his web-swinging I thought worked well and were quite fun.   Similarly I thought Kron’s transformation into Scorpion 2099 worked well played against Miguel’s own transformation.  The horror factor of Kron’s mutation helps underline how much worse Miguel could’ve had things.

I’m still onboard for this event, and I still think that overall this reimagining of the 2099 universe has some legs.  But there’s no denying that the character that was arguably the signature character of the 2099 universe has been mishandled for this reader.  The strength, for me, in what Brian Reed had done so far was to take the original and retell it while retaining recognisable aspects.  With Spider-Man 2099, there’s not really any aspect of the character other than the costume (which also lacks the explanation of the original – the fact that Miguel choses such a radically different costume to Peter’s isn’t really that well covered) that’s recognisable as anything other than Peter Parker.  And that’s a real shame.

Its so nice to see the 2099 universe back.  Well, sort of.  

This is a reboot of the 2099 universe, however it shares more similarity with the original than the reboot a few years back did.  Brian Reed has created a universe that contains a great many differences to the original, however still feels familiar, thanks to familiar sights and characters such as Alchemax and Tyler Stone.

The story finds Jake Gallows (familiar to fans of the original 2099 as the off-his-rocker Punisher 2099) sent back in time.  He thinks its by Thor, however we find out that its actually Tyler Stone, seeking to alter events for his own purposes, using a time sphere created by a Dr George O’Hara.  Jake has been sent back to kill off superheroes, however what he doesn’t know is that when he kills them, they’re actually being transported to the future world of 2099.  First to encounter him is Spider-Man, who ends up in the future, and quickly locked up by the Public Eye.

There’s a lot of differences in this version of 2099.  While Alchemax and Tyler Stone appear pretty constant, everything else has a different, if sometimes familiar, spin on it.  George O’Hara is now Stone’s top physicist, responsible for the time sphere Tyler is using, which was created so they could attempt to discover the missing pages from their history (a nice callback to the original 2099 which also had big holes in its history to allow for wiggle room with the present day Marvel Universe).   Miguel is present, but is only a teenager, which makes me wonder if this version of Spider-Man 2099 will be closer to the original Peter Parker Spider-Man, which I hope not.  

Familiar characters like Kron Stone, Dana (now Kron’s girlfriend), Xina (dating someone called Reilly) and Lyla (still a hologram, but no longer based on Marilyn Monroe and now Tyler’s hologram not Miguel’s) appear, and one reference which gave me a laugh was Rapture appearing as an energy drink, with an advertisting campaign fronted by Captain America.    

And that’s something interesting about this 2099.  The Age of Heroes in the previous 2099 was something of a curiousity and appealed to the scientific characters, however in this 2099 Superheroes are everywhere.  Not just the Church of Thor, but Iron Man appears front and centre on Stark Fujikawa posters (for armaments!), Cap is hawking energy drinks and Spider-Man himself appears on posters.  Even the Public Eye now bear very familiar Punisher motifs.   This is a world where the Age of Heroes is treated like we treat celebrities, with familiar faces, being resurrected for adverts.

I really enjoyed this first issue, and despite the differences, its really nice to see these (mostly) familiar characters back again, and while a reboot, its one that feels truer to the original 2099, rather than the last one which just used the name.   The only thing I’ve got reservations about is the much younger Miguel, but we’ll see how that pans out.   There’s an element of time-mangling going on here with Jake Gallows back in the present day zapping heroes, so that could cause this world of 2099 to change to become more like the classic one.   Interestingly there’s a profile of the original Spider-Man 2099 included in the book, which I found a bit odd, given the fact that this is a new take, so I wonder if that’s significant, or just a gift to the 2099 fans.

Revisiting the world of 2099, the solicit has events in 2009 causing the worlds of 2009 and 2099 to collide. Its something we’ve seen previously in the Spider-Man meets Spider-Man 2099 one-shot, but of course, that was a few years ago now, and Spider-Man specific. This time the whole 2099 universe is getting involved.

And Newsarama have a preview of the first issue here.

As I mentioned previously, I was a huge fan of Spider-Man 2099, so revisiting that character and world is something I’m really looking forward to.   Just seeing Jake Gallows (the mad-as-they-come, Punisher 2099) again really brought a smile to my face.