So last issue I told everyone just how much I loathe the Clone Saga and yet here we are with a book filled with Clone Saga characters and continuity. Can this issue transcend its roots or is it just a clone of the staggeringly awful trash that spawned it?
Superior Spider-man Team-Up #2
Writer: Christopher Yost
Artist: Marco Checchetto
Color Art: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letters: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover: Paolo Rivera & Joe Rivera
Spoilers to follow after the break:
The Plot: Peter’s unfortunately not-dead evil clone Kaine has returned to NYC wearing the costume of Peter’s mercifully dead insipid clone Ben just in time for the Jackal to grow yet another batch of clones. Really we’d all save ourselves a headache if we stopped with that sentence there, but I suppose if I had to suffer through reading this thing we may as well go into specifics.
Kaine goes to visit Peter but Octo-Parker is less than thrilled to see him because Kaine killed Ock during the never-ending nonsense that was the Clone Saga. So they fight with Kaine being confused—which is pretty much the natural state of all the damn clone characters—as to why Peter is attacking him. Before anything can be resolved several more Spider Clones attack along with the Jackal and Carrion thus forcing the “heroes” to band together. And then clones of both Gwen Stacy and her frickin’ father show up carrying shotguns in probably the most absurd panel in 18 years (and remember I also review the book that had the Venom Mobile in it but that’s noting compared to this nonsense.) Gwen shoots Spidey and we fade to black.
Critical Thoughts: This is a microcosm of why the Clone Saga suuuuuuckkkkkeeddd so bad and all of the characters associated with it need to never ever under any circumstances be even mentioned in a comic book ever again let alone actually used in a story.
Let’s start with page 1 in which we see an issue of the Daily Bugle informing us that Scarlet Spider has come to New York and speculates that he is “Believed to be a clone created by Professor Miles Warren, also known as the super villain the Jackal.” How is any of that public knowledge? I can’t imagine Peter told anyone he has an evil clone running around because if someone unmasked Kaine they’d know who he was too. It’s not like there aren’t other spider-powered people in the Marvel Universe besides Peter: for example the 57 Spider Women. So where is that conclusion coming from? And why do people know that the Jackal grows clones? How is that common knowledge? Admittedly I’ve blocked large portions of the Clone Saga from my memory in order to preserve my sanity, but I don’t think Jackal’s ever gone on TV and said, ‘Hey know what I like to do in my spare time? Grow clones.” For that matter I’m not sure Jackal’s identity should be publically known as to my knowledge he has never been to prison to be finger-printed and identified by police; instead he tends to die at the end of every story arc he appears in. But that’s the least of the awful in this story.
I think the moment that really crystallizes how bad this is occurs when the new Spider Clones show up and Ock thinks while fighting them they “appear to be half human, half spider with some kind of extra . . . extra as in X” and deduces they are mutant Spider Clones with X-men-like powers. This is literally the kind of deductive logic found in the Adam West Batman series only it is being played straight in this thing without a hint of irony. Want an example? The 1966 Batman film has Batman attacked by a shark in the opening scenes. It bites his leg until he uses his “shark repellant” aerosol spray can to escape (still less dumb than the Clone Saga). Afterwards Batman meets up with Robin and Comm. Gordon to figure out who arranged the shark attack. At first they suspect Penguin because “where’s there’s a fish there’s a Penguin” which isn’t a bad deduction all things considered, but things quickly go downhill when they note “That shark was pulling your leg—the Joker!” Which is then followed by this deductive gem, “But the attack happened at Sea—C for Catwoman,” which is the exact same deductive process Ock just used to determine these clones have X-men powers, he happened to say a word in a sentence that sounds like another unrelated word and voila he has his solution. That’s the intellectual level the story is aiming for folks and yet it still misses the mark. Or to go back to the Batman parallel, after deciding those three villains may be working together they conclude with this sound-alike clue, “the three of them working together, oh what a deadly riddle that would be–Huh? Riddle-rrr!” Errrr, indeed.
There is however one moment of insight in this story. On page 2 Jackal is talking about his work on the Spider Clones and says the “Trials are going well. The losses have been acceptable . . . Of course all losses are acceptable when you can make more.” And that in nutshell is what is wrong with Jackal and his clones as villains. There are absolutely no dramatic stakes in anything they do. His little spider clones die fighting Ock and Kaine, well who cares? We’ve seen him lose literally 100 spider clones in one day in the nuclear nightmare of suck that is Maximum Clonage. Jackal himself dies, who cares? He’s died at least three times and just comes back as a clone again and again and again to appear in yet more God-awful stories.
Well I suppose a second moment of insight occurs on the last page. Before passing out Ock says, “This is not . . .” and then the Jackal says “This is going to be good.” If we connect the dots and read that as one sentence we more or less get “This is not going to be good,” which is at least truth in advertising.
Grade: F- (x) infinity. Remember last issue when I said the terribleness of the Clone Saga made me quit reading comic for 10 years? This book is a sad reminder of that awful era. Take your $4 and pay a hobo to hit you in the head with a hammer rather than reading this: it will be far less painful for you as the reader and the hobo can use the money.
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This was the first direct Spider-Man book I bought in.. awhile, can’t remember how long. I got it more so for the art and frankly the fact that Slott wasn’t writing it. I prefer Yost’s work on Scarlet Spider-Man, but while reading it. I realized, I had zero attachment to any of the characters. Nobody necessarily looks like any Spider-Man character I personally know so it was more like just reading any other superhero comic rather than a Spider-Man story. Then seeing the Gwen in the ending made me think well, there’s to be really zero impact on the characters in this story that Gwen is standing there on an emotional level and the only people who may have one is the reader. That’s when I thought, well, what’s the point of this story? Peter Parker is 100% dead, so there’s no impact on him, Doc. Oct isn’t going to care and there’s no real reason Kane should care either.
So what’s the point? Is this an actual Spider-Man story? Does it have any impact on his series, or is this more a Scarlet Spider story?
Well it is off putting to you, it is not objectively bad. And no it isn’t a case of she can just fight whomever you want. Darkdevil was a mentor figure as was Kaine who returned her to her parents BECAUSE of his brotherly feelings for Peter. The Scriers were the people he took the baby from in the first place and so that ties into her fight with them and they’re hiring of Hobgoblin. Her fight with Harry’s son tied heavily into Norman’s involvement in the clone saga as well. You can’t just unplug this stuff and say it’s the same thing because it would be a completely different animal. The IDEA is the same but the specifics are utterly different. Also what# 49 said.
I don’t know. The way I see it, saying you can like the Spider-Girl title while hating everything about the Clone Saga is like saying you can like the Amazing Spider-Man title while hating everything about Marvel comics. You can’t have ASM without Marvel, and you can’t have SG without the Clone Saga.
@46 I’ll just say once you have the concept of Spider-man has super-powered teenaged daughter trying to live up to his legacy you can have her fight anyone you want. You don’t have to her fight Clone Saga characters. That’s just an off-putting choice Defalco is making. I’m mean dear God she fought the Scriers? Remind to me to never buy that trade ever! Of three trades I have (the first one, the one where she fight Seth and the one where she fights the current Spider Girl) the best stories in each trade all have nothing to do with the Clone Saga, with the fights against Harry’s son and Venom in the first trade being the two best stories I’ve read in that universe. I still believe you can retain the core of the character and its ties to Peter’s overall story without a single Clone Saga reference, and that the series would be far better off for it.
@47 I was more or less indifferent to him, you’re right in that first trade he comes off as DD resurrected/possessed by Ghost Rider. I don’t particularly like either of those characters in the main universe, so whatever. Although the former is a far, far better choice than having him be Ben’s son with one of the annoying waitress chicks that made me drop the main Spider books to begin with (I think that is his story, I do not believe I’ve actually read his origin).
Darkdevil first showed up in Spider-Girl #2 and in the Spider-Girl series there is literally NO mention of his ties to the clone saga. Did you hate him before you found out he had any clone saga ties?
@42-You missed my point. Besides the fact that Darkdevil and Felicity are ties to Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Flash Thompson and Black Cat anyway, my point was they are a massive part of the Spider-Girl series along with Kaine. Whole issues and key moments of character development literally would not exist without them hence creating a different series/character. Like issue #50, #75, #100, the final 2 trades of Amazing Spider-Girl and ALL of Spectacular Spider-Girl would literally not exist/be the same thing without the clone saga. Mayday got key character development from fighting Kaine, Angel Face, Lady Ock and the Scriers, all of which were created IN the clone saga. It’s like saying Gwen didn’t need to die. Without her death the whole series would be a different animal. Without the clone saga Spider-Girl would be DRASTICALLY altered.
What #44 said. Also we know for categorical FACT that DeFalco brought up the idea of MJ becoming pregnant when the clone saga was being planned. So yes it’s genesis (and by extension Spider-Girl’s) is entirely down to the clone saga.
As for the costume also see #44. To add to that it lacked the red boots, red fingers, had web shooters on the outside with unique weapons, e.g. impact webbing. It was in no way as if the artist just tweaked details of the classic suit. To regard Ben’s suit as not it’s own thing is to regard Otto’s first and current costume as the same as Peter’s when it’s obviously not.
Also May adopted Ben’s suit herself when hearing about her ‘uncle ben’ so it wasn’t really a minor point since she was honouring Ben’s legacy as well as her dad’s.
@43 – Spider-Girl was a What If story so it started out as an alternate reality but got such great feedback it led to the Spider-Girl title.
MJ’s pregnancy wasn’t announced until the 2nd or 3rd month of the Clone Saga – it was after Doc Ock saved Spidey’s life from the disease that Vulture gave him. This was after Ben showed up.
The Spidey/Beast story was adjective-less Spider-Man 15 (?) which was a one-shot written and drawn by Erik Larsen. MacFarlane was still on the book but was on his way out so the way I heard it they needed a fill-in issue and let Larsen take a shot (I think this was his first time writing Spidey). It was a done-in-one issue i.e. this story was never brought up again, even when MJ actually became pregnant. They decided in this story, after talking to the Beast, that they weren’t ready to have children (or weren’t ready to make that decision). Everyone forgot about it, including Joe Quesada when he said in OMIT that Peter and MJ had never discussed having kids before (whoops). The Clone saga (and MJ’s pregnancy) were years past this, so I don’t think this one issue can be seen as the genesis of Spider-Girl. The clone saga is her genesis.
Spider-Girl’s costume is definitely Ben’s costume. Not the Scarlet Spider costume, but the costume he designed when he took over the role of Spider-Man. I think its first appearance was in Sensational Spider-Man #0. When they talk about the larger spider on the front they don’t just mean because it’s stretched because of her boobs (conversation getting awkward) but the legs of the spider stretching off the chest to her sides. When you look at it it’s pretty obvious that it’s different from the original Spider-Man costume.
@42,
I suppose I see where you are coming from with the What-If example. Remember I didn’t read these books originally, I went back and picked some up in trade. I knew Spider Girl was part of some failed new brand (MC2) where like every other book but hers got cancelled in six issues, but I didn’t really think of her title as a What-if story.
I guess in my mind MJ’s pregnancy was a parallel event to the Clone Saga but not actually part of the Clone Saga. Wasn’t her pregnancy announced before Ben showed up? Heck I definitely recall there being a story two years or so before her pregnancy in which Spidey meets with Beast and is like ‘Hey my wife and I are considering having kids, do I have to worry about them being mutants” and Beast is like ‘yup, you’re kids will probably have super powers” So I think it can be argued that is the true genesis of the concept of Spider Girl and not the Clone Saga.
As for the Spider Girl costume I never remotely saw that as Ben’s costume, or really different than Pete’s costume. But I also freely admit that I am not the type of fanboy to get bogged down in small minutia like that; I care about character and plot not whether Captain America’s hat has an A or an Eagle on it. It’s like on the main page when there are photos from the movies with captions like ‘What do you think about what they’ve done to the Spiderman costume’, I’m always like ‘okay, looks like Spiderman’s costume to me.’ In fact even right now thinking about it if there are differences between the new film costume, the Rami costume, the Broadway costume and the comic book costume I couldn’t tell you what they are. The black costume or the Iron Spider outfits are new costumes, but if the traditional costume has 10-percent more blue on the butt I’m not going to even notice that let alone consider it a new costume. To me Ben’s costume is that ugly solid red thing with the ugly blue thing over it and to my knowledge May has never worn that. Now that you’ve said something, sure I suppose I notice May’s chest spider is bigger than Peter’s but we can’t we just chalk about to her having boobs when Peter doesn’t and go back to forgetting Ben ever existed?
“There’d be no Dark Devil, Kaine or Felicity Hardy in that series”
And it would be much better off without them! Which brings us full circle to my statement that I really like the core of the title with May, Peter and MJ but there’s just too much Clone Saga continuity for my tastes so I’ve only purchased three Spider Girl trades in six years.
@40-I didn’t explain myself properly. You’re saying that the IDEA of them having a kid didn’t need the clone saga; agreed. I meant the Spider-Girl series existed ONLY because of the Clone Saga. It was a What If story riffing on the end of the Clone Saga. No Clone Saga=nothing to riff on, therefore no Spider-Girl. That and she wouldn’t have her iconic costume or be honouring her ‘Uncle Ben’. Also there’d be no Dark Devil, Kaine or Felicity Hardy in that series. It wouldn’t be the same series at all. Also see what #41 said.
@40 – I think the whole idea of giving Peter a child was that he would retire to raise a family and Ben would take over the webs. So it wasn’t something that Marvel would have done without the clone saga taking place. Of course I’ve different statements from Marvel over the years that they never intended to retire Peter, that they always intended to retire him, so who knows?
“they were (presumably) having sex for years before the Clone Saga” Not according to Joe Quesada. Hey-oh!
@37 I really don’t see the argument that you need the Clone Saga to have May Parker. Pete and MJ were married for years before the Clone Saga ergo they were (presumably) having sex for years before the Clone Saga ergo they could conceive a child with or without the Clone Saga’s existence.
@38 – I was going to say “all of Brand New Day” but as much as I dislike BND there were some good stories in there so I can’t hate the whole thing.
Whoops. I wasn’t trying to make an analogy to this review, it just turned out that way.
@36-I’d second every single one of those but add Superior Spider-Man #2, ASM #605, Peter Parker Paparazzi, that arc by Waid with Daredevil and Black Cat
To #33-35- Different strokes for different folks. I 100% agree about fatherhood being a natural evolution for a guy about responsibility. Since Mayday was created to specifically be part of the clone saga and wears Ben’s suit, doesn’t THAT you did need it for her to exist? It’s like how without Venom Carnage would never have existed. No Clone Saga=no Spider-Girl.
@35 “”I’ve read worse comic book storylines out there” Name one.”
Just off the top of my head:
One More Day
The Gathering of the Five
One Moment in Time
The Final Chapter
The Senator Ward story (aka the entire Mackie/Byrne reboot)
Hobgoblin is revealed to be Ned Leeds but Leeds is already dead
Alpha
Chapter One
The Spider-Mobile saga (is it a saga? Zach, get working on a Spider-Mobile Saga Podcast!)
All right, and finally on with the feedback:
@8, if the Bugle page is for the readers why is it written that Kaine is “believed to be a clone.” He isn’t believed to be a clone; he is a clone unless something has changed in his solo title that I’m, of course, not reading. Also that (x) is supposed to be “multiplied by”. Basically you know in Christmas Story how the kid imagines his paper will get an A+ with the pluses going on and on around the room, well this is the converse with the –’s after the F spiraling into infinity.
@12, I believe I read Lost Years although of course I haven’t touched a Clone Saga book since they came out 18 years ago so we’re going on long ago memory here. But if it is the one I’m thinking of I hated it a lot. If I recall that is the one drawn by JRJR where everyone is drawn really thick like a linebacker and Ben wanders around in the rain a lot, dates some chick and gets stalked by Kaine. If that is the story you are referring to then that was one of the stories that caused me to begin turning on the Clone Saga. You must understand of all the things I hate about the Clone Saga I HATE the character of Ben Reilly the most. Yes I also hardcore detest Spidercide and the Maximum Clonage issues, but I made it through those and kept going. I didn’t drop the Spider titles until the Jurgens series launched and Ben got a job in a dinner with a bunch of characters just as insipid as he was at which point I realized there was no hope this title would ever be slightly good again with Ben in the lead (and at the time it seemed like he was going to be the lead character permanently). The decision to drop the book was made easier too because my Spider-man had been given a nice happily ever after with MJ on the West Coast, so I felt no desire at all to keep reading about this whiny stranger in Spidey’s costume that I hated. So to answer your question if it was published before Ben went to work in the diner I probably read it, otherwise I probably didn’t. If it is the story I’m thinking of I hated it a lot, if it’s not I probably still hated it but I’ve at least blocked it from my memory.
Regarding the Green Goblin. Realize that I didn’t buy comics for close to 10 years after the Clone Saga until Civil War so anything in that gap I’ve since gone back and gotten in trade. I haven’t bought a lot of Norman trades because I don’t have a strong emotional connection to the character—after all he was dead before I was even born: to me Venom will always be Peter’s greatest foe. I think the only two I have are the Jenkin’s trade because I’m learning I really like Jenkins take on Spidey and his villains a lot; and the 12-part Millar epic which is one of the first few trades I picked up because it has both Felicia and Venom on the cover and those are my two favorite characters in the Spider-verse. I enjoyed both those stories, particularly the Millar epic. Oh, I also read the two Warren Ellis Thunderbolt trades which have Norman in them and they are exceptional. Ditto New Ways To Die was pretty phenomenal. Of course I bought those three trades because of Venom and Bullseye but Norman was in them, so yes for the most part I’ve quite enjoyed the post Clone Saga Norman stories.
I wouldn’t consider Spider Girl’s existence to be predicated on the Clone Saga. Yes the bulk of MJ’s pregnancy occurs during that story but there’s nothing about the concept of MJ gets pregnant after she and Peter have been married for several years that couldn’t be told even if Ben, Kaine and Jackal never existed. To me MJ’s pregnancy was a much anticipated plot development when it occurred, and for a book whose central theme is responsibility fatherhood should be a natural evolution of that theme. You don’t need clones to tell that story at all.
@26 “I’ve read worse comic book storylines out there” Name one. 🙂
One more thing on general bias, Poster 2 previously asked me if I could enjoy a well told story with Clone Saga characters, and I think I could based on an Avengers example. I say how the Clone Saga made me quit comics for 10 years and that is 90% true, but my other favorite title besides Spidey has always been the Avengers and around the same time as the Clone Saga they published probably the worst story in their history as well: “The Crossing.” It was the combination of those two terrible stories that sent me screaming for the hills. Indeed there are a lot of similarities between the two stories in that both are unwieldy messes filled with unfinished ideas and that ended in status quo changes that no one wanted to see and that would be reversed and stricken from continuity in about a year’s time. (The big difference between the two being The Crossing was only about three months long instead of three years long.)
The Crossing was also the culmination of a decade of really bad Kang stories in which the character was broken in pretty much the exact same way as the Jackal is now. It was revealed that every time Kang time traveled he created “chronal divergents” of himself and this led to a slew of stories where Kang was alternately killing his own divergents or teaming up with them, including a story in which there was a council of 1,000 Kangs working together. And so Kang could die a lot and his actions had no consequences because it would be revealed the one who died was just a divergent or he would time travel and prevent his own death or whatever nonsense excuse the writers came up with that month; while at the same time his schemes began to make less and less sense. And soon his love interest was diverging and becoming a cyborg and every subsequent story was retconning the one that came before it until the only response to a new Kang story was an eyeball rolling who cares.
And then Kurt Busiek wrote Avengers Forever: a massive time travel epic involving Kang going to war with his older self Immortus, which is on paper is something I would hate a lot. And it got rave reviews but I avoided reading it for a long time because I was like, nope I hate Kang. But finally a friend more or less force loaned me a copy, saying as an Avengers fan I owed it to myself to read it. Once I read it I enjoyed it thoroughly. Busiek had a monumental task to rehabilitate Kang but he did it, in part by having an entire issue dedicated to mitigating those 10 years of bad stories and also by ensuring there would be no more divergent Kang has a get-out-of-jail -free card plot device in the future so the character’s stories could once again have consequences.
So yes, if you could find a story of equivalent quality as Avengers Forever for a Clone Saga character I could theoretically enjoy it but that story hasn’t come close to being published yet.
Wow, nice to see all the feedback, even those who disagree. I left for work yesterday around 8 a.m. and didn’t get home until 10 p.m. and then put in another near 10 hour day today so I had no chance to be online until now, but let me try to respond a few comments. I’m going start with some rather general thoughts and then maybe do a few specific responses later.
For those who think I’m being overly harsh just because I hate the Clone Saga, let’s look at what actually happened in this book: 1 – Ock and Kaine fight for the first time since the original Clone Saga, 2 – the X-Spider Clones attack, 3 – Yet another Gwen Stacy clone is revealed this time with her dad’s clone.
I’ll concede that someone who enjoys the character of Kaine may have looked forward to the first development. However, I will counter argue that there is nothing particularly special about this confrontation. Ock battles the guest star in this series in more the half of the issues I’ve reviewed. I wouldn’t consider the fight itself to be particularly special. And Ock does not reveal his true identity to Kane even in his rage. So while I can see why some readers may have wanted to see this confrontation in theory, I don’t see how the reality of it is particularly compelling. But I guess some people’s mileage may vary on that front, which is more than I will say of the next two items.
The X-Spider Clones is just more of what we always get from the Jackal. They don’t speak. They don’t have individual names or personalities. We are not even told which X-men powers they are mimicking (although we can see for example Cyclops in the art) because at the end of the day they are not to be important or memorable, in which case we are we wasting time on them as ultimately they are nothing more than the same silly disposable fodder we’ve seen in prior (very bad) Jackal stories dressed up in slightly new clothing.
And in the coup de grace we have a new Gwen clone with a shotgun, which I standby as just a truly awful and absurd development that no one should care a whit about. We’ve seen Gwen cloned before, and I would argue any narrative value cloning her may have had was used up in the original story circa issue 150. It doesn’t even matter if you like Gwen as a character because this character is running around with shotgun and helping the Jackal which means she is Gwen in appearance only with none of the character traits of the original. She’s as much Gwen as Spidercide is Peter. So who cares? And what is the end result? She melts? Then who cares times 50? She turns against her creator? We’ve seen that before too, and did any good stories come of it? None spring to my mind. And even if she somehow sticks around because Gwen is in the movies and they want her in the comics again, Peter isn’t Peter right now and Ock has never met the girl before so I don’t see much story potential there either, certainly none that I would want to read at least
As for cloning Gwen’s dad, all I have to say is has anyone on Earth read the prior clone stories and thought ‘You know would make these stories really better? If even more long dead characters were cloned.’ Yea, I didn’t think so.
I thought this was an okay issue, certainly not worthy of an F just because it references a past story that you didn’t like. I am getting really sick of all the fakeouts with the Jackal’s death though, you hit that right on the head. Also, the spider-mutants thing was in a past issue. I think you should have approached this with a more open mind because it seems you came into this hoping to give it a bad review.
@26: you will NOT talk to the reviewer that way. First warning.
@29 – I agree with you. Except even though OMD and OMIT were badly written, the art I enjoyed. So therefore I would give them a D-. Still not an F. 🙂
@28-It depends if the goodness of the art offsets the writing of an issue. E.g. I’d give OMD part 4 an F even though the art isn’t terrible (I don’t like Quesada’s work personally, never have even going back to the 90s/early 2000s). Sometimes the art can bolster an issue though, see any given issue of ASM Mark Bagely drew bcos he is Mark Bagely
Checchetto draws a really cool looking Spider-Man. That alone should lift this book above F-. Often we throw hatred at writers for a bad comic but come on, artists are important too! BillWuzHere mentioned nothing about the art, which I think is essential in a review.
To #24-Actually that’s the fascinating thing about it. As far as the writers like DeMatteis and Mackie etc were concerned Ben was forever going to be Spider-Man. But when DeFalco signed off on it he and Fingeroth agreed that Peter would return shortly after and Ben would be spun off bcos no one would buy Ben as Spider-Man. But they didn’t tell the writers that. Then DeFalco was deposed and then Ben really WAS going to be Spider-Man forever which meant DeFalco’s/Fingeroth’s plan fell apart. As a temporary story (which it wound up being) the idea is fine. For me, the Clone Saga is like any era of Spider-Man, some good and some bad.
To Mr. BillWuzHere have you ever read Spider-Man the Lost Years out of curiosity?
So basically you, the reviewer are dissing this just because of the fucking Clone Saga? Get over it. It was years ago, and its actually not that bad. I’ve read worse comic book storylines out there.
@#22
And the cat came back, the very next day
Yes the cat came back, they thought he was a goner
But the Wack came back… he just wouldn’t stay away…
Now I wonder what excuse he’ll give for coming around this time?
@23 – I don’t *hate* the clone saga. I don’t like it as a whole, the whole idea was flawed – Marvel didn’t foresee that the readers would be upset that the character they were reading for almost 250 issues wasn’t the real Spider-Man? Really??? But there are good parts to it. To use an analogy, I can’t say that I hate Europe because I hate 5 or 6 of the countries in it when there are some countries I’m indifferent to and others that I love.
To #13-Wow. Previous conversations made me think you hated the clone saga.
To #16-But that is like how 616 Spidey still has radioactive blood even today. If the story your building on was dumb what can you do? Plus this is comic book SCIENCE and we all now how accurate that is
To #21-Surely at this point SpOck must have some kind of device which averts people’s suspicions if the clone of the guy can’t tell anything is up.
I thought this review was a blast. Especially the anger at the recap page.
Please have this guy do more.
Steve W.
Way to not try out, but just shun*
Wow, way to not try just shun a great story just because it’s trying to make something good out of a terrible event. I mean really? You’re going to complain about the freaking recap page? Hell, just because they slap they daily bugle logo on it doesn’t make me think “oh gee, everyone in spidey’s universe must be reading this” no, it’s just a recap, get over it. I’m sick of how critical you reviewers are just because you feel like a character like Spider-Man can only be written a certain way. Without all the tinkering they’ve been doing that yes oh my dear god forbid, revolved around the clone saga, we wouldn’t have the amazing new Scarlet Spider series. Listen, I get you may not dig anything about the clone saga, but don’t kid yourself by thinking what’s going on is a bad thing. It’s making what was once a very crappy event into something more substantial and entertaining to read. Fuck this
14 – BECAUSE YOU DEMANDED IT . . .
yet, I think that Collectors needs a clone strip saga.
The creators behind the original clone saga had ZERO idea how cloning actually works, which made the whole 90s saga a ridiculous joke. They were building off of the bronze age story which was equally as hokey. Now everyone conveniently has forgotten how much the 90s saga was hated, which means we now have to suffer issues like this one.
Spidedude’s defending this book? Can’t say I’m surprised. 😉
And is there any reviewer of ANYTHING that you’d agree with 100%? Not likely. For example, I don’t agree with any positive reviews of any books involving SpOck. Calling him out for bias is kinda pointless.
@6 – “Also, there’s a 50% chance that the grade is extremely positive, because (x) could be a negative number. ;)””
I suspect Chris’ next review will contain algebra or the quadratic equation.
@4 “To your question of could I enjoy a well-written story involving Clone Saga characters? My first instinct is to say, “I don’t know because they’ve never written one” but I’ll put the sarcasm aside to say I enjoyed Grim Hunt and that had Kaine in it. I thought that was a good story overall that accomplished what it wanted to in the broader sense, and specific was probably the best thing that could have been done with Kaine. Although of course I’d be a ton happier if he stayed dead at the end of it because that story was probably the best possible way to tie up the loose end that is his existence if you are going to bother to acknowledge he existed at all after all these years.”
There’s nothing wrong with sarcasm. 🙂
While there are a lot of bad issues in the clone saga, there are a lot of good ones too. As a whole I don’t like the overall saga but I don’t hate it, and I can’t say that every issue in it was terrible. Anything that contains Lost Years can’t be called terrible, in my opinion.
I would hardly consider Grim Hunt a clone saga related book. Kaine is in it but he is not the main character and for half of it he either doesn’t appear or is “dead”. I would say GH has more to do with Fearful Symmetry (Kraven’s Last Hunt) than the Clone Saga.
Plus the Clone Saga mini-series is awesome.
To #4-I see I failed to convince you of the value of Ben and Kaine in our last exchange my friend. Again, I think you are partially being unfair to this thing on the principle that it has clone saga connections but that being said this does sound bad. Gun totting clones of the Stacy’s reminds me of the worst bits of Maximum Clonage and I also agree about the Bugle knowing most of the stuff you pointed out (although if it is just a recap page then critiquing it is pointless). I also hated how ever Doc Ock claims he killed Captain Stacy, when Stacy sacrificed HIMSELF it was no one’s fault. However, yes the Jackal’s identity has been public since the 90s Clone Saga. A few qus if that’s cool:
Have you ever read Spider-Man the Lost years?
Have you hated every Green Goblin story since the clone saga?
How did you read Spider-Girl if it’s EXISTENCE is a clone saga reference? Mayday was created in the Clone Saga and wears Ben’s suit.
I thought the first part of Sibling Rivalry was stronger than the second, so I dread to think how bad a review that would’ve got. Plus that was even more cloney.
There where problems with the book but I over all enjoyed it. But it’s just a battle of bias.
JGC…
There were problems with this one but I enjoyed it.
Well, first off, I think being biased is perfectly fine. Everyone has biases and the important thing is to be aware of them and to be conscious of how they are influencing your thinking. We have a whole internet full of people reviewing every issue of every comic, and getting a diversity of perspectives is what makes that great.
Personally, I thought this two-parter was pretty mediocre. It didn’t rock my world but there’s no way I’d give it an F minus infinity in a world where One More Day has been published.
I do have to quibble with some of the points in the review, though. The newspaper that starts off the issue is pretty much just an attempt to be creative with a recap page, and I don’t think it is meant to be understood as an actual article that was printed within the context of the story. A spider with mutant powers appeared in an earlier issue of Avenging Spider-Man, so Spider-Man doesn’t recognize their powers out of nowhere in this issue. Also, there’s a 50% chance that the grade is extremely positive, because (x) could be a negative number. 😉
I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more of the clone saga in this title. The Jackal had at least one cameo in Yost’s Avenging run so this seems to be a “running plot” rather than just one story.
BillWuzHere hates clones, so he hates this issue.
Spideydude loves clones, so he loves this issue.
I’m somewhere in the middle.
@5 – “The Jackal pops these clones out like they are freezy-pops from the fridge. Aren’t equipment and chemicals expensive?” He’s a COLLEGE PROFESSOR! Once you get tenure it’s like a license to print money.
The Jackal pops these clones out like they are freezy-pops from the fridge. Aren’t equipment and chemicals expensive?
We don’t even know who this particular Jackal is; is this some sort of demented Xerox of Warren who just keeps chugging along?
At #2,
I admitted last issue my biases and how I hate just about everything to do with Clone Saga, and I don’t think I’m completely alone on that front as that story was pretty universally panned by the end and unofficially disavowed for years afterwards. I’m hoping that after this issue we’ll be out of Clone Saga territory, because I wouldn’t want to review (or read) a book that kept treading on this ground for an extended period. As a reviewer to my readers I let them know up front where I stood, which is sometimes all we can do in the interest of fairness.
To your question of could I enjoy a well-written story involving Clone Saga characters? My first instinct is to say, “I don’t know because they’ve never written one” but I’ll put the sarcasm aside to say I enjoyed Grim Hunt and that had Kaine in it. I thought that was a good story overall that accomplished what it wanted to in the broader sense, and specific was probably the best thing that could have been done with Kaine. Although of course I’d be a ton happier if he stayed dead at the end of it because that story was probably the best possible way to tie up the loose end that is his existence if you are going to bother to acknowledge he existed at all after all these years.
Otherwise yea, I find it hard to enjoy anything that deals with the Clone Saga. Even with Spider Girl, while I think the core of the book involving May as well as Peter and MJ is done very well I find the title’s biggest flaw is it references Clone Saga continuity too much for my tastes to the point I’ve only purchased three trades in the entire run because anytime that topic is broached it sours my desire to read the entire title.
Anyway hopefully from previews we’re moving on to Thanos and then the Sinister Six soon and so the reviews should be more in line withmy five Avenging team-up reviews
I so SOSOSO disagree with this review.
I’m not gonna be like some of the commenters for last issue’s review that said “if you don’t like the clone saga then maybe you shouldn’t review this book”. I think all of the reviewers on this site put a lot of time and effort into their reviews and it’s not really our place to say “you shouldn’t be reviewing this book because I don’t like what you say!” Reviews are opinions and we won’t always agree with them.
That being said … it does seem like this is going to be a clone-saga related book, at least for this storyline. And you’ve given two F-level grades for the first two issues. You gave some specific examples with your problems this issue but it still feels like you’re saying “I hate the clone saga so I’m gonna hate anything that includes it.” But who knows? I haven’t read these issues so maybe they *are* that bad.
I’m just wondering if you can see yourself giving a positive review for a future issue if it had great writing and characterization, even if it was about clone saga related characters.
I know it’s a satellite title but maybe it would be nice if we had a second reviewer for this book, like how we have Chris and Don reviewing the Superior title. When we read a bad review from Chris, I’m sure a lot of us are wondering “I wonder what Don thinks?” If Don gives a negative review too then I’d say most of us would think “chances are this is a bad issue”. If they disagree then it gives us more to think about.
Just my 2 cents.
I thiink you are sightly biaised. This issue was ok. It shows that ock is losing it and is motivated by nothing but petty revenge, while Kaine is becoming a hero. It shows nurture vs nature. It shows that Peter goodness is in his past, not in his DNA. And the mutant spider thing was explain in an earlier issue of avenging, its even refered in this issue.