Comments on: Send in the clones

Send in the clones

darukaru — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 15:50:10 -0800

A particularly dark period in the life of Spider-Man. Or, an insider's look at the infamous Clone Saga. Or, When Comic Book Marketing Executives Attack.

By: plexiwatt

plexiwatt — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 15:58:57 -0800

Did I accidentally wander into MarvelFilter today? Enough with the spandex already, for the love of benji.

By: caddis

caddis — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:04:14 -0800

Oh good Lord NO! I am caught in Spider-Man's sticky meta-web.

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:06:31 -0800

I've actually read more ABOUT Spiderman comics than I have the actual comics. Weirdly compelling.

By: monju_bosatsu

monju_bosatsu — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:25:52 -0800

Please. Stop.

By: davros42

davros42 — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:28:35 -0800

Great links! More more more!

By: bobo123

bobo123 — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:29:23 -0800

This is a pretty good link though, lots of skimming for me to do.

By: evinrude

evinrude — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:29:44 -0800

35 parts?

By: btwillig

btwillig — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:31:45 -0800

For some reason my spidey-sense has been tingling all day.

By: AaRdVarK

AaRdVarK — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:52:31 -0800

I started reading this, and got to part 9. I'm still interested, but I started clicking through to see how much i had left. 35 parts??? It's getting back burnered.

By: XQUZYPHYR

XQUZYPHYR — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:55:55 -0800

Jesus. This is the same site from another Spider Man post, and I could have sworn this one was posted before.

By: Trik

Trik — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 17:20:00 -0800

The Exiles Return (or something like that) was my fav episode. Reilly's internal dialog: "I am not a man". His reason for his self exile from NYC. His belief that he was Parkes clone. His reason for his return to NYC: Aunt May in a coma and probably dying, and his desire to see her before the end. His memories and emotions identical to Parkers up to moment the cell sample was taken for the cloning process. His unhesitating willingness to step into the hero's role when circumstances demanded. And all very well done.

By: Tenuki

Tenuki — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 17:20:57 -0800

Thanks for this link, I'd given up on comics for college right before this storyline started and I'd always been interested in the details.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 17:21:40 -0800

Aunt May hasn't died yet???--she was ancient back in the late 60s-early 70s when i was reading it.

By: Tenuki

Tenuki — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 17:26:09 -0800

Yep, Aunt May died about halfway through Part Five, or in Amazing Spider-Man #400

By: amberglow

amberglow — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 17:50:48 -0800

ah--they did it well (it's always silly when the people in the alter-ego's life don't have a clue about the superhero stuff)

By: dogwelder

dogwelder — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 18:09:32 -0800

Of course, Aunt May's alive again.

By: Space Coyote

Space Coyote — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 00:05:04 -0800

I liked the clone arc.

By: Trik

Trik — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 01:05:34 -0800

amberglow It turned out she did know that Peter was Spiderman. The episode she dies in, she asks Peter to get her out of the hospital, and take her home. Later Peter takes her to the empire state bld. While admiring the view, she asks Peter "what's it like?" Peter says: "what's what like?" She replies: (my memory may be a bit off) "Being Spiderman. Swinging from building to building" Peter's totally flabbergasted. She says something like "Do you think I'm stupid? I've know almost from the beginning. The blood, the bruises, the excuses. Why do you think I hated Spiderman so! He was always taking you into danger!" They talk for awhile (silent captions / panels) She also tells him how proud of him she is somewhere along the line. They go home to her house. She says she's tired and going to take a nap. She dies in her sleep. Watched over by her family. Petter and MJ in the room with her. Reilly outside the house, watching thru a window. Tears all around. Peter draped across her in mourning, with his head on her chest, trying to will her heart to beat.

By: bobo123

bobo123 — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 01:15:55 -0800

Skimmed through the whole thing earlier, for a while I liked unused idea to repair everything described at the end of "Part 20" (then realized how it treated MJ was too similar to how they brought back Jean Grey in X-Factor #1, like "that was my clone who died, I've been in stasis" ). Now "Part 22" describes a very interesting unused premise, where Peter Parker is sent back in time, de-aged, and has his memory wiped, then becomes Ben Reilly, so they were both Peter Parker all along, yeah it's convoluted but in an amusing way. Anyway, skimming through the whole 35 parts, it sort of brought into focus why I prefer manga to American comic books. Firstly, manga generally end eventually, so you have a more focused story, like Akira and Lone Wolf and Cub go on for several volumes and then end. Secondly, mangas generally have a single auteur behind them. (I use the term like auteur because people like Tezuka and Otomo will employ dozens of unnamed assistants to put together their work). The thing that annoys me about most American comics is whenever I get into a series they change the artist or the writer. It annoys me that Spider-Man has no one person behind it, it's all put together by comittees and marketing people. Sure lots of manga have the same influence from marketing (Toriyama stretched the length of Dragonball because of marketing pressure) but there's still a single person behind it. Stuff like Sandman, Bone, Cerebus, I like them because they're like manga in that they have a beginning, middle and end, and that the same person's name is on every issue. Dave Sim pointed out "If you read three hundred issues of Superman or Spiderman, they don't make sense as a story or a life," I would say it's more like reading some 300 issue "exquisite corpse" that doesn't make sense due to the number of people involved.

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 07:18:30 -0800

I've been reading Ultimate Spider-Man as part of my morning exercise bike routine. So reading about Spider-Man while at work is making my legs hurt! Only on Part 5 or so and still interested. I remember a friend trying to describe what the whole clone thing was years ago, followed by him getting depressed and ordering another drink.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 08:55:08 -0800

i know Trik--i read that part--i liked that she always knew. : >

By: evinrude

evinrude — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 12:14:16 -0800

OK, I've now read all 35 parts. And have remembered why I stopped reading "mainstream" comics. Stupid executive interference! Stupid chrome covers! Stupid ideas! Stupid costumes, stupid names! Er, and so on.