The Spider-Man Clone Saga, one of the most controversial comic storylines of all time, has reached it’s 30 year anniversary. Beginning in the Spider-Man titles published with a cover date of October 1994, Peter Parker’s clone, thought dead for nearly 20 years, resurfaced. The Peter Parker clone originated in Amazing Spider-Man #149, at the end of Gerry Conway’s run as writer in July 1975. Originally the clone was planned as a one off character who would fight Spider-Man, then die a few pages later. Little did Conway suspect this character would be revived two decades later, and remain popular nearly half a century later. When the original story ended, Spider-Man had tests done by Curt Conners, the Lizard, to confirm whether or not he was the original or the clone. Confident that his love for Mary Jane proved he was real, Peter ended up discarding the tests without looking at them. But that would prove only a prelude to the main event 20 years later.
To mark this occasion, I recently reread the entirety of the “Clone Saga”. What follows is a recap of the legendary storyline from the 90’s:
In the months leading up to the return of the clone, Peter is pushed to the edge. His friend Harry Osborn relapsed into madness. Following in the footsteps of his father Norman, Harry once again becomes the Green Goblin. Harry begins carrying out bizarre and twisted schemes to mess with Peter, including creating robotic duplicates of his parents with the aid of the Chameleon. Spider-Man begins going down a dark path himself. During Maximum Carnage, he allies with murderous former enemies like Morbius and Venom, reconsidering whether their more lethal approach is necessary to stop Carnage. Spider-Man began referring to himself as merely “the Spider” and saying Peter was no more.
Mary Jane was disturbed by Peter’s increasingly bizarre behavior. The Spider began cocooning himself in webbing and sleeping hanging from the ceiling, cutting himself off from his own wife. After Aunt May suffered a stroke and seemed on the verge of death, Mary Jane and Anna Watson were alone to look over May in the hospital. Frustrated by Peter having abandoned his human side, Mary Jane decides to return to her family and reconcile with her sister and father. On the airplane ride, she begins to feel nauseous. Upon returning from her family reunion, Mary Jane discovers she is pregnant. However, there are increasingly worrying medical tests indicating the child may suffer from deformities due to Peter’s irradiated blood. Eventually, it is revealed the fetus is suffering from genetic drift, because its father is a clone.
While Mary Jane was away, Peter had reunited with his clone at the hospital. After years wandering the country, the clone created by the Jackal in the 1970s had returned to visit May in her final moments. Peter initially suspected the clone was another trick by one of his enemies, and a battle ensued. Despite their rocky start, Peter and the clone, now calling himself Ben Reilly, were forced to work together by a crisis. Ravencroft Asylum had been taken over by a mysterious being with godlike power named Judas Traveller and his organization the Host. Judas Traveller was a psychiatrist studying the nature of good and evil. He and another mysterious character the Scrier put Peter and Ben through numerous trials throughout the saga.
After Peter and Ben manage to pass Traveller’s first test, Ben decides to become a superhero like Peter. He takes a sweater and tears off the sleeves for a makeshift Spider outfit. Daily Bugle reporter Ken Ellis labels him the Scarlet Spider, a name Ben hates. Ben is disgusted that Peter has made a truce with Venom, and takes down Peter’s nemesis using his new impact webbing and stingers.
Peter meanwhile battles for his life after being poisoned during a battle alongside Daredevil against the Owl and the Vulture. He begins having visions of a cloning chamber, implying he may be the real clone about to die. Doctor Octopus manages to save Peter by developing an antidote. While Peter is sick, it is up to Ben to protect him from the Grim Hunter, the son of Kraven. A new clone named Kaine appears to guard Peter from his enemies. When he strikes, he leaves a Mark of Kaine on the victim’s face. This bulked up clone makes short work of the Scarlet Spider, and takes on the Grim Hunter and Doctor Octopus himself.
Ben and Peter reunite at the lair of the Jackal. A former professor of Peter’s named Miles Warren, the Jackal had become obsessed with Peter’s girlfriend Gwen Stacy. Gwen’s death pushed him over the edge to create clones of Gwen and Peter. Peter and Ben find the Jackal’s lab, guarded by a hulking clone called the Guardian with scars similar to Kaine’s. Peter and Ben watch this clone degenerate due to imperfections in the cloning process. After this, the fear of clone degeneration hangs over both their heads. The Jackal manipulates them both by claiming to each that they are the real Peter, but backs off these claims as he reveals a third Peter. This Peter believes himself to be the original Parker frozen in a pod for years.
In the landmark issue #400, Aunt May passes away after waking briefly from a coma and revealing she always knew Peter was Spider-Man. Peter comes home from her funeral to be arrested for a murder he didn’t commit. Kaine is troubled by visions of Mary Jane being hunted down and killed by someone she least expects. Kaine takes Mary Jane into the sewers warning her of impending death. Peter escapes prison to save his wife, and gets into a battle royale with his three clones. During the fight, the new Peter clone mutates into a monstrous form, but seems to perish in the flames. As Kaine watches from the roof, Ben and Peter trade identities. Ben will go to jail and stand trial for the murder in Peter’s place. Peter takes on the Scarlet Spider identity from Ben in his absence.
While Peter is put on trial at Ravencroft by Judas Traveller, Ben is on trial in Peter’s stead in a New York City court. After Kaine testifies on Peter’s behalf in Ravencroft, Peter is released by Judas Traveller. Peter and Kaine then proceed to the other trial. Kaine wants Ben to die for crimes he committed himself. Peter threatens to unmask in court to exonerate Ben. This finally persuades Kaine to admit his guilt.
After Ben and Peter are exonerated, they find out from Ben’s friend Seward Trainer that Peter is the clone. Peter went mad with rage, striking his pregnant wife and joining up with the Jackal. The Jackal earns Peter’s trust by protecting him from a shot by the Punisher. Spider-Man takes the Jackal to his lair to heal. Alongside a reconstructed Spidercide, Peter helps the Jackal until he reveals his plan to set off a bomb at the Daily Bugle building. Spidercide is persuaded by the Scrier to fight against the Jackal, but in the conflict they both fall from the building and die. Peter suffers yet another mental breakdown, seeing the Jackal everywhere, and stalks Mary Jane through New York threatening to kill her. He eventually regains control, but decides to abandon his life as a superhero in New York and move to Portland, Oregon.
Terry Kavanagh, who first proposed reviving the clone, and JM DeMatteis, who developed the backstory of the clone in the Lost Years, left the Spider-Man titles as Peter was phased out and Ben replaced him as Spider-Man. Without the chief proponents of Ben writing the character anymore, Marvel immediately began to backslide on Ben being the true Peter. Marvel recruited Dan Jurgens, then in the midst of a long Superman run for DC, to work on the new Sensational Spider-Man title starring Ben. Jurgens created a new supporting cast and costume design for Spider-Man, but was displeased with the new status quo and wanted to get back to Peter Parker as Spider-Man. After issue 6, Jurgens was already gone from the book, frustrated by Marvel dragging their feet on restoring Peter. By the end of 1996, the story finally drew to a close. Marvel restored Peter Parker to the role of Spider-Man, with Ben Reilly finally removed from the picture when he was definitively revealed as a clone. Peter’s marriage with Mary Jane barely managed to survive the ordeal, but parenthood was put off limits. Mary Jane’s baby was written off in an inconclusive way where it was unclear if it had been kidnapped, stillborn, or killed.
The clone saga is among the most controversial storylines Marvel has ever published. While Marvel managed to boost sales on Spider-Man in a time when comics were trending downward, the story lost direction over time. The initial storyline plans had potential to be a great story of a rise and fall of a hero, along the lines of the story of Iron Man losing his fortune and superhero identity. However, even the alcoholic Stark never behaved as deplorably as Peter does in this arc. At his lowest of lows, Tony protected a newborn baby at the risk of his own life in a blizzard. At Peter’s low point, he hunted down and attacked his pregnant wife in a subway station. Since Peter is eventually revealed to not be a clone, the excuse given in the story of Jackal’s genetic programming is not even valid. While these stories contain emotional moments and intriguing mysteries, the story did far too much damage to Spider-Man himself to be a net positive for the character’s legacy.
Another problem the story faced is the lack of continuity both internally and with past clone sagas. The original story had ended with the clone thrown into a smokestack to burn. When he returned to writing Spider-Man in the 1980s, Conway had decided cloning isn’t genetically possible, and in the Evolutionary War crossover retconned away the clones as humans who had been injected with a genetic virus to transform them into duplicates of Peter and Gwen. These issues were so well known that the very first letter published in the first issue of the clone saga, Web of Spider-Man #117, contained a letter from a fan pointing out the inconsistencies and begging Marvel not to bring back the dead clone. Marvel attempted to hand wave away the issues, but their credibility faded as they introduced convoluted retcons involving forged diaries and fake genetic tests. A failed attempt to deal with the smokestack revealed that there was still a skeleton inside it, but Marvel didn’t know how to reconcile this with Ben still being alive. Eventually it was revealed to just be another clone thrown in the smokestack to confuse Peter.
While the story disgraced Peter, it did popularize a new hero in the Scarlet Spider. The new version of Spider-Man was so popular that the Marvel sales department insisted on the titles rebranding in his name for two to four months before Ben could take over as Spider-Man. The character was incorporated into the 1990s Spider-Man cartoon in the two part series finale. The first episode of this 1998 event was titled “I Really, Really Hate Clones.” This summed up the sentiment of the Spider-Man fanbase at the time, burnt out by years of confusing retcons. Despite the initial desire to move past the clone saga, Marvel has time and again returned to the characters both in comics and film. Scarlet Spider has made appearances in the popular Spiderverse films. His homemade costume provided inspiration for Peter’s early costume in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Scarlet Spider’s image as a humble hero without a fancy costume or supermodel wife made him a popular character. It is likely Scarlet Spider spinoff title would have sold well in the 1990s, but turning him into Spider-Man and writing off Peter was a step too far. In the years since, the Jackal, Kaine, Scarlet Spider, and even Spidercide have all returned to the comics. Coinciding with the 90s animated series, the Clone Saga happened when Spider-Man was arguably at the peak of his comic book popularity. While the original stories have their ups and downs, they left a huge impression on a generation of fans, shaping the world of Spider-Man for years to come.
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The Spider-Man Clone Saga, one of the most controversial comic storylines of all time, has reached it’s 30 year anniversary. Beginning in the Spider-Man titles published with a cover date of October 1994, Peter Parker’s clone, thought dead for nearly 20 years, resurfaced. The Peter Parker clone orig Read More