Spider-Man: The Complete Clone Saga Epic, Book 4

Collects: Amazing Spider-Man #402-4, Spectacular Spider-Man #225-7, Spider-Man #59-61, Web of Spider-Man #125-7, New Warriors #61, Spider-Man: The Jackal Files, and Spider-Man: Maximum Clonage Alpha and Omega (1995)

Released: November 2010 (Marvel)

Format: 480 pages / color / $39.99 / ISBN: 9780785149552

What is this?: The Clone Saga rushes toward its nadir.

The culprits: So much blame to hand out, so little time.

The Clone Saga, in which Spider-Man’s “clone” returns to his life, has a horrible reputation. Most comic book readers take this as an article of faith. I have read the first three volumes of the Clone Saga, and each were passable, if not always enjoyable. I was pleasantly surprised by this competence, but each competent volume only delayed the pain the Clone Saga’s reputation promised.

Now my waiting is over: Spider-Man: The Complete Clone Saga Epic, Book 4 is the awful sludge at the bottom of the cloning vat.

The Clone Saga could go wrong in so many ways, and Book 4 finds a surprising number of them. The most important mistake is undermining Peter Parker, and Book 4 does that as often as possible. Peter is revealed to be the clone, not Ben Reilly, as was assumed. Peter does little to clear his name while Ben sits in prison for him. He hits his wife.⁸¹ He runs out on his responsibilities and joins up with the Jackal, a mass murderer and the man responsible for the chaos of the Clone Saga. And he doesn’t join the Jackal while in a fugue or amnesiac state: he buys the Jackal’s idiotic lies and watches, without intervening, as the Jackal does evil things.

I think the most disappointing part is that when the Jackal claims the role of Peter’s father, Peter doesn’t tell the Jackal he had a father, and his name was Ben Parker. But that’s because Peter sees “clone” as meaning “outsider” and “other” and “worthless”; he doesn’t see the past he shares with Ben Reilly as his, he sees no future for himself, and he sees his present as valueless, despite the love of his pregnant wife. And so he becomes a supervillain’s henchman.

Our hero, everyone! It makes you want to shake him and scream, “GREAT POWER / GREAT RESPONSIBILITY, YOU @#*($ING TWIT.”

Since the Jackal was the villain of the original story featuring Peter’s clone, he is appropriately the Clone Saga’s main villain. Unfortunately, this means the Spider-writers have made “clones” a theme of the mega-crossover, and nothing devalues the uniqueness of a character like a clone. Four major versions of Peter Parker wander through Book 4: Peter, Ben, the original clone, Kaine, and a third clone. The third clone was introduced in Book 3 as an amnesiac Peter; the writers tried to fake out the readers and convince them this clone might be the original, but he turned out to be the Jackal’s super-secret mind-controlled agent who had complete control over every atom of his body. Ben called him “Freak Face,” but in Book 4 Jackal renames him “Spidercide,” a name so awful even the Jackal later disavows it. The Jackal also releases a hundred half-baked clones to stop Ben, which he and Kaine defeat easily, and the Jackal keeps mini-servitors, dressed in Jackal costumes, that he claims are clones of Peter.

By the end of Book 4, you wonder who isn’t a clone of Peter Parker. Perhaps it’s Spider-Man who is the superhero who could be you, literally — because one of you is the clone of the other.

The Jackal gets his biggest moments in Book 4. The problem with the Jackal — other than his incessant cloning — is a failing consistent with many villains with mysterious, overreaching goals: he keeps his goals secret whenever he can, and when he can’t, he lies. But most of his peers have some core value they cling to; Mr. Sinister has his obsession with Summers DNA, for instance. But the Jackal doesn’t have an honest bone in his body.⁸² He says he wants to replace everyone in the world with genetically perfected clones, but he’s going to get distracted the first time he gets thwarted by Ben or Peter or distracted by a shiny object. Then his long-term plot will be something else, and the previous plot will be revealed as a lie, along with anything else he said.

The only positive is the Jackal makes other villains in the Clone Saga look better by comparison. The usually cryptic Judas Traveller seems forthright, and his assistant, Scrier, is merely annoyingly enigmatic.⁸³ Helix, a mindless, rampaging superpowered man created by the Jackal’s Carrion Virus, is pointless but harmless. The identity of the newest Green Goblin is a happy diversion, rather than a frustrating non sequitur, when reader realizes the pages given to him could have been given to the Jackal instead. The Punisher, in a gratuitous cameo, becomes the greatest hero ever: he shoots the Jackal in the chest.⁸⁴

The art helps the story a little. To say it is inconsistent is an understatement, though. Mark Bagley’s kinetic, graceful work is a beautiful oasis, but Sal Buscema, inked by Bill Sienkiewicz, pencils as many ugly, scratchy pages as Bagley does pretty ones. Ron Lim’s work on Spider-Man Unlimited is a nice change from the rest of the artists in the book, whose work is, on average, good but a bit too Todd McFarlane / Image influenced for me.

Not everything is awful, but typing that makes me grit my teeth. The idea of putting Spider-Man on trial, with Kaine as his defense attorney and the inmates of Ravenscroft Institution as the jury, has some possibilities, but it’s ended quickly in favor of the asinine criminal trial of Peter Parker.⁸⁵ In a backup story, Ben Urich interviews Peter’s friends and family for a human-interest story on the man accused of a shocking murder; that’s a better idea for a full-length story than anything actually used for a full issue in Book 4. Readers finally get some closure when Kaine is revealed as Peter’s first clone. The best part, though? The relief of finishing the book.

Book 4 is everything fans objected to (except for the aimlessness and length) in the Clone Saga. There’s more to complain about than what I have listed; I didn't even get into how cavalierly the Spider-Men treat the presence of a Gwen Stacy clone or how little Det. Raven does to see justice is done or … or any number of things. The Complete Clone Saga, Book 4, is a black spot on Spider-Man’s half-century history.

Rating: (0.5 of 5)

Spider-Man: Spider-Island

Collects: Amazing Spider-Man #666-73 and backups from #659-60 and 662-4, Venom #6-9, and Spider-Island: Deadly Foes #1 (2011-2)

Released: September 2012 (Marvel)

Format: 376 pages / color / $34.99 / ISBN: 9780785151050

What is this?: The Jackal gives spider powers to everyone in New York City.

The culprits: Writers Dan Slott and Rick Remender and artists Humberto Ramos, Stefano Caselli, Tom Fowler, and Giuseppe Camuncoli

Over the summer, I started reading all of the Spider-Man collections after the Brand New Day reboot, using a combination of bargain books and interlibrary loan. Overall, the stories were amusing, but I didn’t think it was worth the huge retcon it took to set it up.⁷² I finally caught up with the collections by reading Spider-Man: Spider-Island.⁷³

When Spider-Island begins, Spider-Man is on top of the world, being part of two superteams, pursuing his solo career, basking in New York City’s adulation, dating police forensic scientist Carlie Cooper, working a dream job, and finishing his martial arts lessons with Shang Chi, Master of Kung-Fu. Into this set up wanders Miles Warren, also known as the Jackal, and a Spider-clone …

Wait! Come back! This is not a saga, and the clone is incidental. The Jackal, however, is important; his plan this time involves giving everyone in New York spider powers that will turn them into monstrous arachnids, then controlling them after their transformation via a mysterious ally. From there, the infection should spread across the country and the world, leaving the Jackal to rule over a world of spider humans and superhumans, who are immune to the infection.

Overwriting DNA is part of the Jackal’s modus operandi — I think; it depends on what Warren’s Carrion Virus does this year and whether the Jackal can really clone people. I’m not fond of the Jackal, since the character’s stench is all over the Clone Saga and some other bad stories. He does have a “zany” sense of humor, though, which enlivens his expository scenes and panels with his mysterious benefactor / co-conspirator, but it makes divining his motivations or taking him seriously difficult.

The Jackal is better than his partner, though. She’s portrayed in shadow for most of the crossover, as if readers would recognize her instantly if she were seen clearly. Instead, she’s the Queen, a continuity implant Spider-Man and Captain America fought in Spectacular Spider-Man #15-20. ⁷⁴ I’ve read that storyline, and I had completely forgotten her; it was not writer Paul Jenkins’s best Spider-work. I don’t mind writer Dan Slott using her, although she does take away from the central Spider-Man / Jackal rivalry. She latches onto the Jackal’s plans after he’s already set them in motion, showing how extraneous she is to the plot. What bothers me, though, is pretending such a minor character is a big deal; the character had not appeared outside of that storyline, yet Spider-Man and Captain America act as if she had been haunting their dreams. If Slott was going to use an overhyped 21st century Spider-villain, I would have preferred Shathra, really.

I have to congratulate the Spider offices on the mechanics of the crossover. It must be easier to coordinate a crossover when there are only two writers and titles (and a one-shot), but Spider-Island’s stories interlock as smoothly as two overlapping plots can. Slott and Venom writer Rick Remender frequently take a page’s worth of panels from the other’s story and use it to start their part of the story, and they manage to avoid contradicting each other. It may sound like I’m damning with faint praise, but I am impressed. Bravo!

Character and plot development is not curtailed in either book because of the crossover. In Amazing Spider-Man, Slott develops Peter and Carlie’s relationship, moves Aunt May and her new husband, Jay, to Boston, and has someone discover Spider-Man’s secret identity. (Weakening Spider-Man’s magical protection in this regard was long overdue, even if I think the actual mechanism used in Spider-Island was weak.) In Venom, Remender continues strengthening the bond between the Venom symbiote and its current host, Flash Thompson, and wraps up Flash’s tumultuous relationship with his father. Interweaving simmering subplots increases the verisimilitude of the stories; life goes on, even in a crisis, no matter how much you might want things to stand still.

Although the crossover’s villains are a disappointment, the supporting figures are wisely chosen. In a story about everyone in New York getting Spider powers, certain characters have to show up: Venom, Anti-Venom, Kaine (the first Spider clone), Alistair Smythe (the inventor of Spider slayers), the new Madame Web, Mary Jane … about the only relevant missing character is Spider-Girl, who gets only a cameo despite Slott’s fondness for the Young Allies. (I’m not fond of Madame Web and can’t understand why her mystical “Web of Life” powers aren’t as derided as JMS’s mystical turn for Spider-Man, but she needs to be in Spider Island.) Slott wisely spends considerable time with J. Jonah Jameson, who, in a development as entertaining as it sounds, gains spider powers.

In the crossover’s plotting is tightly coordinated, the same can’t be said for the art. Four different artists contribute at least one story to the collection. Humberto Ramos provides most of the Amazing Spider-Man art (#667-72). If you’ve been reading Amazing Spider-Man for a while, you know how you feel about his hyper-exaggerated style. I think it works better for comedy than it does for action and drama, but there’s no denying he’s become one of the go-to Spider-artists over the past decade. His work certainly sticks out among the more realistic styles of Stefano Caselli (#666 and 673 and Venom #9), Giuseppe Camuncoli (the main story from Spider-Island: Deadly Foes), and Tom Fowler (Venom #6-8). Of those, Fowler is my favorite, and I’d like to see his simple, retro-tinged style featured on its own. But the muddy coloring from John Rauch clutters and muddies his work. Caselli is fine, except when he gives Peter an emo / manga look very similar to how he draws Phil Urich. Camuncoli’s work is a bit sketchy and exaggerated for my taste, yet it still manages to look stiff occasionally.

I admire the execution of Spider-Island greatly. Unfortunately, that admiration can’t override a lot of what’s wrong in the crossover: the villains, Madame Web, clones ... It makes for a lot of conflicting feelings. The higher stakes hurt as well; Marvel isn’t going to wipe out the human population of New York, so of course the infection has to be completely eradicated. Perhaps if I connected more with Venom / Flash or with Peter’s new status quo, Spider-Island would have been more successful. Unfortunately, it comes across as a middle-of-the-road story.

Rating: