Superman died, he got better reasonably quickly though.
Batman had his back broken and chose a psycho to replace him while he recovered. That’s how tough Bruce is; man gets his back broken and only needs a short break before he’s back on the scene.
Green Lantern went mad and killed the entire Green Lantern Corps and the Guardians.
Green Arrow got himself blown up by terrorists. He didn’t get better. Well not right away at least.
Wolverine had the adamantium bonded to his skeleton ripped out by Magneto.
Professor Xavier had enough and mind wiped Magneto. Didn’t work out well for him though, Magneto’s influence on his mind turned him into Onslaught.
Dr Bruce Banner was diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder and the Hulk revealed to be one of these multiple personalities. A new Hulk emerged after intense psychotherapy that had the mind of Dr Banner and the body of the Hulk.
Iron man turned out to be a bad guy and killed a fair few of the Avengers before he was replaced by a younger version of himself.
The Fantastic Four got traumatised first by the death of Reed Richards (he got better) then by the kidnap of Franklin Richards by his Grandfather who then returned him as a fully grown adult. Oh and Wolverine ripped half of the Thing’s face off.
It was an exciting time of change in the world of comics and it looked as if most of the changes were going to stick. The thing that has always bothered me about comics is the constant reversion to the status quo which puts a serious limitation on the change and development that can occur. Stagnation usually develops. But the comic Universe in the 90s was full of change and it tempted me back into collecting again. It was touch and go for a while, but in the end one man drew me back in.
Ben Reilly.
Ben was the clone of Peter Parker. Well, no, not really. That’s how he was first introduced to the comic reading public, the truth would prove to be more problematic than that. Nothing about Ben Reilly was simple.
Even his introduction into the Marvel Universe wasn’t straight forward. The clone of Spider-Man first appeared in 1975 after one of Peter’s College Professor cloned Peter and his girlfriend, but was discarded at the end of the story.
Part of what drew me into Ben Reilly’s story was the fact that it had spun out of “The Death of Gwen Stacey” in 1971. I must have been about 10 when my parents bought me a Spider-Man annual to read as we clocked up plenty of hours house hunting. I’ll never forget it as, despite my parent assuming it was child friendly, it opened with Peter’s friend Harry having a bad LSD trip. This caused Harry’s Dad to have a mental breakdown, which wasn’t a good thing as he was also the Green Goblin. The long and the short of it is that Harry’s Dad blamed Peter for the trip and got his revenge by killing Gwen Stacey.
That’s right. He murdered Spider-man’s girl friend because his son had a bad LSD trip. Try taking that in when you’re only 10.
Anyway, in the next chapter Peter proceeds to beat the living day lights out of Harry’s Dad and barely stops himself from killing him. However Norman (Harry’s Dad and current all round bad guy in the Marvel Universe) ends up dead anyway as he falls foul of a killing blow aimed at Peter.
So, how does this connect into the clone saga I hear you ask? Well a few years after this story it was revealed that one of Peter and Gwen’s college professors was secretly in love with Gwen and was devastated when she was murdered. So he cloned her. And hell, why not, he cloned Peter as well.
At this point we fast forward 20 odd years to Ben Reilly appearing for the first time all over again.
What drew me back into comics, aside from the fact that the clone saga was so tightly connected with my rather brutal introduction to comics, was that Marvel actually decided to replace Peter with Ben. They’d decided that Peter Parker had gone as far as he could as Spider-man and that he should be retired off. Ben Reilly would be introduced, first as Peter’s clone, then as the Scarlet Spider and eventually as the original Spider-man. This meant that the Peter we had been reading about since 1975 (3 years before I was born) was in actual fact a clone.
I loved this idea. I saw the potential for serious character development and a rebooting of the character with messing with everything that had gone before. We’ll cut a seriously long story short and just say that I was in a minority. After a while Marvel bowed to fan pressure and brought Peter back as Spider-man and disposed of poor Ben Reilly.
Most Spider-fans will tell you that the Clone Saga was a dark and hated time in Spidey’s life. But after recent reboots have been pulled off less successfully and wiped out years of continuity while doing so the Clone Saga is being remembered in slightly more favourable terms. A band wagon that myself and other Ben Reilly fans have been on for some time.
Ben never truly vanished from the Marvel Universe. The Uncancelable Spider-Girl wears her Uncle Ben's costume while web swinging, as well having Ben's brother and son appear on and off in her title. Ben also appeared recently in a flashback story, although I have to admit I was left a little cold by it. The Scarlet Spider has also managed to keep cropping up, first as Black Cat Jr playing Spider-Girl's sidekick and then in one of the multiple Avengers titles of recent years. Although I didn't catch those Avengers issues myself I smiled a little when I found out that the 3 Scarlet Spiders were clones of another character. Nice to see the motif being kept alive. The Scarlet Spider costume keeps cropping up as an alternative costume choice in various console games, I especially got a big kick out of playing Ben Reilly in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance.
Which brings us to The Complete Clone Saga Volume 1.
I only recently got round to getting a copy of this. I’m glad I did though, it serves as a nice reminder of the slow introduction of Ben into the Spider titles of the time and finishes up with Ben’s first outing as the Scarlet Spider. And while I was pleased to see the preludes that were printed as back up stories reprinted here, I’m not convinced that they work best at the start of the volume. They’re fine if you know the full story, they contain minor spoilers if you haven’t experienced the Clone Saga before. The same goes for “The Lost Years” which is also reprinted. Having said that I have no idea where you would re-publish them otherwise.
I’m looking forward to reading the following volumes, the only problem being that this series does seem to be determined to reprint every single connected issue and not every issue was done well. In fact some were downright awful. Most of the issues reprinted in volume pass muster though, the only real exception being the issue for Spider-Man Unlimited that first featured the Scarlet Spider. Future volumes could live or die depending on the filler content. Depending on what else is in the same volume as “Planet of the Symbiotes” I may have to skip that one altogether.
Still, nice to see a new generation get a chance to meet my favourite webslinger. Who knows, maybe this'll be a precursor to him arriving back in the Marvel Universe proper.
No comments:
Post a Comment