Spiderman Clone saga - or why Marvel sucks!

Venom

the truth in 35 bit sized chunks

Saw this link on another forum and felt it needed to be posted here. Its shows how Marvel comics would screw over a story to milk as much as possable from the readers.

jill_valentine

I missed that whole fiasco, but that article is fascinating...35 parts and I'm still wading through it. Surprisingly candid for a Marvel related piece...

Fysh

Yeah, it's interesting all right. I haven't finished wading through it yet, although it does confirm a lot of the suspicions which put me off ongoing comics in the first place (mainly to do with the editorial control of storylines, something I strongly object to).

Heh, I remember buying one of the trade paperbacks of the clone saga (specifically, the bits where Ben Reilly goes off to first become the scarlet spider and fights venom) - being the spanish version, it had a spanish editorial written at least a few months (probably a year or more) after the original US publishing of the comic, and it was funny because it mostly discussed how convolutedly stupid the clone saga had gotten. It didnt make any attempt to defend it, if I recall - basically saying something like "it's nearly over now, thank god, so we can get back to some real spiderman stories"...

BLITZ_Molloy

I remember hearing the comic lost 90% of its readership during that period. It's nor surprising. They sort of went into it in the cartoon too and it was equally stupid.

Down in a hole

This guy has way too much time on his hands!!Anyone who is an avid SPIDER-MAN fan realises that the period was a nightmare for the classical character.The idea was a good one to begin with but the writers really really screwed it up.Kaine was a pointless character,he served no purpose at all.Ben Reily began well,glimpses of a shadowy character inquiring about Aunt May's health was a good idea.The death of Aunt May in Amazing SPIDER-MAN 400 was a classic,it was moving and quite well written,a real contrast to the tripe that was being produced around the same time.It was a real pleasure to see the end of that most unfortunate period in Marvel's history!The writers forgot that with the great power invested in them that there's also a responsibility not to produce the nightmare that was the clone saga!

RuggieBear

WOW!!!! Just finished reading it all. Never into comics but have to say that column has inspired me to take another look at them....

Don't know **** about comics but is it possible to get ahold of compendiums of all the comics....(is that what trade paperbacks are?) and if so where would you go to look for them?

p

Mark

Originally posted by Venom
the truth in 35 bit sized chunks

Saw this link on another forum and felt it needed to be posted here.

I came here looking for that original post (which I can't find) in order to pm the guy who posted it. Only on page 11 of it so far, tis interesting reading. Like pekelly, I've never consistently bought comics, but I was rather fond of the spiderman/xmen cartoons - however I assume it's possible these could be seen as sacrilege by comic fans if they differ a lot from the penned version.

I must point out I never knew spiderman (or indeed comics in general really) had such knee suckingly long, intricate plots. I mean these 35 pages are just summary and already my eyes are beginning to bleed.

While I'm here, I have a question or nine thar:

Firstleh, I read bits about Onslaught in teh Xmen series being the proverbial fecal matter, seemed very interesting altogether, was wondering if I could get a quick summary here of his exploits and how important he was in the grand scayme of things.

In the 35 bit article, the author says sales during the clone saga were phenemonal, but here it seems they're viewed with universal disdain. Sense?

Whats the best, widely available comic atm?

Who's X-Man?

Lastly, I understand Marvel were fairly shit a few years ago, whats the state of the company now?

][cEMAN**

For the sake of those who don't know about it and want to read it for themselves i'll spoiler this:

Onslaught was the expelled 'bad thoughts' of Charles Xavier (professor X of the X-men). When he wiped Mageneto's mind back in issue 3 of X-men (second series) he kept a bit of that with him. This spewed out as a mixture of all his worst thoughts, mixed with magneto's mind. Because he was spawned of mutants, if any mutants attacked him he got stronger. So in the end the other heroes of Marvel had to pile on Onslaught to defeat him.

When it looked like Onslaught would win, they all piled INTO Onslaught (he was in effect just psychokinetic energy as the Hulk had been beating on him). They absorbed all of his consciousness to destroy him. Fearing them about to die, Reed Richards son who had the ability to warp reality, created an alternate reality in a ball universe where he transported the heroes. This is where 'Heroes Reborn' began. Them in the alt earth. Reeds son kept the ball with him at all times and nobody knew what it really was.

Can't remember why it happened (can't remember if it was Galactus, or the celestials or something that caused it) but when the alt earth was about to be destroyed they found a way of getting back. Hence back to normal series now.

I think for the disdain it's because of length and pointlessness of most of the stories. I haven't read them myself personally, but I know from just a 12 part venom/carnage saga, the writers tend to go on a bit more than they should!

The best widely available comic? In terms of Marvel or in terms of Spiderman? If it's spiderman you want i'd recommend Ultimate Spiderman. It took the story back to origins and revamped it for new readers. Lets them get into the story albeit different from the original in certain ways. Imagine it as a compact alt story of the original.

As for widely available Marvel comic, i'd say X-men. Because there's ...

Astonishing X-men
Uncanny X-men
Ultimate X-men (same idea as the ultimate spiderman)
X-men
New X-men
Wolverine
District X
X-Statix
Mystique
Emma Frost
And more...

Check them all here

X-man - he's the geneticly spliced son of Jean Grey and Scott Summers from the Age of Apocalypse timeline. Sinister took DNA samples from the both of them and genetically manufactured X-Man. The Age of Apocalypse was created when legion (professor X's son) tried to go back in time and kill magneto when prof x and he were younger and friends. He missed and killed prof X (before legion was born) thus created an alt timeline and a paradox. The M’Kraan Crystal is an all powerful universal stone controlling space and time. It was retrieved to try and sort this whole mess out. But a shard of it ended up in a fight between X-man and Apocalypse's son (can't remember his name atm) and X-men stabbed apocalypse's son with it which then transported both of them into the M’Kraan Crystal. When the timeline was restored, they appeared back in modern day in the real universe.

Nate Grey (X-man) is basically Cable (Nathan Dayspring Askani'son) without the techno virus that apocalypse originally infected him with. Means he's pretty much all powerful. I never much liked the series though. Sup to yourself what you think of it.

Marvel today? It's not great tbh. Maybe i'm just older now, and not as much of a fanboy, but I find that 90% of the stories lines are just quick cash ins from mini series. They changed the whole look of X-men to tie in with the films so that they could get people who hadn't read it before, to easily get into it. Imo they messed it up. They lost the original superhero style that it had. To me, X-men weren't meant to be believable in real terms. They were larger than life characters. They messed about with that, and now you just have a shadow of the X-men's former selves. They're supposed to be new and improved. They're new alright, but not improved.

Marvel have relaunched a few titles (ultimate series) to get people to start reading them. The ultimate series is great because it's a new take and is meant to be different entirely from the original (origin and character personalities). Just wish they'd left the original series' alone.

Mark

Thankeh very much Iceman, very informative reply.

galactus

"In The Amazing Spider-Man #149 (1975), The Jackal, one of Spider-Man's arch rivals, reveals that he has created a clone of Peter Parker."

That little bastard used to do my head in! A genuinely frightening character.

I packed in reading Spidey when it got to three titles - plus all the crossover nonsense was just a waste of time. Not surprised Marvel lost a lot of their readership.

pekelly - not too sure about a compendium but have a look at www.milehighcomics.com

John 187

That old link doesn't seem to work anymore so here a new link to the life of reilly behind the clone saga!

http://lifeofreillyarchives.blogspot.com/

niall mc cann

It's kind of unfair to blame Marvel today for the Clone Saga. It's a new editorial team, and has been for years. It was mess, but it was also almost 20 years ago now. Joe Q really corrected a lot of the problems that led to stuff like Onslaught and the Clone Saga. His time at Marvel produced some great stuff... undisputed classics like Bendis's Daredevil, Ennis's Punisher, flawed masterpieces like Morrison's X-men (it didn't always work, but it had great ideas and there were moments of brilliance) and Waid's Fantastic Four (it kind of petered out, but it was a very strong start, imo) and little gems like Morrison's Marvel Boy and Priest's Black Panther. He seriously revamped Marvel and produced some really great stuff.

He also got rid of crossovers like the clone saga. It's a shame that his embargo on those things didn't last, though I can see why Civil War looked promising. I kind of liked the idea at the time, it was just a shame about the execution. As far as I've heard once The Siege is done there's a new embargo on crossovers coming into place, so hopefully we'll be returning to the early Nu-Marvel vibe soon. Fingers crossed!

Ridley

niall mc cann wrote: »

It's kind of unfair to blame Marvel today for the Clone Saga. It's a new editorial team, and has been for years. It was mess, but it was also almost 20 years ago now. Joe Q really corrected a lot of the problems that led to stuff like Onslaught and the Clone Saga. His time at Marvel produced some great stuff... undisputed classics like Bendis's Daredevil, Ennis's Punisher, flawed masterpieces like Morrison's X-men (it didn't always work, but it had great ideas and there were moments of brilliance) and Waid's Fantastic Four (it kind of petered out, but it was a very strong start, imo) and little gems like Morrison's Marvel Boy and Priest's Black Panther. He seriously revamped Marvel and produced some really great stuff.

And JMS' Spider-Man (w/ Dr Strange) before Quesada One More Day'd it.

[url="http://www.spideykicksbutt.com/SKBTableofContents.html]Spider Kicks Butt[/url] is a good site for Spider-Man essays too.

Fysh

I do get your point about the clone saga happening on someone else's watch, but on the other hand Marvel are releasing a miniseries about the Clone Saga at the moment (and another about the Secret Wars, for that matter). So it's like they think it was a bad idea but are happy to bring it back up if they think there are pennies remaining to be squeezed out of it.

You've only got to look at how Deadpool is being used at the minute, or at the number of Iron Man related titles coming out in anticipation of the film, to see that Marvel aren't vey good at meeting market demand without resorting to market saturation. It seems almost part of the business model at times.

Sleazus

' wrote:

[cEMAN**;1774828']The best widely available comic? In terms of Marvel or in terms of Spiderman? If it's spiderman you want i'd recommend Ultimate Spiderman. It took the story back to origins and revamped it for new readers. Lets them get into the story albeit different from the original in certain ways. Imagine it as a compact alt story of the original.

As for widely available Marvel comic, i'd say X-men.

I'd have to disagree with your mainstream Marvel pick and go with Daredevil. X-Men has always been too scattered for me. There are good runs, but it's hard to find them as - as you observed - there's far too many of them.

I loved Morrison's run and Whedon's, but these are the exception.

I think that Daredevil reads consistently well as a noir epic. It's relatively isolated from continuity, so it flows a lot more naturally than the other solid Marvel runs like Brubaker's Captain America.

I do agree with you on Ultimate Spider-Man. It reads well as one big page-turning retelling of the Spider-Man saga, telling the story as it would be told now. Speaking of the Clone Saga, it does offer an infinitely better (and more concise) version of it.

' wrote:

[cEMAN**;1774828']Marvel today? It's not great tbh. Maybe i'm just older now, and not as much of a fanboy, but I find that 90% of the stories lines are just quick cash ins from mini series. They changed the whole look of X-men to tie in with the films so that they could get people who hadn't read it before, to easily get into it. Imo they messed it up. They lost the original superhero style that it had. To me, X-men weren't meant to be believable in real terms. They were larger than life characters. They messed about with that, and now you just have a shadow of the X-men's former selves. They're supposed to be new and improved. They're new alright, but not improved.

Ah, there's good and there's bad, as ever. I think that Bendis and Brubaker have written even better Daredevil than Frank Miller. Brubaker's Captain America is the best the character has ever been. On the other hand, Civil War was a disaster. One More Day was a travesty. But there are always ups and downs.

Modern comics are far too event-driven anyway (their Distinguished Competitor is equally succeptible), and - as noted above - there's too much editorial control over storytelling. Let the writers dictate the storyline, not the latest cash cow.

I agree with you on the X-Men. What I liked about New X-Men was that Morrison acknowledged the pulpy "children of the atom" origin of the characters.

' wrote:

[cEMAN**;1774828']Marvel have relaunched a few titles (ultimate series) to get people to start reading them. The ultimate series is great because it's a new take and is meant to be different entirely from the original (origin and character personalities). Just wish they'd left the original series' alone.

I have to admit that I'm split on the Ultimate titles. I love Ultimate Spider-Man and The Ultimates (okay, the first two series, not the third), but found Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four disappointing. I think they would have benefitted from a steady hand behind-the-scenes, as the Ultimate line is far more author-driven.

niall mc cann

Ridley wrote:

And JMS' Spider-Man (w/ Dr Strange) before Quesada One More Day'd it.

Yeah, I really loved that run.

You can pick a lot of runs from the first half of Quesada's editorship. There was a real sense of try-anything experimentation in the books. There was almost always something to recomend a book.

Fysh wrote: »

I do get your point about the clone saga happening on someone else's watch, but on the other hand Marvel are releasing a miniseries about the Clone Saga at the moment (and another about the Secret Wars, for that matter). So it's like they think it was a bad idea but are happy to bring it back up if they think there are pennies remaining to be squeezed out of it.

You've only got to look at how Deadpool is being used at the minute, or at the number of Iron Man related titles coming out in anticipation of the film, to see that Marvel aren't vey good at meeting market demand without resorting to market saturation. It seems almost part of the business model at times.

I take your point. To be honest, I don't really mind them squeezing those pennies as long as they don't interupt the story I'm following.

wrote:

I have to admit that I'm split on the Ultimate titles. I love Ultimate Spider-Man and The Ultimates (okay, the first two series, not the third), but found Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four disappointing. I think they would have benefitted from a steady hand behind-the-scenes, as the Ultimate line is far more author-driven.

Yeah, it's a difficult line to tread. There are some legendary editors out there that produced great stuff while still being very dictatorial and hands on, but i
think Quesada's real talent was in finding just the right talent for the job, then letting them just get on with it. It's since he's started up the big crossovers, each one essentially the brainchild of one guy, or a very limited group, that his editorship has gone off the rails.

It's also possible that my opinion's tainted by the fact that I just don't like crossovers, of course.:o

Sleazus

niall mc cann wrote: »

Yeah, it's a difficult line to tread. There are some legendary editors out there that produced great stuff while still being very dictatorial and hands on, but i
think Quesada's real talent was in finding just the right talent for the job, then letting them just get on with it. It's since he's started up the big crossovers, each one essentially the brainchild of one guy, or a very limited group, that his editorship has gone off the rails.

It's also possible that my opinion's tainted by the fact that I just don't like crossovers, of course.:o

I'd argue that "essentially the brainchild of one guy" logic. I think that the flaw with events like Civil War was one of "too many chefs". Sure, Millar was the head honcho, but - from reading the tie-ins, it seemed like everybody had a different idea of what it should be about and who was right or wrong (for example, Tony Stark was apparently the good guy, not that you'd know it by reading any of the associated books). It just made it too messy and sprawled.

I think that DC (very arguably) do the crossover thing better, where they've started essentially giving a sole writer responsibility for each overarching crossover. Sure, that means that it's harder to find something you like (Don't like Grant Morrison's metafictional narratives? Final Crisis ain't for you! Think Geoff Johns is too much of a fanboy? Then Blackest Night probably ain't your thing). I think that the reigns are held much tighter - all the Blackest Night tie-ins are written by a relatively small number of authors, rather than being farmed out across the company. Of course there are exceptions - Countdown comes to mind - but these are the exception, I think.

But yeah, too many crossovers. I have an immediate dislike of "event comics" - I want to buy one book and get a storyline I don't have to buy five more to follow.

John 187

Just to say I think were al talking about event/crossover books like Seige, Civil War, etc, the life of Reily only talks about the Clone saga which was not a crossover event(I think) as it only effected spiderman per say.

Sleazus

John 187 wrote: »

Just to say I think were al talking about event/crossover books like Seige, Civil War, etc, the life of Reily only talks about the Clone saga which was not a crossover event(I think) as it only effected spiderman per say.

Well, it was a crossover event, in the same way that Sinestro Corps War was a crossover event within Green Lantern or Age of Apocalypse was a crossover event within X-Men. The four Spider-Man titles essentially became one for the two-year duration of the arc. In fact, the run was based upon the success of Knightfall and The Death of Superman over at DC.

It wasn't a company-wide crossover, but it was a crossover event, and I think that these internal crossovers just helped fuel the "event comics" mindset that we're in today. Sure, it started with Crisis on Infinite Earths and Secret Wars, but ever other year Batman and X-Men were having this sort of storyline, spilling over into their sibling books, which led to this "we must constantly be rolling out big events" frame of mind, rather than saving big events for once every few years and letting titles go on freely between them, instead of shackling authors to pre-planned schedules of huge events.

John 187

I see your point Batman(RIP, WarGames),X-Men(Messiah war, complex)etc. I Meant no one seems to be talking about the life of reily blog post themselves which I found to be an inside and honest look at why the clone saga went to hell(I think it was called Maximum Cloneage at the time?)

I mean you don't get to see that side normaly even in Film or T.V. let alone comics and if anybody knows of anything similar about comics let me know. Thanks.