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Spider-Man Clone Saga: Maximum Clonage Part 1
25 Plays10 months ago
Corinne details the first half of Spider-Man's Maximum Clonage,
It gets weird.
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Comeback and Life Updates
00:00:14
Speaker
And welcome to Comicly Pedantic, where we take a detailed look at the complicated concepts, characters, and history of comic book culture. And bless you to anyone who has sneezed in the apartment. Couldn't feed me, but I think someone did. So bless you!
00:00:31
Speaker
I am your host constantly blessing you. My name is Corinne. And on this episode with me, much like every other episode because it was originally his podcast, it's Derek. The two of us host this now.
00:00:46
Speaker
This is one of the first times where we started recording and you did not immediately react to the music playing. I was clenching every muscle in my body. I was like, it's going to happen, Corinne. You got to be ready. It's funny because I could see it happening. I could see the stillness was unnatural. I've never been more focused in my life. How's it go? It's been a hot minute.
00:01:11
Speaker
I feel like I've been doing all these intros, but I really missed it because we haven't recorded in like a month. Yeah. This is one of those things where I, we both had just way too much going on. And yeah, I think we were both just like, man, as much as we love doing this, sometimes it can be a hard, yeah, it is hard to get the time and effort.
00:01:37
Speaker
Uh, put in to do, you know, it's, uh, it's a lot. Like it took a lot of gumption to, to read the, we're doing maximum clonage alpha part one today. Um, and it took a lot of gumption for me to read it. And then I was real tired afterwards. And then just one week after another, something happened. And now I've like, it's almost like I've taken a maximum clonage vacation and now I'm back.
Introduction to Maximum Clonage Alpha
00:02:07
Speaker
Well, I guess I should ask what's your bright spot for this? Being able to record again, because oh boy, I'm excited. I just like recording. It's fun. And then what else, what else we've just been...
00:02:22
Speaker
busy little bumblebees the past couple weeks um just kind of like hanging out in our new home i got to see my family yesterday which is cool um we all
00:02:37
Speaker
met up in New York City to go see like a show, which was really fun for like my mom's birthday, happy birthday Barb, a legend she be. But yeah, I don't know. We've just been chilling. We've been busy. My cat's doing good. I'll probably yell at him at some point to like get off something. Right now he's being a good boy. What's your bright spot?
00:03:07
Speaker
You know, I was thinking about it all day. There's so many. That's good. Things have been kind of going well. Outside of kind of being run down from work, work has been really good. Oh, good. I've been exhausted, but there's been a lot of work and the work has been... Good things have been coming from it. You know what I mean?
00:03:36
Speaker
I would say I think the same way about where I'm at with work right now. It's heckin' busy. I can't remember a day where we came in after 6am at this point and the hours are long, but it's nice to feel like you're actually
Recap of the Clone Saga
00:03:53
Speaker
making progress with something. Okay. So, uh, do you want to briefly before we get super far into this, do you want to kind of talk about where we are in the Spider-Man
00:04:07
Speaker
storyline. Okay. Absolutely. Actually, I'm going to do that right in the very beginning because that's essentially the whole first part of this story. So we're going to start off with Maximum Clonage Alpha. The writers are Tom DeFalco and Todd DeZago. Penciler is Ron Lim. Anchor is Al Milgram. Letter is Ken Lopez. The colorists are
00:04:35
Speaker
Uh, Tom Smith, and then we have the company's, uh, Malibu color and food hammer. And yes, it's an explanation. That's why I yelled it. Um, the editors are Mark Bernardo and Danny finger off.
00:04:51
Speaker
So I was going to start off with the Jackal and P-3PO because as we know, P-3PO did not die forever ago. They keep bringing him back. The Jackal and P-3PO, they release the carry-on virus, which the Jackal was kind of working on for like back when he was in the asylum and now that he's out, he'd been tweaking it and stuff.
00:05:16
Speaker
Um, they released the virus in a small PA town and it kills like 2000 people and you're just like, holy shit, that's a lot of people. And it happened very quickly. Um, and that's kind of like almost like a cold open to the issue. And then pretty much the whole first half of this issue will be what I tell you now, which is just the rehashing of the entire clone saga. Um, so as you know, we have essentially.
00:05:46
Speaker
uh, three Spiderman. We've got Peter Parker, who was having a tough mental time in the beginning. And then he started to get better because he found out Mary Jane, his wife is pregnant. Um, we got Ben Riley who for five years was like, I'm a clone sucks, but I'm finding my own individuality. We love that. And then we have P3PO who was like, I'm here and I'm strange. And he's still here and strange.
Mary Jane's Struggles
00:06:11
Speaker
Not much has changed with them. So.
00:06:13
Speaker
things that did change was we found out that Peter Parker is apparently actually the clone and Ben Riley is the original and somehow no one freaking knew that until like a couple issues ago. We also learned Kane who is a man who just kind of stalks and does random shit
00:06:30
Speaker
Whenever he wants and isn't very useful. We found out he is like the original Peter Parker clone like he is the first one But nobody likes him because he kind of got Phantom of the Opera like fucked up on his face. So he was rejected by society And he's sad about that so he's like mad originally at like
00:06:53
Speaker
Ben Riley because we all thought he was like a clone and it's like ah he's messing up the original Peter Parker's life but now it's like kind of weirdly flipped but he still doesn't like Ben Riley um anyway now that Peter Parker who I'm still gonna call Peter Parker realizes he is a clone he's very sad and he's very confused about his life and um he gets taken in by
00:07:19
Speaker
the jackal, which happens the last time, uh, that we read something. Um, he gets taken in by him and we're like, Oh no, he's making terrible decisions. What's going to happen with this? And then Ben Riley's like, Oh no, Peter Parker has made a terrible decision.
00:07:39
Speaker
How do I fix this? And that is everything that you missed on the Clone Saga. It's a very crackhead thing that makes no sense. It's turned into a soap opera and people are making bad decisions and everybody's sad and confused. Also, Mary Jane is pregnant. Still, we don't know what trimester she is in. I want to know for the sake of timeline and how things have passed. I think she's in the first because they haven't drawn her with a pregnant belly.
00:08:09
Speaker
Well, I will tell you that I know just from how I've read it that goes from zero to 60. It looks super quick. She is like not pregnant to fully pregnant, like ready to pop.
00:08:26
Speaker
It's like real goofy. Um, so maybe she's in her second. I don't know. But so she's having a tough time. She's like, Oh boy, like, you know, I'm pregnant and my husband's like never around. Like, I hope Peter's okay. So then like, Oh no, my husband has disappeared because he found out he's a clone. And because he's disappeared, I can't tell him that like, Hey, I just, I just want you to be in my life.
00:08:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So that is literally like the whole first half of the maximum clonage alpha issue. Anyway, we're going to go to the present day with Mary Jane who's trying to be just very determined and not sad and confused.
00:09:08
Speaker
Um, she is researching, uh, like things about cloning, but she's not finding any answers to the questions that she is asking. And she's very frustrated. I also find it hilarious that there are books on cloning that allow her to even do research. I think that's funny because it makes some sense in terms of like in the Marvel universe, I guess.
00:09:32
Speaker
But it's also like, I feel like she would have to go to like a super special like place. Yeah, no, I would agree with that. Like this is not like you go to the local bookstore. She just rented books from like the local library or whatever. And it's like, okay, if cloning was that common, like this would not be a problem. It would be
The New Warriors' Mission
00:09:52
Speaker
so hush hush.
00:09:56
Speaker
So we are, we are in, was this like 94, right? Somewhere around, like that's the year this was published. When was Dolly the lamb? Uh, you know, the, the cloned, the, the sheep or whatever. When was that? Because it looks like
00:10:17
Speaker
96. So we haven't even reached cloning Dolly the sheep. So, uh, man, adorable. Anyway. So she's very frustrated because she's not finding the answers to her questions. She hears the door open and she hopes it's Peter, but it's not, it's been Riley. And she's like, God damn it, get away from me. Um, because
00:10:44
Speaker
You know, if the first person that walks into your door is not your husband, but an alikeness to your husband, a lot of like.
00:10:54
Speaker
The past discussions with these men have been like, especially with like Peace Repio, which was like the main clone that she dealt with even before she really dealt with like Peter Parker, I think, was like, or with Ben Riley, was like, Peace Repio was very clearly trying to just be like, I'm the real one. So all of this is mine. Like this woman is mine. And I'm going to take her back because this should be my life.
00:11:23
Speaker
Yeah, I appreciate Ben having recognized that
00:11:27
Speaker
He is a fully different person. Yeah. So that's like the whole point of this scene is like she immediately is like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like just because like we found out that you're the original, like you're not the person I spent the last freaking five years with. Like you don't get to just like come in here and like claim me. Like that's not a thing. And that was like my favorite scene. I was like snaps to Mary Jane, stand enough for herself as she has been this whole time, like advocate. Um,
00:11:57
Speaker
And Ben Riley is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, chill out. I don't want to, I'm not here to do that. I was looking for your husband because like, you know, he needs to talk this boy down, essentially. He knows that the Jackal has Peter, essentially. And they're like, we gotta stop the Jackal.
00:12:21
Speaker
So yeah, that's pretty much like that whole conversation. Mainly, I just
Spider-Man's Alliance with the Jackal
00:12:25
Speaker
liked the points that Mary Jane was making because I was thinking of them the whole time. And I'm glad that some writer put that into the universe. I appreciated it. Well, it continues down that line of thinking where Mary Jane is probably the most capable
00:12:43
Speaker
just regular person in this, in this series. She makes pretty much solid sense from day one.
00:12:54
Speaker
Well, yeah, cause it's like she understands that it's like, oh man, like I got a husband with a weird job. That sucks. Also though, like, you know, this is my life and this is my relationship. So like it should also be important. Um, and I think that's really cool. I appreciate that. It's not just a full on like, don't get him tiger. Like I.
00:13:20
Speaker
I appreciate that like Mary Jane is an adult with adult thoughts. So yeah, that was nice. Um, but we're going to go back to that town in PA that I mentioned like during that cold open where like everyone pretty much perished from the carry on virus. It turns out that there is one survivor. He did not die. And now he's got some funky, weird powers.
00:13:46
Speaker
um, like strength and kind of mutation. Um, so there is like a, there's like an, a force, like the new warriors that have like, okay. So they get called in by like the government to be like, Hey, go check out this PA town because like, we just did a whole inspection of this town. Everyone's dead, but we found this one survivor.
00:14:11
Speaker
So they call the new warriors and to be like, find the survivor so we can like run tests on him to like, see if he's okay pretty much. And the new warriors are like, oh man, I guess we gotta go do our job. Well, actually, can I add something there? I didn't know who they were. Okay, so the new warriors, they were not a very big group. They didn't seem like it.
00:14:39
Speaker
They weren't super popular. I mean, they had their followers, you know, uh, I only know a handful of them, like speed ball. I really like, uh, I genuinely thought that they were like a sub unit of like the X-Men cause one of the guys just looked like gambit.
00:14:58
Speaker
Yeah,
Punisher's Vendetta
00:14:59
Speaker
okay, so- But then it wasn't gambit. Well, keep in mind, this is around the time where the X-Men was the book at Marvel. Yeah. Like 1992 was everything had to be about
00:15:15
Speaker
the X-Men. I remember getting like SpaghettiOs that were like X-Men themed SpaghettiOs. That is such intricate spaghetti work. Yes. I mean, there were Spider-Man ones too. The two biggest things, the things that were keeping Marvel going were Spider-Man and the X-Men. And so, I mean, you kind of get where this is
00:15:42
Speaker
you know, you, everything kind of has to be somewhat aping these things because you want it to sell a little bit more. I don't know how much that is with, with the new warriors, but I know that like aesthetically, probably some of it, you know, uh, and just dial and everything, I guess. Yeah. Oh, what I really wanted to bring up with
00:16:06
Speaker
Um, the new warriors. Uh, I, I actually wanted to cut out this part from the life of Riley to, to, to talk about, uh, with, with Glenn Greenberg's, uh, with Glenn Greenberg's comments specifically about this where he says,
00:16:23
Speaker
when the Marvel editorial structure was reorganized during Marvel-lution, aka Marvel-cution, the first downsizing, because this is around the time they're realizing we have to cut back on stuff because we are losing a shitload of money. The new warriors were integrated into the Spider-Man group. So Tom Brevoort and I were editing new warriors at that point, and we had brought the writer, Evan Skolnick and Pinsular Patrick
00:16:50
Speaker
I think is the name, on as the creative team. So essentially, this is when Marvel is being split into different editorial groups. You have an X-Men editor, an Avengers editor, a Marvel Knights editor, or whatever that would be called, and like a Spider-Man editor. And they're all in charge of different titles that are being published. Right.
00:17:18
Speaker
somehow new warriors came into being a Spider-Man thing. So Ben Riley shows up a lot in New Warriors. I have not read a lot of that. But during this time, back to quoting Glenn Greenberg, maximum clonage was the first opportunity since this new structure had been created to really bring the new warriors into the Spider-Man universe and have them take part in a major Spider-Man event.
00:17:45
Speaker
I think we were all excited about it because it was a really good opportunity to bring some attention to the New Warriors book and our new writer and artist. It wasn't going to be a perfect fit because when you stop and think about it, the New Warriors really had no business being part of the clone soccer, but we were determined to make it work as best we possibly could. And I think overall that we succeeded. I don't know how you feel about that, the succeeding part.
00:18:16
Speaker
It's, it's interesting because like they, the way they like introduce them is almost like they've been around forever and we should already know who they are. But like, they're not, they're not like, they're not like the Avengers.
00:18:34
Speaker
Yeah, but I genuinely spent the first half of their time in my reading thinking that this was some weird sub part of X-Men. And then I was like, oh wait, these are totally separate people. And I have no idea what the hell they're doing. So it was a bit odd.
Marketing and Editorial Decisions
00:19:01
Speaker
The idea for having the New Warriors is essentially, it is kind of like a stolen from the X-Men thing where like the Avengers are, like if you were to do, the Avengers and the X-Men are like on this one level, then you have like the junior tier of like new mutants or X-Force under the X-Men. Okay, I mean, it was still weird.
00:19:27
Speaker
to what you were saying about them feeling like they've been around forever. That's also kind of fun because they were, they made their first appearance in like 1989. So five years prior to this. It was just weird. I don't know. It felt so not organic and like, I don't know. I was kind of like, whatever about these people.
00:19:55
Speaker
it didn't even seem like the characters wanted to do the job. They were just like, Oh, guess we gotta do it. Like, Oh boy. It was weird. The only thing I really know that team super well for, cause again, I didn't read a lot of it, uh, was in the early 2000s, they were what kicked off
00:20:18
Speaker
the Civil War event in Marvel because they were doing a reality TV show, which was, they were
Spider-Man's Identity Crisis
00:20:29
Speaker
being followed around by cameras and they were like trying to play up their superhero oaks for the camera. And they let a supervillain essentially blow up part of a town killing
00:20:44
Speaker
like over 600 people. Oh my God. For a TV show? That's like some of the boys kind of shit. They didn't do it on purpose. It was sort of like a lack of proper judgment because the cameras were there. The idea was that they were going to be focusing on making a good TV show versus doing
00:21:11
Speaker
the superhero job, right? And because they were focused on that, they missed a chance to take this, this villain down and he ended up killing all of these people. And that's what sort of set off in the, in the comic book universe. That's what set off all of this legislation to essentially force people to register as, as heroes for the government. Right. And to be honest, like,
00:21:41
Speaker
in the comic book version of this, I kind of agree with that because the movie version is very different. But in the comic book version,
00:21:54
Speaker
I think the pro-registration side made the most sense, which is why, if you were to read Civil War, the pro-registration side becomes comically evil. And it's because they needed a way to make people actually think that it wasn't a good idea. Yeah, but it's like, it was. It was such a good idea. Oh, so goofy. I love it.
00:22:24
Speaker
My God. But yeah, so New Warriors, they've been commissioned to find the guy. Now, because this commission was made through almost like a police report. You know how they have the car phones in the police car and they talk back and forth? It was kind of like that's how they communicated.
00:22:51
Speaker
So I guess the Jackal has a way to hack their communication line or whatever. So he's in a van with P3BO and they find the call or whatever. So they learn that there's one survivor and they're like, we gotta find him. So
Kane's Dilemma
00:23:13
Speaker
we know how to kill him. And it's like, Jesus Christ, okay.
00:23:19
Speaker
So it was there like like why why do they have to kill this guy? I guess I guess they're like we want to know why he survived the virus like what is it about him I guess and then let's get rid of him. So the jackal is like p3po Go do this. So that's a thing. Oh my god. Wait a minute. I just realized I Am a horrible podcast
00:23:52
Speaker
I just realized. I gave that whole like first half recap of the clone saga and I just spoiled literally like the ending of this issue. I was kind of thinking. Because I haven't. I've read this so long ago. I was thinking while you were talking I was like I
00:24:11
Speaker
I don't remember that being part of what we talked about, but as we know, all right, I'm just going to, I'm going to get to it now. Cause like it's happened. So the jackals like p3bo go do this thing. So p3b was going to find this guy, the jackal, what he's going to do is he's going to find Peter Parker, who's been running around the city of Spider-Man in distress because
Critique of Comic Marketing Tactics
00:24:35
Speaker
he's learned that he's the clone.
00:24:38
Speaker
And so basically what happens is I guess the Jackal knows that Peter Parker is going to go to the Empire State Building to contemplate his life and then probably run away.
00:24:54
Speaker
But so he finds Peter Parker and starts fighting him. And while he is physically beating him, he's also emotionally destroying this man, being like, you're nothing. You're just a clone. You're not a person anymore. And then it ends with like, well, now that I've beaten you to the ground, why don't I give you some value? Come work for me.
00:25:18
Speaker
I enjoy that the accent that you gave the Jackal because that's kind of what he, he, he seems like that's what he would be talking like, you know, not in his, not like when he's professor, uh, Warren, just when he's the Jackal, it's like a, you know, it's like the weird like transatlantic
00:25:44
Speaker
New York, Corinne doesn't know what she's talking about. Man, I don't know how we're going to, I think we should just admit that I fucked up in the beginning and keep it for the sake of playing to you.
00:25:58
Speaker
Yeah. That would be a really hard way to edit. I don't really know how we, I don't really know how we would edit it, but it's fine. Listen, this is a hobby. We don't get paid for this. This story also is not one that I think it like the less we worry about it, the better truly. But yeah. So essentially, um,
00:26:24
Speaker
That happens. Peter like takes the jackals hand and is like, you're like, Oh no, is he going to like, are they going to work together? What's happening? Man, Ben Riley didn't get here in time. Um, where did Ben Riley go? You may ask, like, why didn't he even bother to find Peter Parker? Well, it's because, uh, you go to a different scene and like,
00:26:52
Speaker
he finds like this letter that's like from the jackal and it's like addressed in PA and he's like I gotta go to this town
Disappointment with Modern Spider-Man Comics
00:27:01
Speaker
in PA and it's the same town that had the carrion virus and like so now he's going to PA this whole thing is a fucking weird way with people going places and that's like the best way to describe this um
00:27:16
Speaker
So now to recap, because this has now become really confusing, you have P3PO, the new warriors, and now Ben Riley, they have all
00:27:28
Speaker
either arrived or going to Pennsylvania because they're trying to find a man who survived the carrion virus, okay? That's happening. Number two, got Mary Jane. She's pregnant and she's sad. And she often takes walks contemplating her relationship.
00:27:47
Speaker
Uh, we have Peter Parker who is emotionally abused and sad and is probably going to, well, is going to work for the Jackal now because he's like, I guess I have nothing else in my life when it's like, sir, you have a wife. Yeah, this continues. This continues both him being a shitty husband as well as him being like the, the Spider-Man that makes the worst decisions. He's like Pinocchio.
00:28:18
Speaker
Pinocchio is literally just a jackass boy that's like, I'm gonna do what I want. Whee! And then he's like, oh no, everything went wrong. And it's like, yeah, because you were a jackass who did whatever you wanted. But not an actual jackass like all of the other kids that were sold into slavery when they became donkeys. Yeah, really? Like, honestly, it's pretty cooked. Yes. Yeah.
00:28:48
Speaker
Anyway, this is going to be such a fun one to edit. I'm so sorry to future Derek, but essentially what happens in the end is, um, the PA people at some point meet up and they all fight each other trying to catch this guy. Um,
00:29:18
Speaker
The new warriors, they try to get ahold of him, didn't work because essentially P3PO, he can morph, remember? Yeah. He morphs himself into one of the employees. So he's on the truck. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah.
00:29:36
Speaker
This patient zero is on, so that's the thing that happens. And also at one point, the New Warriors fight Ben Riley because they think that he's a bad Spider-Man because they kind of know about P3PO. It's weird. And they're like, oh, hey, sorry, we punched you. We punched the wrong guy.
00:29:58
Speaker
But we found him, it was weird. So that's like the end of that. Again, Peter Parker Jackal. Oh, and then Kane escapes prison. That's the, and the publisher's in town. Fucking what? Okay, also, why would, didn't Kane like give himself up? He gave himself up and then he was like, I'm gonna escape. Okay, yeah. I mean, I guess it's in character.
00:30:29
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know. You know, I, the only time I have liked Kane was during the lost years where he was just the sad where he had a relationship and was like a big emo boy. Yeah. He had like an arc during that. I mean, it wasn't like a great arc. It's not like the only arc he's ever had. It's not high literature by any means, but it was at least interesting. Yeah.
00:30:56
Speaker
Um, so yeah, that was, that was maximum cloned as alpha. Um, did I like the issue? Not really. I kind of thought it was dumb. Uh, cause like, I don't know. It was pretty dumb and it was kind of confusing to read cause you were like, what is happening? Um,
00:31:19
Speaker
But like, I don't know, recapping is kind of silly to me. So I'm just like, Oh yeah. And the punisher is here now. What a time. What's he doing? Um, he's going to be more, um, relevant in this next issue, which is called the last temptation of Peter Parker. And so Peter is now Christ is that that's what we're going with.
00:31:49
Speaker
I love that I was just listening to a podcast that was doing a brief history about the Beatles, and they mentioned the whole quote where it's like, we're more popular than Jesus now, but John Lennon basically made everybody go mad for saying that. And now here, Marvel is being like, Peter is Jesus Christ. Not even he is more popular, but just is Jesus Christ.
00:32:16
Speaker
I, one of the things that really annoys me in, uh, it's usually in movies, the amount of let's make Superman into a Christ figure drives me insane. Yeah, that's probably why I don't watch a lot of like super pants.
00:32:35
Speaker
Cause it is, I love Superman as a character. Cause I like Henry Cavill. I think he's very nice. Um, and I like that he is just a big nerd man. I support him. He's very cool. I'm a, I am a big fan of him, but I have also a very big fan. I think me and all of the people in my life are big fans of Henry Cavill. Um, my guest is Austin. Austin is the only person who probably wouldn't care so much.
00:33:05
Speaker
Really? Yeah. I don't know. I think she would like him, but I'm like physically. I like him. Same. I think he's neat anyway. Um, this is web of spider-man one to one 20. So I'm thinking of having your capital too much. I can't say numbers now. Uh, it's web of spider-man number one 27.
00:33:34
Speaker
And our credits go to the writers, AKA the one writer, Todd DeZago, the penciler who is Steven Butler, the anchors. I love Steven Butler. Well, that's who it be, Steven Butler. The anchor is Randy M. Berlin. The colorist is Kevin Tinsley. The letterer is Steve Dutrow. And the editors are Eric Fine and Danny Finger.
00:34:01
Speaker
Well, you did say that this was also like a point where like they were changing over, like they were letting people go and stuff. So maybe like Steven Butler was like, Hey, we need you real quick. Do this. Do this Jesus Spider-Man for us. He was off and on for web of Spider-Man. Uh, like he'll come in for a handful of issues and then it'll be gone for a handful of issues and then he's back for a handful of issues.
00:34:27
Speaker
I think he's a pretty good artist. I was a big fan of his, it's very readable, which I'm a big fan of. That is at least one thing about this little set of a storyline is like I had no qualms with any of the art. I was like, yeah, I'm reading a comic book. This is fine.
00:34:52
Speaker
I will say one of the other things that Steven Butler is known for is working on the Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comics. Whoa. Oh my God. Full circle. I would, I would say that his Sonic the Hedgehog designs were not great. Well, they, I mean, like, they, they, they look like, you know, the characters
00:35:21
Speaker
But it's, I don't know, his work on Sonic was not the best in my opinion. That's valid. He has some weird faces for them. Yeah, me and Phil, I feel like you gotta get a face like Sonic. You just picture one very specific style. I feel like you gotta get it just right in order for it to be good.
00:35:49
Speaker
Yeah. I think he just didn't really understand the vibe, maybe the vibe. Yeah. But like in general, like his, his pages, like I'm not the world's biggest fan of his artwork, but it's readable. It like you can, you definitely know what's going on. Yeah. I think maybe it's just one of those like with Sonic where it's like, you know, at a quick glance, it's fine. But if you're staring at it for too long, it's like maybe a little like, Oh, something's off here.
00:36:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. That is fair. I, yeah, again, I thought all this art was like fine. Um, I thought that he did the Punisher well, which we're going to see more in this one. Um, so yeah, it's gonna, this one's going to open up right where the last one ended on top of the empire state building where like,
00:36:40
Speaker
Spider-Man's getting picked up by the Jackal. And they're like instantly like best friends now. It's like really gross. A SWAT team is like essentially trying to come up with like a plan on trying to neutralize both of them.
00:36:59
Speaker
Because like, you know, they saw a fight on top of the Empire State Building. A SWAT team is going to be like, all right, this is ridiculous. We got to like stop these people from fighting on top of this icon. Right. So they're like climbing up the stairs, being like, OK, we clearly are working with two super powered people. We need to like bring them down as like safely as possible.
00:37:24
Speaker
And also be careful of Spider-Man because we don't really know what he's doing right now. This is really weird. And I found that really interesting, honestly, because you don't usually see conversations.
00:37:42
Speaker
from police officer to police officer in these like comics. It's a lot of them just kind of like bumbling around being like trying to be helpful, but then like always the superhero comes in and is like, I got this. Like it was really interesting to see like normal people that are trying to protect a community be like, this is getting out of hand. Like we really need to like get these two to like chill out. Pretty interesting. I like that too. I think that uh,
00:38:12
Speaker
in, in Spider-Man comics in particular, um, you pretty much, if there is a cop character that is around, it's like the captain or it's a detective and like, that's what you
00:38:27
Speaker
You see, you don't see like just the beat cops doing, you know, well, this was, I guess like, this was still like a SWAT team, but it was like just a normal group of dudes that had to be the SWAT team for Spider-Man today. And it's like, dang, that is a tough card to pull. Right. Yeah. A tough, a tough stick to draw. So they're trying to figure out how to neutralize the situation.
00:38:57
Speaker
Now, the Punisher, as I said before, is in town, and he is waiting on another building, like another rooftop, and he has a sniper, and it's aimed at the jackal, because apparently they have previous beef. Oh, yes. Actually, before you go any further, the Punisher, I go into this in
00:39:21
Speaker
one of the episodes it did on The Punisher. His first appearance was in a Spider-Man comic book, and it was being hired by the Jackal to kill Spider-Man. Right. Because he believed Spider-Man was a bad guy. Yeah. Like, that's the whole, like, that's where he came from. And it's interesting. I actually think he makes more sense outside of
00:39:50
Speaker
that particular story, but it's still interesting. I honestly, the Punisher is probably the person I liked the most in this issue, even though he's like totally unpinched, but it's like, I'll explain more like later, but I kind of, I appreciated him. Like he kind of made sense if they're going to do it properly, which we'll see. Um,
00:40:17
Speaker
But, so yeah, he's aiming for the jack and he's like, I'm just, I gotta get rid of him. Cause, and I don't care who's in the way. Like my goal is just to get rid of him. Whatever collateral damage is collateral damage. I don't care.
00:40:34
Speaker
But even surrounded by this SWAT team and by apparently the Punisher, Spider-Man makes an escape with the Jackal. He's like, I'm going to swing us out of here, buddy old pal. And they, they freaking swing away. And I'm like, this is so stupid. Why are these two people like it just, ugh.
00:40:52
Speaker
As a person who like like I know when I'm being like gaslit like you can't fool me I may be baffled in the situation and like be like I can't believe that this shit's trying to do this But like I'm still not gonna fall for it and like it's so painfully obvious But like the jackal is and has always been like manipulating Peter Parker. Yeah
00:41:17
Speaker
So it's just like, why would you, why? I don't understand why you would make this decision to be like, all right, I guess this is my best friend now, because they told me for five minutes that I was worthless, but they'll make me valuable. And it's like,
00:41:30
Speaker
You refused to believe anything that they said. For the past, God knows how many issues. And now you're just like, yeah, I get it. I mean, I've never been told personally that I am actually a clone and not a burst human being. So maybe I don't get it. And people are going to be like, Karina, you don't have enough empathy. And I'm like, but also, you still have intelligence. This is the world's worst
00:41:59
Speaker
abusive relationship that they are going through. Like, you know, it is Peter. I don't.
00:42:08
Speaker
You get like glimpses of him coming out of this, but then it's just, you know, the Jackal. But then he just goes back in and I'm like, I just don't want you to be around them anymore. I think maybe I'm just the friend that's like, I know that this person's no good for them. And like, you can't tell them because it's their life, but you also just want to shake them and be like, gah!
00:42:33
Speaker
right stop it for yourself but i can't i can't do that to a piece of paper because this is also i'm not reading it on paper i'm reading it on my computer and if i shook my computer it'd probably be too expensive to fix so i'm not gonna do um
00:42:52
Speaker
Anyway, back to Spider-Man. They make an escape. Oh no. There's a scene with Mary Jane and her aunt Anna, and they're cleaning up the old Peter Parker house, like Aunt May's house, just for like...
00:43:08
Speaker
to be cathartic, I guess, and just to kind of make Mary Jane feel better. But it's essentially like Mary Jane is kind of loosely talking about how there's like a lot of strains and stress in her marriage. And like, aunt Anna's like, it's gonna be okay. And she's like, yeah, but also like things are really tough and kind of shitty right now. And the aunt's like, but it's gonna be okay. And she's like, I guess I feel better cleaning this
00:43:37
Speaker
this house, so that's nice. It was a good scene, but it's also like, dang. Still feel bad for this lady. And then it goes back to a high speed pursuit where the Punisher is catching up to the Jackal. Basically, the Jackal monologues about making a whole race of clones. Just being like, I'm gonna fill the world with clones of you.
00:44:03
Speaker
Woo-hoo, it's gonna be great. It's all gonna be huge. Like specifically of Peter. I think it's just clones, I don't know. But it's also he's made so many Peter Parker's. I just don't understand the fascination because it's not like they're a different species. Like originally I thought the whole point
00:44:27
Speaker
was to like make these clones to mess with Peter Parker and like ruin his life. And then only like in the recent reading has it been like, I'm just going to make it the world. The world is clone. And I'm like, because I think here's my guess from what you were doing.
00:44:50
Speaker
My guess is the people that were in charge over at Marvel had absolutely no fucking clue about what to do with the Jackal to make him like have anything more to do
00:45:06
Speaker
then just be here to get some sort of like wonky revenge on Peter. But they needed it to be something else because they just made it so that like his ultimate revenge on Peter is like, haha, look, I stole five years of your life from you.
00:45:24
Speaker
You're a clone. Like all this whole thing. I feel like there's nothing more to do with him. It kind of feels like the jackal should just be like the high evolutionary sidekick.
00:45:38
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, and I would buy that, you know? Yeah. Cause it's like the high evolutionary, like at least from the one guardians of the galaxy movie that I saw, uh, he's like, I'm trying to create like a perfect utopia and I'm really messed up while I do it. And then I feel like the Jackal would be like, I've got all this like, you know, cloning knowledge and I really want to get revenge on this one person and you making a utopia helps me do that. Like,
00:46:09
Speaker
Yeah, I like that. I like that idea. That works a little bit. It at least gives some sort of like something, you know? It also would help explain where some of his technology came from, why there's so many labs everywhere. Yeah, because there's two scientists instead of one. Well, not just that, but like the high evolutionary is like,
00:46:38
Speaker
he's supposed to be like so advanced and be working, like he's working on like a fucking entirely different level than just a professor at a college or a university. Like, man, now I wish that's what we were reading instead. I asked my idea too good. Anyway, back to this, this shit that we're reading. But so it's a, it's a high speed chase. What a time.
00:47:07
Speaker
Punisher starts firing his gun because he's got close enough. And he does hit the jackal. So he got the opportunity. And Spider-Man is really sad about it. And I'm like, grow up. Stop it.
00:47:26
Speaker
He hits the Punisher and then flees from the police because now the police have arrived. Because they heard just a bunch of gunshots in an alleyway. So it's like what police officers would show up with that, I suppose. So Spider-Man takes the Jackal with him and starts going to the Jackal's lab because he was like, I have a healing chamber there.
00:47:53
Speaker
So they're going to go try that out. But they kind of make it sound like the Jackal is going to die. And I was like, oh, boy, thank goodness, like we're done with this character. And I was really I had my fingers crossed. I was like, oh, boy, I hope I hope we're done.
00:48:13
Speaker
But we're going back to the police scene. The Punisher escapes in smoke. He's like, poosh, magic. What a time. A brief moment with Kane. He's standing on top of the Jackal's lab, angered by the partnership of Peter Parker and the Jackal. He's like, why are they working together? This makes no sense. And I was like, honestly, Kane, this is the one time I get you, man.
00:48:43
Speaker
Yeah, Peter puts Jackal into this like regeneration chamber thing. Um, and then like the Jackal, they have like a closeup on his face and he's like smirking and it's like, okay. So like he's like acting like he planned this all along to like go back to his like regeneration cell or whatever. And it's like, you did not plan to have the Punisher visit town to shoot you. That makes no sense.
00:49:12
Speaker
Yeah, maybe you planned on manipulating Peter Parker, but none of this makes sense on how you could have planned a man spending a weekend in New York to try and kill you. It's so stupid. I'm not mad about it. I used to be really mad about Kane all the time, and now I'm really mad about Jackal all the time because I think he's a dumb, dummy character, and I don't like him.
00:49:39
Speaker
He just annoys me. He's going to really annoy me in the next issue too. Just you wait.
00:49:46
Speaker
So that is kind of where it ends with a jackal in this issue. But then we have a moment with the Punisher and it kind of just shows how freaking crazy this man is. But so when he does the little smoke bomb and then flees the scene, he's still being chased by a SWAT team slash police officers or whatever, and they chase him into the sewer.
00:50:09
Speaker
And the sewer has water in it because that's what sewers are for. But there's also apparently electrical wiring in this sewage, I guess because of the New York subway. But anyway, friggin Punisher, to get away from the police because he gets cornered at one point, finds
00:50:30
Speaker
broken wires and is like, I am going to electrocute all of us in the water if you don't get the hell away from me. And so the SWAT team is like, Oh shit, he's going to kill us all. Like we need to leave. So they all let him go because he
00:50:46
Speaker
was just like, I'm not bluffing, I will electrocute all of us. And I'm like, this is wild. This man is so determined to kill the jackal. And honestly, I am determined to have the jackal gone. So though I don't support electrocuting mass amounts of people, go off, sis, I don't know. I mean, I think that is a great representation of that character. It was so intense.
00:51:14
Speaker
like in sort of like his devotion to his ideals. It's also a great, uh, refutation of any police officer that identifies with that character because Jesus Christ, this is the, he is willing to kill
00:51:35
Speaker
a whole squad of police officers to kill one person. That's not even fair. It was so wild. I was like, holy shit. And then I was like, Oh my God, they're doing this in a Spider-Man comic book. This is crazy. I was like, my jaw dropped. I was like, Oh my goodness. This got dark real fast. Like for a hot second.
00:51:59
Speaker
I was sweating a little bit. It was a time. Sorry. I'm yawning, but a time has been one day. Um, but the day is almost over because we're going to wrap up with the last issue. It is writer man 404. Can you believe that this is 404 and 400 is the one
00:52:17
Speaker
I was just thinking that it's been four fucking issues. Four issues since this woman has passed. Um, and like Peter Parker was arrested. Like months have gone by for us, Derek, and only four issues have gone by of the amazing Spider-Man. And I find that to be absolutely bonkers.
00:52:40
Speaker
They were really just like piling in everything happened. This is also why Spider-Man is the general hospital of Marvel comics right now. And like, I will not stand for it. Well, I think that's just because you haven't read enough X-Men. I have not. They are quite soap operatic, but in the fucking best way.
00:53:04
Speaker
I appreciate. Anyway, this is amazing Spider-Man 404. It's also called In the Name of the Father. And I'm like, my goodness, can we please stop? The religious shit. Like, I'm praying for this issue to be over. We got the writers. They are J.M.D. Matthias and Tom DeZago. We got Penciler, Mark Bagley, The Inkers.
00:53:34
Speaker
are Larry Mostad, Randy Emberland, and then Joseph Rubinstein or Steen. I think it's Rubinstein. I like that one a lot. Okay. Uh, the colorist is Bob Sharon. Letter is Bill Oakley and the editor is Danny finger rock. Okay. So, uh, we ended with like the Jackal in the lab in the little chamber.
00:54:04
Speaker
That's pretty much where it's going to start because Ben Riley eventually finds Peter Parker in the lab while the Jackalism's in his little chamber. And he's trying to talk with him. And now he knows that this is going to be a weird conversation. And he's trying not to be condescending, being like, I've been where you've been.
00:54:25
Speaker
Cause it's like Ben Riley has been where he's been. Like he also had five years taken away from his life and has also spent five years thinking he was a clone. So like at some point he was introduced to the concept that he was a clone, you know, and that's, that's a hard thing to take. So it's like, yeah, I guess, I mean, the one thing that you could say is that he had that time to come to terms with like, you know,
00:54:52
Speaker
the mental and emotional. So now he's trying to have a conversation with Peter Parker who just learned that he's a clone. Right. With this five years of hindsight, trying to be like nice and like he's really, really trying to just like get Peter to like get out of this lab and like come home. But it doesn't really work. Peter gets upset and he pushes him away. Um, and now P3PO shows up.
00:55:24
Speaker
And also apparently P3PO has decided to call himself spider side now. And I'm still going to call him P3PO. I think he was offended that people used to call him like freak face.
00:55:40
Speaker
So I didn't realize that this was the same character. It is the same character. It's P3PO. He is sad that he didn't like that people called him like freakazoid or freakface, whichever one it was. So he tried to make himself a cooler nickname. But he- Spiderside is not it. Spiderside is not it. It also like, he looks goofier than he did the first time.
00:56:06
Speaker
Yeah, I remember seeing this character. He looked kind of like a Harry, like Mr. Hyde kind of Spider-Man. And I was like, this is weird, but like go off. And now it's like, he's a spider suit with teeth, like with, like with veneers, like it's not like monster teeth. It's like, and he has no nose. And like, it's
00:56:31
Speaker
I remember seeing this character when I was probably in like middle school or something. I think I got one of those like Spider-Man encyclopedias.
00:56:41
Speaker
And I remember seeing him and thinking, well, that's fucking stupid. And so I like, I knew this character. I knew who it was. I didn't, I didn't put together until very recently that it was the same character as that third P three PO. Yeah. So they're the same. Now I will say the one wholesome thing.
00:57:07
Speaker
Is like in this issue because he introduces himself as spiders. I'd like Ben Riley is like tries to like honor his nickname to be like, like it's really good. Okay. That's your name now. All right. Well, sure. Like we'll play along with that. Whatever. Um, but so I'm still going to call him P3PO. It doesn't matter. P3PO, uh, comes into the room and he starts to attack then.
00:57:36
Speaker
And now I'm going to, they really like lay on the father theme, like real thick with Jackal. Well, in this whole issue, because like Jackal like slowly throughout the storyline and starts calling himself, like,
00:57:52
Speaker
like the dad and like all that stuff. And like he's like referring to P3PO as like, Oh, come on son. Like it's like only recently has this been like a thing that he starts doing. Um, and it like is, it's like a lot in this issue. It is a time. So like spider site is essentially like Ben Riley, get out of here. You're not one of us. You're not my brother. Like all this like weird shit.
00:58:21
Speaker
and they're fighting. Kane drops in. He rips the door off of the regeneration pod, whatever the jackal is in.
00:58:31
Speaker
And essentially he has a monologue ranting out the jackal and it ends with this quote of, he had everything and you took it from him. Now I'll take everything from you. Because he's talking about how Peter Parker had everything. He had a wife, he had kids, and now you just manipulated him and you took it all away from him.
00:58:53
Speaker
If he was a clone and you sent him out in the world, the whole point was for him to live his life and then took it from him. And so now, Kane's like, I'm gonna fight you for Spider-Man. And so that's gonna happen now. Yeah, it was a whole time. So now they're fighting. But then, the Jackal offers Kane an upgrade. He'll be like, hey, I'll fix your face if you join me. And Kane's like,
00:59:24
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Sure. Um, and that's like really weird. So now everyone has no one is acting in character except for like Ben. And I guess Jackal.
00:59:39
Speaker
And now everyone has turned against Ben. Everybody's just fighting him. P3PO, this is a weird moment. And they don't really touch on this. So P3PO gets away from the fight for a hot second and then turns around and freaking Scryer is there.
00:59:57
Speaker
Cool. And you're like, where did you come from? Why are you here? And then, like, basically all he does is he, like, Scryer, like, touches P3P0's forehead and he has now been, quote unquote, enlightened with knowledge. But we don't know what that knowledge is. It's just the thing that happened. And we're like, what is this? I don't know if they're going to touch on this later. And then he's gone. That's like it.
01:00:25
Speaker
That's it for Scryer. And I'm like, this is exhausting. Um, so, Hey, remember when I was like, Jackal was going to give Kane an upgrade and like all this stuff. So you turn the page of the comic and essentially the Jackal is like, no, I'm not going to do that. Screw you. Get out of here. See that, that checks out again. That's Jackal in character.
01:00:51
Speaker
Yeah. So then Kane is like, he like whines and then he's like, I'll kill you some other time. Kind of line. He's just like, I'm out of here. This is dumb. And it's like, you could have just killed him now. Why is nobody just getting rid of this man now? Um, but he didn't.
01:01:08
Speaker
During this fight, there's a hot second or like Spider-Man questions if he's making the right choice being here like this and not helping Ben. Yeah, no. It's very simple. Yeah. But because like everybody has turned against Ben, he gets like overpowered and Ben gets thrown into like a holding cell.
01:01:33
Speaker
And basically the way it ends is like bends in this cell and it lights up a little bit and there's all these spider men inside of this prison cell. And it's like, this is haunting. This is too many spider men. We need to stop. That is a famous image from this whole thing. Yeah, it's literally the classic art of you turn the flashlight on and there's a herd of bats
01:02:02
Speaker
Yeah. You know, in the cave, it's that, but it's all just like Spider-Man. So good. So anyway, that is it for a Maximum Clonage Alpha. Did I like it? No, I thought it was real dummy. I just like, I hate the decisions that Peter Parker has made.
01:02:28
Speaker
And I'm like, and it's like, it's okay. I'm glad that he's like maybe going to come out of it, but I'm just like, move on. I don't like, I didn't like it. But there were points that I was like, this is just so goofy. Like I got to tell Derek about how dumb this thing was.
01:02:49
Speaker
I, you did at one point, you texted me and you're like, this is, this is not it. This is dumb. I think it was after.
01:03:00
Speaker
I think it was after, it was like the middle of the second issue because like it was very clear that like Peter Parker joined sides of the jackal. And I was just like, why is this happening? This is so dumb. This makes no sense because literally like every issue that I had read before was him hating the jackal. Like it was like, cause it's not like they were like,
01:03:24
Speaker
The Jackal is very manipulative, but I wouldn't even say they had a relationship. It was just like, he was always the bad guy to his hero. And he was just really annoying because he kept trying to like mess with his mind. And now it's like, okay, I'll be best friends with you now. And it's like, that doesn't make sense. It's weird.
01:03:49
Speaker
Well, I have some, some more trivia to go over again. It's all from life of Riley. I'm going to be quoting, um, uh, Glenn Greenberg again. Uh, after the shocking revelation of spectacular Spider-Man two 26, the next logical step was to wrap everything up since the clone saga had already gone way past its original intended links.
01:04:11
Speaker
and begin the new era of Spider-Man. So Peter and Mary Jane would be written out of the books and sent off to live in peace with their soon to be born child. Ben would get the chance to establish himself as Spider-Man and move forward. Going into the planning stages for what would turn out to be maximum clonage, the intent was indeed to finish up the clone storyline once and for all and quickly get Ben started as Spider-Man.
01:04:36
Speaker
As I recall, the storyline was supposed to run through all four core Spider-Man titles for one month and conclude in the quarterly double-sized Spider-Man unlimited book, which would have an issue coming out that month as well. And then it would all be over, over and done, like completely. So what happened? Well, we can start by blaming the X-Men. A short time earlier,
01:05:02
Speaker
The X-Men group had a tremendous success with a publishing event called The Age of Apocalypse, which, by the way, is a really good storyline. Oh, okay, cool. This storyline began in a chromium-covered, double-sized one-shot called X-Men Alpha, in which the X universe was radically transformed. The event continued for four months with all of the X-Men titles reflecting the changes initiated by the events of the Alpha book.
01:05:28
Speaker
Then, when those four months were over, the event concluded in the chromium cover double-sized X-Men Omega, in which the original status quo was more or less restored. So like I said, this was a tremendous success, and Marvel's marketing and sales departments wanted the Spider-Man group to follow suit.
01:05:49
Speaker
The Spider-Man group editor in chief, Bob Budiansky, agreed that this could be a great success for us, having seen what it did for the X-Men books. The most obvious solution was to use the end of the clone saga as the event for this publishing plan. We'd add a one-shot to the schedule to kick off the storyline, our alpha issue, and then turn the concluding chapter into a special Omega one-shot instead of it being just another issue of Spider-Man Unlimited.
01:06:14
Speaker
Both the Alpha and Omega issues would have Chromium covers. Why? The guys in the marketing department at that time loved Chromium. According to them, Chromium covers significantly increased sales whenever they were used. So any chance those guys got to slap on a Chromium cover, they jumped at it. So the one thing we knew for sure, this event right from the start, there would be Chromium covers. And as someone who has a lot of comic books from this time,
01:06:41
Speaker
Yes, everything fucking had chromium on it. I was at the meeting where this event got its name. We were all kicking ideas around and Eric Fine, who was editing Spectacular Web, jokingly suggested that we call it maximum clonage. We all groaned. Yeah, it was a cute idea, but we really didn't want this to be associated with maximum carnage in any way. Despite the sales success of carnage, that storyline wasn't exactly a high point in Spider-Man's history, and it was exactly the kind of thing I thought we were trying to get away from
01:07:10
Speaker
under the new administration. The next thing we knew, Eric had, uh, proceeded to become very attached to the name and suddenly he wasn't joking about it anymore. I can't remember exactly how everything came together after that, but I guess Eric must've made a very good argument because the name stuck. Um, so I want to make a couple of points about what I have read so far. Uh, the first being, uh, maximum carnage absolutely was not a very good storyline. It was way too long for
01:07:40
Speaker
Uh, what it needed to be and had way too many characters in it and had one of the dumbest endings. Um, it was like, it's a, it's a fun ending. It's not like, uh, the,
01:07:57
Speaker
Like it is silly in a, in a, I think a fun way, but not in the, like you're telling a different story. Like the silly ending shouldn't be the ending you go with for this.
01:08:11
Speaker
I feel like the only reason most people remember Maximum Carnage other than the fact that it was like such a long storyline was that there was a Maximum Carnage video game and that is usually what people think of, right? Okay. Cause like I had heard, like when we mentioned Maximum Clonage, like when we started doing this, I saw it like on our little
01:08:35
Speaker
spreadsheet or whatever I was like that sounds familiar and then I was like Some like maybe I'm thinking of like maximum carnage and I'm like, I don't know why I know that title but like I know it from something and it was more likely the video game than the Yeah, the video game was like pretty big, you know, I mean it had a lot going for it You got to play spider-man or venom and it was like an early game
01:09:01
Speaker
Super Nintendo sort of Sega Genesis game. The other thing that I wanted to quickly make a note about was talking about the X-Men and the way that
01:09:12
Speaker
Age of Apocalypse is set up and trying to sort of mimic that for like ending the Clone Saga, which I mean, we have many episodes to go so clearly they didn't end the Clone Saga. No, they didn't. And also like if you were gonna make like something like this, why not instead of totally trying to copy X-Men, like why don't you make your big chromium thing
01:09:36
Speaker
be like the beginning of Ben Riley's journey instead of like let these people go. Like resolve them relatively quickly and like let them go have their kid and be happy and stuff. That's kind of what I was going to point out because so the reason why that event worked in the X-Men
01:10:05
Speaker
one, there was like a big buildup to it. So I guess you could kind of say there was a big buildup to this one, but two. So X-Men alpha.
01:10:16
Speaker
not, I'm not going to get too deep into the storyline, but X-Men alpha literally ends the, the fucking universe ends. Yeah. Like that's how that book ends. And then when you start in like the next stories, you know, all of like Wolverine, X-Men X like all of those books
01:10:36
Speaker
were essentially not canceled, but seemingly canceled, put on hiatus for four months. And the idea was they got relaunched as different titles.
01:10:49
Speaker
And the reason why they became different titles is because they were in a different universe entirely that had its own story to be told. And it wasn't set up the way that Spider-Man is where you have to buy Amazing and then you have to buy Web and then you have to buy Spectacular. Each title had a small part of one big story that all concluded in X-Men Omega. So like, you're not...
01:11:16
Speaker
You're not telling half of a story or a quarter of a story in one comic book, and then hoping someone picks up the next issue. That's confusing. And it doesn't matter that you're doing an alpha and an omega. The alpha and omega were specifically about that universe. It all makes sense, whereas none of this does. You're essentially doing an alpha for the end.
01:11:45
Speaker
and an Omega for the beginning of like what you're wanting to do as editorial. But I mean, clearly you're also not sticking to it because that's, you know, we have many episodes to go. Yeah, we do. One time.
01:12:10
Speaker
Uh, and I'm just going to comment a little bit. I have another one just from Glenn Greenberg about, uh, the, the, that final image, the maximum clonage, uh, where Ben turns around and there's spider man everywhere. Yeah.
01:12:25
Speaker
So Glenn says, I'm guessing this scene was in the back of everyone's minds the moment the decision was made to call the story maximum clonage. But that didn't mean we actually had to do it. Personally, I hated the idea of having hundreds of Spider-Man clones running around. As far as I was concerned, this was the exact
01:12:42
Speaker
or this was exactly the kind of silliness we should have been trying to get away from. I mean, we all groaned when the title was first proposed, and now we were going to do stuff in the story that only served to reflect the dopey title even more. Stuff like this, in my opinion, was the epitome of everything that had been wrong with Spider-Man over the previous few years. Shameless sensationalism, milking a successful idea to the death, over a kill reaching ludicrous proportions.
01:13:09
Speaker
I don't remember having too much enthusiasm for maximum clonage once it headed in this direction. I really thought it was going to be about bringing things to a close and a new beginning instead of upping the clone ante even more. And I agree. It also, if we are to accept Ben Riley as a fully fleshed out human being, Kane
01:13:31
Speaker
as a separate entity from Peter. And even P3PO, as now Spider-Side, a different character entirely, they have grown past just being clones of Spider-Man, and we recognize that they have autonomy and are worthy of being seen as individuals. That means that every single one of those characters, all of those clones that are- Have to be an individual now.
01:14:01
Speaker
Right. So like if you are accepting all of the other characters that we've accepted, then it would stand to reason that those should be treated the same way. And well, I don't think that's how it's going to go. So I don't think it's how it's going to go either. And you're undermining your own story.
01:14:25
Speaker
Yeah, it also just really like puts me out of like the Spider-Man vibe. I'm just like, I feel so congested with Spider-Man that I'm like, rah, take a nap. So we talked a little bit about this before we started recording.
01:14:48
Speaker
The modern Spider-Man comics, I have, I just, I don't like. I don't, there is nothing in them that has really like given me any sort of like need to read more. And there's a person on
01:15:12
Speaker
I actually watched a really interesting breakdown of modern Spider-Man comics. Godzilla Mendoza. And I will say that they, I think, summed up a lot of what I was thinking about modern Spider-Man comics. And sort of their... They ended their whole thing with being like, I am no longer excited about reading any... It is like a detriment.
01:15:40
Speaker
to see like a Spider-Man comic book coming out. Like I'm like, I'm actively not excited.
01:15:45
Speaker
to see that. And I kind of end the same way in that most of the stories that have come out are constantly trying to redo stuff that happened years before either to like fix it or like they're constantly trying to change things to make it the way that they want it. And you're not telling any good stories because you're constantly trying to just redo stuff
01:16:11
Speaker
or to undo stuff. That's it. Yeah. Like I will say like, okay. So in the time that we are reporting this, like, uh, into the spider verse just came out like recently across the spider verse across the spider verse. There's too many multi-verses. Um, that's number one. Uh, but it, the sequel to the animated Spider-Man movie,
01:16:37
Speaker
came out, whatever it's called, SpyDiverse, in, across, under, over, loop-de-loop it, one of those. It just came out and, like,
01:16:48
Speaker
I really liked that first movie. I really liked it a lot. I had a great time. I thought it was wonderful. And when I was told back then that there was going to be a sequel, I was like, I'm going to see it in theaters. And now we flash forward to I'm now doing a podcast where we're doing essentially a year-long project of Spider-Man the Clone Saga. And I had just read this Maximum Clonage. And then literally the next day after I had finished like my reading material,
01:17:18
Speaker
my boyfriend was like, Hey, do you want to go see spider? You want to go see spider verse? And I was like, uh, I don't know. And that made me kind of sad. Cause it's like, I really like, I did eventually see it and I had a great time. I really liked it. Um,
01:17:37
Speaker
But the fact that I felt so exhausted from the amount of Spider-Man people that there are, I was almost like, man, now I got to sit and watch even more Spider-People. There's too many spiders.
01:17:54
Speaker
I was like I like I can't especially because I like we had just talked about like at least my opinions on like Multiverse things and clone things to me are very similar because it's just like what could have been what whatever Mm-hmm, you know And I was just like man this is like I feel like this is so played out I am glad that I went had a great time but like I
01:18:20
Speaker
What we just read made me almost not go like it almost made me not like spider-man I still like spider-man because I like you know, I have nostalgia towards like other the different things That's right. Yeah, and I like the new thing like the Miles Morales. I think he's a really cool character But this spider-man makes me not like spider-man and not as sad I
01:18:47
Speaker
Well, yes. And what I was going to get to with my long-winded talk about a modern Spider-Man comics is like none of that interests me. None of really this interests me. Like I'm finding things that I'm enjoying. Yeah. Again, like, you know, some of the cameos, I'm like, oh, this is cool. This is funky. Like some of them. And then again, like Ben Riley, like,
01:19:14
Speaker
I'm just, now I'm just thinking of Ben Riley from like the Spiderverse. From the movie. And I'm like, so goofy. But like, I like our, I like the book Ben Riley. I think he's good. And it's just a shame that he's like stuck in this like cloud of other spider people. And I'm like, my goodness. Ben is a better character when he's allowed to not be around Peter. When he's like actually
01:19:45
Speaker
being an individual, he's great. But then like when he's got a chaperone, all of the other spider people, it's like, my goodness. I got a little curious about a couple of like older spider stories and I went back and I read some older Spider-Man comics and I was like, damn, this is why I like this character.
01:20:11
Speaker
Yeah. And I just, I think that there's, there, there are so many good things to do with Peter, with Ben, with Spider-Man in general, you know, whoever is under, I like Miguel, uh, Spider-Man 2099. I think he's a fun character too. And he's very different from Peter. And I think that they are
01:20:35
Speaker
are all worthwhile, it's just that there is a point where it's like, I don't wanna deal with this. Okay, actually, I tried to read Spider Gwen's most recent run. And I just had this conversation with someone else where I was like, it's not that it was badly written. I do not think it was badly written, because I read the first couple of issues and they were fine.
01:21:05
Speaker
But what really turned me off and what I just did not want to have anything to do with is in the more recent Spider-Gwen comics, her identity is known in her universe. She somehow has the ability to leave her universe to go to school in the main Marvel universe.
01:21:31
Speaker
And that's what the whole thing is. And I was just like, I don't want to fucking read that. I don't give a shit about her like dimension hopping, like the character. It's just because I think of the current like environment that like all like these comic book or comic book based media things are like, it just really feels like everything is about a multiverse or like multiple of something.
01:22:00
Speaker
And it just makes me feel like you're trying to use this, what people thought was an interesting concept because you don't have interesting characters. There's that. And I think that they take interesting characters and make them uninteresting. Yeah. Like I think like spider Gwen in and of herself is a very cool and interesting character.
01:22:24
Speaker
But then you muddle that with all of these, they're like, look at all these other cool shiny things. And it's like, let me focus on one shiny thing. I had a conversation coming out of the Spider-Verse movie.
01:22:39
Speaker
where I was talking to a friend of mine and I told them, it is amazing that they have made me care about a spider verse story because I can tell you- Same, because I honestly could not have given a shit prior. I was like, I'm over this. The comic book version, I hate it. We're gonna do a whole story about Spider-Man traveling and meeting all these Spider-Man from other universes. And in my mind, that is antithetical to what makes Spider-Man work.
01:23:08
Speaker
And in the comic books, I think that bore out. I thought they were stupid. I hated those. But in the movie, it's because you center it on this one character and it's just a fantastical that's going around him, you know? And then they also centered it not only just on that character, but they also like helped you define like this is what
01:23:31
Speaker
Like the whole debate as to what makes Spider-Man Spider-Man. Like he wouldn't be Spider-Man without all like the spoiler alert, without like all the deaths in his life. And so do you require certain deaths in your life in order to be a real Spider-Man? Stuff like that. I like that this discussion of maximum clonage has just turned into a movie review because we don't want to talk about the actual story.
01:23:56
Speaker
Honestly, facts. But that's okay. All right. Well, thanks for listening to our rant about maximum clonage alpha. We're going to do Derek's rant on maximum clonage omega next. So please be excited. I'm excited to see what happens if it gets better, if it gets worse, if it gets weird. I don't know.
01:24:20
Speaker
But we gotta go so you can find more information at comicallypedantic.com. You can also follow us on Instagram by searching at pedanticcast. That is spelled at the symbol. P-E-D-A-N-T-I-C-T-A-S-T. Like C-A-S-T.
01:24:41
Speaker
I don't know why I'm spelling this weird. Anyway, new episodes, they come out on most Sundays on iTunes and Stitcher and Google Podcasts and Spotify and at comicallypadantic.com. If you have any comments or questions as to like, hey, Corinne, why did you spoil the whole beginning of this issue? You can ask me that question through a text or audio recording by going to, by,
01:25:10
Speaker
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01:25:33
Speaker
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01:26:12
Speaker
Oh, my cat's looking at me like I'm crazy. He's correct.