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Spider-Man Clone Saga: Maximum Clonage Part 2
24 Plays9 months ago
Ok. So we finally made it to the end of Maximum Clonage. So how does everything tie together? What's the story? Why does this exist?
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Reflection
00:00:13
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Comically Pedantic, where we take a detailed look at the complicated concepts, characters, and history of comic book culture. I'm your host, Erica Chase, and joining me on this episode, as always, is the wonderful Corinne Leiby. Whoa! It's me! We're back! I started to giggle a little bit because I saw your... You got really close to the camera for a second, and I was like, what's she doing? I did?
00:00:39
Speaker
You like leaned forward as I was talking. Are we sure it's me? I don't know. I did double check my camera. I was like, who is she? It's me. So we, last time we covered, uh, the first part of maximum clonage, which was alpha. And then like, I don't know, two or three issues.
Recap of Maximum Clonage and Spider-Man Relationships
00:01:01
Speaker
Some, some nonsense happened in there.
00:01:04
Speaker
Yeah. Um, pretty much Spider-Man is friends with like OG kind of OG. God damn, I hate that I can't like describe people away. I definitely delineate because there is Scarlet Spider. Scarlet Spider is Ben Riley and forever will be in my mind. And then I'm just going to keep calling him OG Peter Parker because that's how he was when I started reading. And I think the dumb plot twist is stupid.
00:01:33
Speaker
So OG Peter Parker is now also equally stupidly friends with the Jackal. And the past things that I've read have just been the Jackal being like, I'll do this for you. And then five minutes later, just being like, it's like, not anymore. And now Ben Riley stuck in a box with like too many Spider-Man. Yeah. Um, actually, okay. So wait, before we get too far into it,
00:02:03
Speaker
because I do have a couple of questions I wanted to ask you before we get started. Before we get any of that going, I have to ask what your bright spot is, because we have to start that way.
Anecdotes and Comic Discussion
00:02:14
Speaker
We can't start in the deep, dark pit of Ben Riley in the spider pit. Okay. That's fine. I get it. Yeah. Before we crawl into the hole. Uh, I went to the beach. That was great. I was so happy. There have been multiple weekends where I've been like, Hey, can we go to the beach? And we'll be like, yeah. And then the sky opens up and it's like a thunderstorm and we're like, yes, I can't go to the beach now. So finally I was like, Hey,
00:02:44
Speaker
We're going to the beach. And I like menacingly stared at the sky and warning being like, you better not. You better not. And it didn't. So the sun was out. I went to the beach. It was great. I love ocean and that's my price. I think, I think you scared all of the bad weather to come here because it rained pretty much nonstop for like two weeks. And then.
00:03:12
Speaker
This might have been yesterday. I woke up at like five in the morning because we had a tornado warning. I scared it to death on Saturday and
Critique of Spider-Man and Jackal Collaboration
00:03:22
Speaker
it moved away to you on Sunday. That's fine. Sorry, but I had to for selfish reasons. But I'm not storm. I'm not as cool as storm though.
00:03:35
Speaker
There are fewer people in the world that could claim to be anywhere near as cool a storm. Like Lenny Kravitz is pretty cool, but I don't know, man. I think Storm's got a feat. She's about it. She was trained as a thief in Cairo, then was worshiped as a goddess, and then joined a
00:04:05
Speaker
Like basically like a civil rights terrorist group. Yeah. I think that's a pretty cool legacy. I'm down for that. All for it. She also like ripped someone's heart out at one point, but it's okay. Cause they had two hearts. So she's in close combat with the temple of doom guy. Right. Which is jarring.
00:04:27
Speaker
I think he loses for multiple reasons, but I mean, hey, go off. That's fun. What was your bright spot, though, aside from me sending a tornado your way accidentally?
00:04:37
Speaker
I have so many actually just because like so my birthday is this week as we're recording. Birthday is coming up. Happy, happy birthday. It's Derek's birthday. Yeah. Happy, happy birthday. I don't know if the happy birthday song is copyrighted, but happy birthday. Also Austin got me a cool little Apple watch, which I've been enjoying. Oh, that's fancy. Really helps in terms of like going to the gym.
00:05:01
Speaker
and sort of like actually tracking what you're doing because like your phone is kind of cumbersome and often you sit it down anywhere.
Plot Holes and Character Decisions
00:05:10
Speaker
So it's a nice way of like tracking things like that. Right. Can you play music on it?
00:05:15
Speaker
Yeah. Cool. Good on you. It's got a little walkie talkie thing too, which I really like. Oh man. You can be like a mission impossible spy. Right. And you just interrupt it because there it's not like a phone call or anything. You just like straight up interrupt whoever, as long as their, their watch is on. It's great. And on top of that, Austin also got a, well, she found out she got a promotion.
00:05:44
Speaker
Yeah, I was at the beach when I found out and then I called her and I was like, congratulations. So it's been a lot of good things happening. Let's do it. There's a lot to be happy about in this household. Yeah, a power couple of leadership.
00:06:06
Speaker
But in order to fulfill the promise that is our show, we have to move away from that brightness and talk more about Spider-Man.
Spider-Man and Mary Jane's Relationship
00:06:16
Speaker
The dark hole of many little spider boys. Yeah. Every time I remember
00:06:24
Speaker
sort of like where we are in this story, what's going on. I just remember how little I care for like what Marvel has been doing with Spider-Man pretty much since the 90s. Like pre-90s, I'm a big fan. I love almost all of this. Well, and as somebody who's newer to comic, I never had an interest in reading Spider-Man.
00:06:50
Speaker
And you really don't and I still don't, um, like it's weird. I've always like respected and like understood the whole like moral code and like premise of like Spider-Man. I think that's really cool. But I never like, even before reading this was like, I'm going to read that. I don't know why. I just never did. I think it was about to ask if there was, if you could pinpoint something, if you thought there was like, this is why.
00:07:20
Speaker
I think I just tend to read things that are like... I don't know. I think originally, before I really got into comics, I was like, I feel like comics are very black and white. And I wasn't really into that. It just felt like, here's a good guy, here's a bad guy, good guy wins, bad guy bad. And I was like, okay.
00:07:45
Speaker
Yeah, I get that. That's cool. Anyway, I guess I'll find something else. And like, I think sometimes I put them kind of together with like the young adult genre. And when the young adult genre was for me, like I read a couple of them and I tried them, but it was big when like the dystopian future thing.
00:08:07
Speaker
was happening and I like that whole part of YA like hunger games and stuff. Yeah. Like I read the hunger games and then I had to read like, um, the other one divergent divergent. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, I'm good now I'm done. And there was another one I tried to read it, but it was still kind of like too much. It's the same. And I was like, I'm done. I don't need it. Because again, it was still like a little too like,
00:08:36
Speaker
obtuse I guess not being like I'm a hipster and I have to like read everything super complicated but it was just it felt like a little too like
00:08:47
Speaker
I got it. I get it after 10 pages. I get why this society
Comics Code Authority and Personal Reading Experiences
00:08:52
Speaker
you built is wrong, or I get why this bad guy is bad. You may have a cool plot twist at the end, but I got it already. I don't know. I want to feel confused a little bit when I'm reading. I want to be like, I like this person, but they're kind of bad. I like a bit of that.
00:09:11
Speaker
And I also just tend to like kind of spooky, kind of darker stuff. Like I, whenever I talk to my mom about like reading books, cause her and I will often recommend things to each other. She'll be like, it's good. It's dark though. And I'll be like, yeah, this one's good. It's dark though. Like that is how like I have to like, it's always good. It's a quality writing, but there's like, like parts of it are kind of fucked up. And I'm like, there's a lot of,
00:09:40
Speaker
I mean, there can be some, but I would say, yeah, largely no. It came out in that sweet spot after the Comics Code Authority was put in place where pretty much the only thing that you could do that would survive would be something like superhero comics. Yeah. Because you couldn't have like horror books
00:10:07
Speaker
just would not work under the Comics Code Authority at its strongest. So you end up with sanitized stories being the only things that could be published.
Repetitive Tropes in Comics
00:10:20
Speaker
And look, there's something to be said about these.
00:10:24
Speaker
You and I have talked about, I'm a big horror fan, but I'm also a big Sonic the Hedgehog fan. Yeah. And I think it's like, as you get older, it's kind of like when you get into coffee or like alcohol, like you start off maybe like when you're a kid with the really sweet stuff. And then when you think you're like cool and edgy, you want like just black coffee or you want just dry reds.
00:10:46
Speaker
Like, and then as you get older and you're like, okay, I'm, I am not put into a box. I can like all things is when you start to like, you know, different drinks, different vintage, like different genres. So like, I think now that I've like allowed myself to like read comics, I'm like, yeah, like I can enjoy still my spooky stuff, but like, I also enjoy like,
00:11:12
Speaker
Like I want to try different genres more than I did like previously in my life. So I think that's kind of like a different thing. Like back then why I wouldn't have read Spider-Man is I just like automatically assumed it wasn't for me. Like I will probably try later in life again long after this to try reading Spider-Man again. But like, and maybe this is just not my time yet.
00:11:39
Speaker
I have a feeling you would be a fan of Craven's Last Hunt. That would probably be one that you would like. And then, but outside of that, like in terms of like general Spider-Man stuff, yeah. The majority of them are hero versus villain and the occasional like
00:11:59
Speaker
Uh, basically Peter giving himself a pep talk kind of thing. And it's just like, if you like, I refused to read, I think we've talked about it before. I refuse to read the same author consecutively. I will not do it because I will get tired of like the trope. So it's like, if I had to read, like, I mean, we are reading a really long, like Spider-Man run.
00:12:20
Speaker
So it's like all of the tropes are just put in your face like every week. And I'm like, this is why I don't typically do this. But we've kind of balanced it out because we do every other week. Our stuff, it helps. But like, you know, they're always in the forefront of your mind. Well,
Deep Dive into Maximum Clonage
00:12:38
Speaker
that being an unwieldy story.
00:12:40
Speaker
That's the biggest part of it. I do want to give people credit. You worked on the project and you got hopefully paid for the project and good on you for publishing the project.
00:13:00
Speaker
I know marketing got in the way and this is not my favorite project that these people have done. As we move into what we're talking about today, I wrote a very brief synopsis of what you covered in what was like three or four issues last time.
00:13:17
Speaker
And I'm curious if you would agree that this pretty much sums up all of what you read. And there's a reason why I'm asking that. So here's what I wrote. And then should I try and see if I can make it even shorter? Sure. Okay. Last time we found Spidey leaving his wife yet again, but this time so that he could join forces with the Jackal.
00:13:43
Speaker
There's also a weird virus that the Jackal released on a small town and somehow contained to the borders of that said town. Uh, but it's also 99% lethal. I don't know how that works, but it works. And then P3PO has decided to start calling himself spider side and Ben found himself surrounded by an army of Spider-Man clothes. Does that pretty succinctly sum up what you read?
00:14:07
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, there's one important thing though. Oh, the Punisher came to town. That's it. Yeah. Okay. So.
00:14:17
Speaker
Here's why. I don't know if that's actually important. I don't know. You'll probably know, but I found it delightful that like the most unhinged comic happened of just like Spider-Man being like wife who like I'm leaving. I'm going to go be a bad guy now. Um, and like all of this crazy shit. And then suddenly it's just like, Oh, the punisher is in town.
00:14:47
Speaker
Yeah. So that was my favorite part. It was so unhinged and like, I don't know why, because the punisher is also unhinged. He felt like a weird breath mint because I think like he just was trying to complete what I wanted done, which is the jackal gone. And so I automatically was like, yeah, this man's crazy, but like he's going to get the job done. He hasn't yet, but.
00:15:14
Speaker
Man, I was hoping. I was so excited. So part of why I asked about whether or not this like summed up basically what you read in three or four issues is that that's not a lot of stuff that happened. No, not at all. It's a lot of like.
00:15:32
Speaker
A lot of it was just running away. A lot of it was running. And then a big part of, especially the final third was again, the jackal being like, I'll do this for you. I'm not doing this for you. I'm going to do this. Just kidding. Like that was like, could have been like three pages worth. Another good third of like a good sixth of it was just recapping everything that happened. It was, it felt so buffery.
00:16:00
Speaker
Right. And then when it wasn't being buffered, it was terrible decisions done by characters that could 100% do better. So I was like, frustrated. We have a lot in this second half. I was like,
00:16:16
Speaker
I read it and I was like, okay, yeah, I'm following along. I'm seeing what's going on. And then I went back to do my notes and I was like, damn, I forgot how much happened in this. So let's start with Spider-Man 61, which is written by Howard Mackey, penciled by Tom Lyle, inked by Chris Ivy, colored by Kevin Tinsley, and lettered by Richard Starks and Kamikraft.
00:16:38
Speaker
Now, picking up from the shocking finale of the previous issue, we see Ben in an impossible situation, stuck in a room surrounded by Spider-Man clones, all of them ready to attack.
Storytelling Techniques in Comics
00:16:50
Speaker
Faced with these insurmountable odds, Ben runs away and pretty much escapes without much effort, thus showing how ridiculous that cliffhanger ending was. Pretty much the comic starts and he's like, well, fuck it, I'm gone. And then we just cut to another scene. Wait, how did he get out though?
00:17:08
Speaker
Oh, that's actually a good question. I don't off the top of my head. I don't remember I think there's just like a there's like a like a vent or something and he's like I'm gonna go out this way It it was a really quick thing I did don't quote me on that because I it's been a while since I read it but it I remember like getting to that part and he just kind of like nopes out Yeah
00:17:35
Speaker
And that's not the end of that particular part of the story, but...
00:17:42
Speaker
I was going to say, if that is the end of that story, they literally did that just so that one guy could get that image. And I think, I think that had a lot to do with it and we'll get to why, uh, because we cut immediately to Mary Jane returning home to see Kane sitting in her living room and sifting through old photographs before questioning why Peter would give up so easily on a seemingly perfect life.
00:18:09
Speaker
Like he's just sitting all melancholy in the room. Right. Cause he was going to fight Jackal because the Jackal ruined this one, Peter Parker. Right. Yeah. Immediately after this, we cut to the Jackal realizing that Peter is depressed and decides to send him on a quest to take his mind off of things. So like,
00:18:32
Speaker
Peter clearly is not in the right mental state because, well, one, he just keeps leaving his wife, and two, he's been in like a constant state of panic for like the last 20 issues. I love that that Jackal was like, oh my God, this person depressed? I had no idea. Like, you dumb shit, you're the reason.
00:18:59
Speaker
Right. So he sends him on a quest to try to get his mind off of things. But the quest is he tells him he needs him to go after the Gwen clone that we saw recently. The one who had married the Warren. Right. And the reason why he needs her is because she hasn't degenerated and he wants to understand why because that could help him fix some of the other clones. If he can figure out like neither has
00:19:29
Speaker
chain. Like he has like the, his symptoms of it. So he's lasted longer, but yeah. But this current Peter Parker hasn't degenerated. Like I think he just wants the lady to have the lady cause that's the person he's been obsessed with for so long. Right. Allegedly. I don't know.
00:19:53
Speaker
As Peter leaves to go hunt down Gwen, Jackal gloats about how easily some people are tricked. And at that exact same time, Spiderside agrees with him with a smirk, which is like indicating that he is also tricking Jackal.
00:20:12
Speaker
So this is another one of those like layers, like everyone's doing the same thing to everyone. Probably. Well, there was that whole thing with we never found out about scryer, scryer, like boops, spider sides on the forehead. And he's like, quote unquote, enlightened with information. And we never figured out what that information was. That does come up. So I don't know.
00:20:37
Speaker
We will learn at least one thing. We then cut to Ben, who has to deal with the spider gang, finally catching up with him. And in the ensuing battle, they break through a wall, revealing where their secret lab is located. Ben doesn't know where this is, he just has found it. I guess, I'm assuming it's just really long and there are tunnels involved. Okay, I was gonna say, they've been there multiple times.
00:21:07
Speaker
No, this is a different lab. Oh, that's right. Okay. Cause there was the one that they walked to in the cascade mountains. And then there was like a random one in like New York, right? Yeah. And then there was like the basement one in Pennsylvania. This one is in New York. Um, we don't see where they are. We just see Ben's reaction of like, he's like in shock of where
Kane's Backstory and Influence
00:21:34
Speaker
he is. And then it cuts to another scene.
00:21:36
Speaker
his aunt May's house. That would be unhinged. Next, we go back to the Parker residence and we find Kane explaining his history to Mary Jane. See in his early days, he was seen as a huge success until he received his first precognitive flash and showed signs of degeneration.
00:21:58
Speaker
And the Jackal, angered by his failure, tried to kill Kane, but Kane obviously escaped and then witnessed the new clone taking his spot. So he hated this Spider-Man when he saw that because he's like, I was the favorite, which is kind of weird because he also was just murdered, but like mental states and all that. He grew envious of the life that Peter had built, which brings him back to the anger that
00:22:28
Speaker
of Peter throwing his life away. So, like, he goes through this whole emotional journey while talking to Mary Jane. Who probably is like, get the hell out of my house. Like, please. He lashes out at her, uh, claiming that, um, she only mattered when she was part of Peter's life. And now that she's not, that means she's nothing. And so then... That is so cooked. Yeah. He's, he's an asshole.
00:22:57
Speaker
Oh my God. We then cut to the Jackal entering a room full of Gwen Stacy clones who are all stored in like different pods. And as he moves through the room, he opens all of the doors, allowing them to start to degenerate since they were all imperfect.
00:23:15
Speaker
Spider-Man then arrives at the Gwen clone's home, and after discussing their feelings on having someone else's memories, they agree to leave together to meet their unfinished business with the Jackal.
00:23:28
Speaker
So we have a lot of moving parts here just in a lot of. Is Spider-Man, cause when we finished with Alpha, Spider-Man was like sort of kind of questioning if he made the right decision going with the Jackal. Is this conversation he's having with Gwen Stacy being like, Hey, I don't love that I'm here and you don't love that you're here either. Let's go figure this out. Or is it like.
00:23:48
Speaker
He's the only guy with the answers. We gotta blah, blah, blah, blah. I would say there's like a mixture of those two. It's a bit of, so you can't get a vibe of like what he's actually gonna, if he's going to fix himself or not, you definitely get the vibe of him not really knowing what the right move is. Which is so dumb because there is such an obtuse right move, which is don't
00:24:15
Speaker
become partners with the jackal. With the, with the villain who has been causing all of these problems. And you've identified that problem multiple times. So it's not like, Oh man. Um, okay. That's fine. Anyway. So back at the Parker residence, Mary Jane scolds came telling him that if what he said is true, then he can't hurt her.
Mary Jane and Peter's Complex Relationship
00:24:41
Speaker
If he truly is the man he says, then he would need to help Peter and Ben.
00:24:46
Speaker
And this apparently works because Kane realizes that she's right and he leaps out of the window to go find them. But Mary Jane decides that she can't wait for her husband either and is going to show him that their lives still matter. So she like runs off in another direction. Right. Which I, it's kind of dumb in that like girl, he keeps leaving you at some point. But also if
00:25:16
Speaker
For her sake, I want her to have a good breakup, you know? Like I want her to tell him to his face, he freaking sucks as a husband and he either better get it together or she's walking and like taking Aunt May's house because clearly you have no wish to be, you know, the Peter Parker you were.
00:25:38
Speaker
Well, and this is one of those things that comes up a lot in like online discourse about Spider-Man, where people are upset in modern day comics, Peter and Mary Jane are not together.
00:25:49
Speaker
And I mean, if it's canon with this, they shouldn't be because she deserves a bajillion times better. It's canon in a weird way. There's like some, some magic involved in why they're not together. And a lot of people are like, well, no, these, the people who are upset about the, the, uh, dissolving this marriage, uh, the people who are upset about that are, would only be happy with Peter
00:26:17
Speaker
Married to Mary Jane like that's the only thing that's gonna fix it and like that I mean there might be people that are that way I am not that way that the thing that I think is interesting I like the two of them together when they are good to each other and when they are written well and they have had those stories but the issue that I have with where Peter is in modern comics is more just that like
00:26:42
Speaker
they can never let him grow. Every time he starts to go in a direction that is like new and interesting, they rip it away. And watching a relationship where one person like obviously wants to grow with somebody and then the other person is just incapable of doing that, that is like
00:26:59
Speaker
really sucks to read. It just like, cause it hurts and it feels shitty and you feel really bad for the one person. And like you, I don't know, like as somebody who does read a lot of tragic stuff, they still give those characters like bits of hope. But as this goes on, like we are getting no hope for like Mary
Ben Reilly's Morality
00:27:25
Speaker
Jane.
00:27:25
Speaker
Because it's either her husband keeps leaving her to go do other things for selfish reasons and leaving her to suffer by herself, or somebody's having a premonition that she's going to get murdered. Which is probably what's going to happen sooner or later because he's being batshit crazy.
00:27:47
Speaker
like it's either like she's gonna have this baby alone or with a basically absent father or she's gonna be dead and I'm like damn that's a really like hopeless character it sucks because she's so much better than yeah I genuinely really like her as a character I liked her before
00:28:08
Speaker
they started dating in the comics too. I just think she's a genuinely good character with like a lot of interesting things that you can do with her. Unfortunately, none of those are really in this story. Man, imagine if Mary Jane was Spider-Man. I think there is a, there's like an alternate universe somewhere where like it's Mary Jane as Spider-Man. I just feel like a lot more would get done.
00:28:37
Speaker
So we then cut back to Ben realizing we finally see where this lab is.
Action Scenes and Chaos
00:28:45
Speaker
And it's inside the factory, like the smokestack right next to the smokestack where his body was left years earlier or where a yeah, where his body was left years earlier. And that is where Jackal has decided to erect his lab.
00:29:03
Speaker
which is, I don't know why, because like thematically, I guess it makes sense, because he's like kind of wanting to fuck with them. But in terms of like, it's probably a shit location. But regardless, just then the gang of spider clones attacks, like they finally catch up with him. But this time Ben has help in the form of Kane who has arrived to make things right. And that's what ends this issue of Spider-Man. And then we move into
00:29:33
Speaker
The next issue, Spectacular Spider-Man, volume one, number 227, which is written by Tom DeFalco, penciled by Sal Buscema, inked by Bill Sinkevich, colored by John Kalis and lettered by Clem Robbins. And this is again, one of those issues where Buscema and Sinkevich, not a good team for this kind of a story. It's stuff, but it's not, it doesn't really work here.
00:30:01
Speaker
So after a brief introduction to Ben and Cain fighting together and rehashing the previous story, we find Mary Jane assembling as many spider tracers as she can find. She knows that they trigger Peter's spider sense. So she sets all of them off at once to try to get his attention. Hell yeah. This lady is so smart.
00:30:24
Speaker
Now this intense burst from his spider sense forces Peter to land on a nearby building. And he explains to the Gwen clone that his wife must be trying to get his attention. And she insists that, well, they have to go help her then. Like if she's trying this hard to get ahold of you, we got to go to her. So they take off to find Mary Jane. Oh, him and Gwen Stacy go. Yes. Well, this is going to be terrible.
00:30:52
Speaker
It's interesting, I think. And now the one thing, I love this idea of her gathering all these spider tracers and to overload his senses and basically be like, Peter Parker, get your ass home right now. The only thing that I don't like about it is that we have a bunch of other spider people in the city and they don't really react to this.
00:31:16
Speaker
Well, that's how you know who the real one is, you know? But it works, it should work the same way, you know? It should. And if it did, it would be even better because then they'd all arrive at once and then she can just slap each one in the face, feeling like, get your shit together. And that's, that is the comic I want. I want one panel per slap. I want them all to be cool, unique slaps with different onomatopoeias. I want different like,
00:31:46
Speaker
ouch faces. I, I need a slap comic and then, ah, and then at the end it's a flip book of just more like, uh, like the captain underpants backhand. Yeah. That's what I need. I need, that'd be fun. I like that. Uh, but back at the supervillains lab, the Jackal continues to test the sole survivor of the carrion virus massacre. So he can determine how to make his virus 100% lethal.
00:32:14
Speaker
See, this character pops in and out so sporadically that I forget he exists. Yeah, I forgot about the new warriors thing, and then when you did the synopsis, I was like, oh, I guess I can't make this shorter because I forgot about the new here, or the new warriors. Oh, no. It's an interesting little thing that they threw in that they seem to not know what the fuck they're doing with. I think they gave up on it. I feel like they just gave up.
00:32:44
Speaker
So we quickly cut to Ben and Cain fighting the Spider Gang as they start to degenerate into goop, just like just mounds of flesh and grossness.
00:32:54
Speaker
and Kane decides it's the perfect time to try murdering them. But Ben decides that he can still talk some sense into the ones that are left standing. He doesn't, he's against the idea of murdering
Character Motivations in the Clone Saga
00:33:05
Speaker
these people. And I kind of like this because like you and I have talked before, we have a firm understanding now that like these clones are people. They're not like just like a robot or something like a blank slate of,
00:33:23
Speaker
of a creature, like they can think and grow and be other things. So like, it's nice to see Ben being like, no, no, no, they are a life. We should be trying to talk to them, not murder them. Well, and because he still thinks that like, he still had that experience. Right.
00:33:44
Speaker
Because for five years he was convinced that he was the clone. So he has this great amount of empathy towards them that not really any of the other characters have. Because it's either they were a clone and treated horribly and never allowed themselves to recover from it, or they thought they were one thing and then are told in a brutal way that they aren't after X amount of harrowing experiences.
00:34:14
Speaker
So he's kind of the only one that's had that tough realization and made it out. So it's like he knows that it's like these people can be fine. They just can't be with the jackal because that's not the thing that works for these people. Right. Yeah. It's a more humanitarian look at things. And I really appreciate that.
00:34:42
Speaker
Because he's the best one. Ben has so far been the best Spider-Man and I'm like, it's one of those things where it's like, I don't really want him to replace Peter, but at the same time, I like him more throughout all of this. I like him more. And I think it's funny that like, okay, so I mean, recently that the Into the Spider-Verse movie came out and they featured Ben Riley in the movie, spoiler alert.
00:35:14
Speaker
He's in the movie. And they play him off as like this like edgelord kind of like Spider-Man. And they got the poses of him great. Like with the like... Yeah, that was fantastic. Like that was great. But his dialogue to me didn't make much sense. Because like... Yeah, Ben Riley's been through like a lot. But out of like all of the Spider-Men in this run, like if anything they gave...
00:35:43
Speaker
movie Ben Riley comic book OG Peter Parker's words. I was just thinking the same thing. Yeah. And I think that might be just like so much more hope and like positivity than everybody else. And I think they were just, you know, they probably got to do it because they got to have a bad guy goon in the movie, you know, but I think a lot of it came down to like the idea was to parody that particular
00:36:08
Speaker
time in comics. And so it's, it's less about the character and more about like the whole, uh, uh, debacle.
Humor in Chaos
00:36:19
Speaker
Yeah. No, I agree with that. Um, but I do think it, I do think it's interesting that they like kind of inverted it because I, I also was kind of, I was happy to see him. I thought it was really funny.
00:36:32
Speaker
the way that he was posing. But beyond that, I was like, well, that's not really what he was like. I mean, for the first few issues that he was introduced, yeah, sure. But he grew out of that so quickly. It's been a while since he's been like that. So that was very funny to me. But anyway, back to other Spider-Man.
00:36:56
Speaker
So back at the Parker residence, Peter and Gwen arrive to meet Mary Jane. And this is when Gwen learns that Mary Jane is Peter's wife. She didn't know that it was Mary Jane. She just knew that he had a wife.
00:37:11
Speaker
Right. But the cool thing about that is that they're just happy to see each other. Like Gwen is happy for the two of them to be married. She's just like so on board for the whole thing. She's so happy to see Mary Jane. She runs up and like hugs her and Mary Jane tells her that like, um, like, you know, she missed her and Gwen is like, you know, it's clear that they both need a friend.
00:37:36
Speaker
And this was like such a good moment for me. I loved that kind of like fun friendship interaction. It smacked up in the middle of all of the rest of this nonsense going on. Yeah. Oh, but that's nice. Okay. I'm glad that she got something good. I was very afraid it was going to be like, hi, I'm finally home. You haven't seen me. By the way, I'm making all these terrible decisions and here's a lady from my past.
00:38:06
Speaker
I haven't seen you in a long time. They were friends before, uh, Gwen died. Uh, so, I mean, it is nice to see like that acknowledgement that like, it's not just like, Oh, Gwen only exists. Gwen exists as an extension of Peter. Gwen was her own character. Now the way that she was written was more as an extension of like back in the day, like in her original appearances.
00:38:34
Speaker
was more of an extension of Peter, but like she wasn't a super interesting character. But it's nice that they acknowledge her as a person versus just like a plot device, you know? Right. Okay, good. So then Ben and the clones crashed into the Jackals main lab with spider side nowhere to be seen.
Gwen Stacy's Clone Impact
00:38:55
Speaker
So the Jackal is left on his own. He's just like, I don't know where this guy is. So,
00:39:01
Speaker
Fuck it, I'm leaving. And as he's running away, he's spotted by Cain. And then we then get a glimpse of the new warriors discussing the Scarlet Spider when their leader interrupts to tell them about the survivor of the carrion virus being kidnapped and that they must go find him.
00:39:19
Speaker
So I think the part of them discussing the Scarlet Spider is just foreshadowing of like later on Ben joins the New Warriors, which was just like a way for them to kind of prop up that book as well as give Ben some more exposure. I don't know if, I didn't read any of it. I don't know if it's any good or not, but like to me, it's kind of weird.
00:39:45
Speaker
Anyway, that seems kind of out of nowhere because I don't know. I feel like they were just a weird, but I felt like they were weird to begin with. So I don't know. Well, I'm also not a fan. I personally like Spider-Man not part of a group. I think he makes more sense as a solo character.
00:40:05
Speaker
But we see the Jackal finally finding Spiderside. But when he finds him, he sees that he's transmitting the carrion virus data to Skryre. When he tries to trigger the kill switch in Spiderside's head, we learn that Skryre had shut it off. That was part of that boop thing that he did, was he got rid of the kill switch in his head. So the two then begin to fight, but not before Kane joins the party.
00:40:32
Speaker
he wants to kill the Jackal himself. So now it's just, they're all fighting each other, trying to murder each other. Back in the lab, Ben tries to convince the clones that they can have real lives, but when he removes the mask from one of their faces, he sees like a half formed face.
Spider-Man's Moral Dilemmas
00:40:48
Speaker
And he realizes that they're not even full clones. They're literally creations without free will. They're just like these, these
00:40:57
Speaker
masses of cells that are programmed to do certain things. Right. And the immense horror of that situation causes them to like get sick. And I mean, that answers some of the criticism that I had on the clones being real people and all that stuff. Like, how are you going to have like 20 different Spider-Man running around if they're all supposed to be people, but they're not there. They're mindless creatures.
00:41:25
Speaker
And that's also probably why they didn't follow the spider sense, because if they're like half spider people, they probably don't have some of those like intrinsic properties. But then you have Kane and Ben, where it should have worked on them. Yeah, but they... I mean, maybe they were too far away. I don't, you know, I'm sure there's a way to, to ride around it. It just popped in my head. Like, why wasn't it even acknowledged? Ben has had the Spidey sense of those trackers before.
00:41:55
Speaker
Right. Hmm. That's weird. Convenient. Convenience. Meanwhile, Cain and Spiderside continue to fight until Cain gets another precognitive flash of Mary Jane being murdered. Oh, well, you said that she didn't matter, Cain. So why are you still thinking about her? While he is distracted, Spiderside impales Cain in the chest. So we got Cain knocked off the board now.
00:42:27
Speaker
Unfortunately, this was witnessed by Ben who furiously attacked spider side. Jackal takes the opportunity to ask Kane why he would protect him. And he responds by saying that Jackal gave him life. And as he dies, the Jackal calls this pathetic. So now Kane's dead. Just like flat out dead. We're done with Kane. You have at least one of your dreams come true.
00:42:51
Speaker
Like is he, I don't, I don't believe it. Is the really today the day that like, it happens so uncertain. Is it real? I feel like it's not real. I feel like he's going to come back. Well, I mean, it's everyone comes back. But like, is he really, is he like, he, it's not like he just fell in water. Like they got impaled in the chest and then he died in Jackal's arms.
00:43:22
Speaker
Oh, that is kind of sad. Yeah. As in like, Oh man, I would hate to die in the jackal's arms.
00:43:34
Speaker
All during this Ben and spider side are fighting and they inadvertently free the survivor of the carrion virus who quickly just runs away, which is probably like good for them. Honestly, let them, they've had a rough week. So Ben is trapped under some debris, which allows spider side to also slip away. And when Ben frees himself, he realizes his ankle is injured and he can barely walk.
00:44:00
Speaker
And that's when the Jackal causes a mass of genetic goop on the floor to attack Ben. So from what I gather, it's like the spider clones that had degenerated, they kind of turned into this just sludge thing.
Rushed Resolution of Maximum Clonage Omega
00:44:17
Speaker
Now they are wrapping around Ben and trying to suffocate him. And that's how this issue ends. Okay.
00:44:24
Speaker
All right, and now we get to the finale of this. We get to Spider-Man Maximum Clonage Omega Number One, which is hopefully- And this is officially Omega. This is, yes. Wait, why is it Omega Number One? Is there Omega Number Two? No, it's just how they have to do the numbering on like magazine-style things. It's sort of why like every time you have a book come out that's like,
00:44:55
Speaker
Spider-Man. It's Spider-Man volume one. Let's say you take a break in publishing that and now you do a Spider-Man number one. Again, it's Spider-Man volume two number one. It's just the way that they have to do those things. It's also the same way, like Wolverine had a solo series for a long time and it was an ongoing series.
00:45:21
Speaker
but it's technically Wolverine volume two because there was a limited series, a four issue limited series that was called Wolverine. So that gets volume one. Oh, okay. It's really dumb. It's like, I'm sure it makes plenty of sense for like how publishing works, but from like the outside, oh boy, it's difficult to follow sometimes.
00:45:46
Speaker
Yeah. Cause it's easier to file, but harder to find. Yes. Okay. That's fair. I got it. So we get to Spider-Man maximum clonage omega number one, which should hopefully wrap everything up. This was intended to be the end this time. Well, the end of the clone saga. This was
00:46:09
Speaker
This was ending trial two? This was another ending that they had put out. They were like, this is definitely what's going to end it. And then we're going to just forget everything and move forward. That's kind of where you get a clearing of the board. That's why Kane gets murdered in the previous. Ah, it all. Okay. That makes sense now. So he is dead. Oh man. Wow. So we get a maximum clonish omega. Number one was written by Tom Lyle.
00:46:39
Speaker
Let me take a breath here. It was penciled by Robert Brown, Roy Burdine, Mark Bagley, and Tom Lyle. It was inked by Sam De La Rosa, Randy Emberlin, Roy Burdine, Al Milgram, and Scott Hanna. It was colored by John Kalis and Malibu Color. And finally, it was lettered by Joe Rosen and Susan Crespi, which is a fuckload of people to work on one issue. That's like a choir.
00:47:05
Speaker
Right. And we'll get into a little bit of why that might be the case later on. Were they rushing it? I think it had a lot, it was less to do with rushing this time. Well, rushing is part of it, but has more to do with just some of the indecisiveness behind the scenes. Oh boy. Okay. I can't wait. Let's do this.
00:47:29
Speaker
So we open with Ben still struggling with all of the genetic goop, but we see Spider-Sight is following a voice that's calling out to him. Like he's just wandering around in the background, walking towards his voice. And eventually he is teleported away and Ben is able to pull himself free from the mass of goo long enough to bandage his injuries. And I think he just uses webbing to like hold his ankle in place. Yeah, that makes sense. Just like walk, you know, without like falling over.
00:47:58
Speaker
Meanwhile, Mary Jane finally addresses Peter and lets him know that she doesn't care if he is a clone.
Production Issues and Editorial Decisions
00:48:04
Speaker
And Gwen argues that as clones, the only lives they have left are with the jackal. And Peter's like, yeah, that makes sense. He's just straight up agrees. And he claims that he isn't good enough for Mary Jane or the baby, which I mean, I'm sure there's a way to rationalize this, but reading it felt like a very drastic departure.
00:48:26
Speaker
from how the Gwen clone was written up to this point. Like she didn't give a shit. She was tired of having to deal with all of this. And she was mad at the Jackal for essentially taking her husband away because of like him degenerating.
00:48:42
Speaker
And it's not like they've given, I feel like I'm imagining they did not give enough panels for her to be like, oh man, this person has this. Like I'm so jealous. Like I want to take it away. Oh, no, no, no. It's just straight up. We're going to argue about this and we have to go back to the Jackal. Like, okay. 180. That's so weird. So we then see that the Jackal is- But he agrees with Gwen Stacy? Yeah. Cause he's a fucking idiot. The clone of a dead woman.
00:49:12
Speaker
who he just met 10 minutes ago, as opposed to his- Well, he's run into her in the past. But yeah, this is the longest, I think, that they've ever actually talked. As opposed to his wife, who he has been with for consecutively at least five years. Yep. And has responsibilities with. Now, that's, ah, a man. Yeah. Corrinsed man. Edit to the counter. Bring him to the counter. So we then see that the Jackal has disguised himself as a news broadcaster, and he is using the
00:49:41
Speaker
a newsroom as an impromptu lab. Using miniature clones of himself, he sets up cloning pods to replace everyone in the media within the tri-state area. Like that's his new plan. What? His plan is to set off a bomb with the carrion virus so that it murders everyone, which allows him the opportunity to replace everyone with clones.
00:50:07
Speaker
This is so stupid. Scryer then appears and tells him, stop it. Like what the fuck are you doing? He had a plan issues ago and now he's changed the plan. He can't commit. This man has commitment issues.
00:50:25
Speaker
Like temperature blanket. I'm just, why the fuck would you want to like murder everyone to replace them? What is the benefit of replacing them with clones? Like that's been his whole vibe from the beginning was just to replace everybody with Spider-Man clones. And it was like, we talked about this before, but it's like, literally like you're just like a cheap version of the high evolutionary.
00:50:49
Speaker
But at least the high evolutionary has a reason, it's a cooked reason, but why they want to do what they want to do. The jackal at this point has no reason to do any of this shit.
00:51:02
Speaker
Well, you know why? Because they wrote an interesting character for an interesting story in the 70s. It was a man who was so in love with someone that he had, her death drove him to the crazy. He went to a life of crime in order to finance creating clones of her.
00:51:27
Speaker
so that he could be with her. And I don't remember how Peter got involved. But then why is he not like making a world of like when Stacey clones? Why is he trying to make clones with just random and also like, but then he has the room of like,
00:51:46
Speaker
Gwen Stacy clones that he's just breaking open for them to degenerate. So it's like, were you literally just going to make like Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy's? Because that makes no sense because then they're going to probably get together or like Gwen Stacy's will go with Gwen
Attempted Narrative Closure
00:52:04
Speaker
Stacy. And they're not going to go to you. So it's like, what are you getting out of this?
00:52:11
Speaker
Well, and that is part of, it's part of my point because like the story of this man being broken with someone's death and then trying to bring her back and that being his motivation, that ended with the ending of the clone saga. Right. So then when they brought him, they solely brought him back because the idea was to bring back the clone of Peter Parker.
00:52:32
Speaker
So then they were like, well, the Jackal was involved, so we have to bring the Jackal back, but they don't have anything for him to fucking do. His story's over. There's nothing for him to do. Has changed plans more times than he's had different laboratories, I feel like. And he has had a lot of laboratories. It's like each new lab brings him two ideas that don't get put throughout. It's really bizarre.
00:53:01
Speaker
So during this, uh, uh, Scryer tells them to stop. And when the Jackal doesn't, he teleports spider side in to attack the Jackal. So now spider side and the Jackal are fighting and just then spider man and Gwen arrive at the abandoned lab and search for clues as to what happened because everything's fucking wrecked.
00:53:21
Speaker
And when Peter finds the Jackals plans, I guess just laying out somewhere, he is horrified. He's like, why the fuck would the Jackal do this? Forgetting that he's been an insane villain for the last however long that we've been reading this. Yeah. So Ben then makes it to the daily bugle in order to evacuate everyone. Cause he knows that like, Oh, but everybody in the media is a clone now.
00:53:47
Speaker
Well, not here. It's not with paper media. This is the thing was he was in the process of replacing everyone in the media. And I think the reason was so that he could control information so that like no one would notice these weird things happening. But he doesn't actually get to accomplish that. But Ben is trying to get everyone out of the Daily Bugle because he knows the Jackal is going to
00:54:16
Speaker
murder everyone. Ben or Spider-Man? Ben. Ben has found this out because as the jackal was leaving, he's like, I will kill everyone, basically. So that's why Ben runs to the Daily Bugle. So Ben goes to the Daily Bugle because he overheard something. Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy found papers. Right. And they're like, oh no, that's, what? Okay, I gotta know.
00:54:46
Speaker
And as he's arguing with J Jonah Jamison, they are interrupted by a spider side and the Jackal crashing through the window.
Convoluted Character Arcs
00:54:55
Speaker
The fight gets put on the news, which Mary Jane happens to see. So then she rushes to Peter's secret Spiderman stash and she grabs web shooters and cartridges while declaring no more helpless bystander Mary Jane, which is a cool ass line. I like that.
00:55:13
Speaker
She's done that a couple times in this series. I refuse to be put on the sideline. I'm sick of this. Let me go do my thing. Also, ma'am, you're pregnant and I'm worried about you, but let go off. I support you, but also please be safe. Now at the Daily Bugle, the three-way fight between Ben Spiderside and the Jackal continues until Jackal and Spiderside end up falling through a wall and down the side of a building.
00:55:41
Speaker
Ben catches them with his webs, but when spider side tries to get to the jackal, he accidentally cuts his own web line and he falls to the street below. So Ben falls. No, spider side. So it's like Ben catches the two of them and then spider side is trying to kill the jackal still. But because he's like being held by a web, he accidentally cuts the web and then he falls. Okay.
00:56:09
Speaker
So after pulling the Jackal back up, Peter and Gwen arrive. Gwen then blames the Jackal for her husband's death, which contradicts what she said earlier in the issue where she was saying that they have to go and be with Jackal because they're clones.
00:56:25
Speaker
because no one can make up their minds about what the fuck is going on. Peter attacks the jackal and Ben runs to the roof to disarm the bomb that is now armed on the roof. And realizing he doesn't know what to do, and seeing that Peter still needs help, he decides, fuck it, we're just gonna go and fight. Because he doesn't know how to disarm the bomb, so he's like, well, I can fight, I can go deal with that thing.
00:56:51
Speaker
During the fight, the Jackal continues to try distracting them with more and more lies, but the two are finally uninterested. Thank God. And after webbing the Jackal and the little clones up, Ben and Peter decide that they can use their spider sense as a guide in what wires to pull to disarm the bomb, which I think is actually a really cool way of using their powers. Yeah, that is pretty cool. It just then, Gwen arrives on the roof with one of the Jackal's discarded guns.
00:57:21
Speaker
ready to kill him. In trying to stop her, Peter realizes that being a clone doesn't mean that they have to lose their humanity, which is one of the weirdest moral lessons that he could learn way too late. We've been trying to tell him from the beginning, like, hey, you're still you. You just have a different title. Yeah.
00:57:47
Speaker
And that's when Mary Jane arrives, which distracts everyone long enough for the Jackal to disarm Gwen, causing her to fall off the side of the building, but she catches a flagpole while she's like hanging there.
00:57:59
Speaker
And when Ben tries to shoot a web to catch her, he realizes that he's out of web fluid. So Mary Jane throws him what she brought, thus ending that subplot. That whole no more, being on the sidelines, no more innocent bystander Mary Jane was just- She did the epitome of sideline moves, which was throw the thing to another person.
Editorial Challenges and Rewrites
00:58:19
Speaker
Just put it on. It's just such a like, ha ha, I have finished my quest. Here you go. Like that's what-
00:58:30
Speaker
My brain immediately thought of Stardew Valley where you spend hours trying to find one item to give to somebody and then it's done like that. Love it.
00:58:43
Speaker
The Jackal, the Jackal realizing Gwen is in danger, rushes to help her because suddenly he cares, but the flagpole snaps under the added weight and Ben shoots a web to try to catch both of them, but he misses the Jackal and he falls to his death. So now we've gotten rid of spider side Kane and the Jackal all in this issue. All by impaling and falling.
00:59:06
Speaker
Right. It's great. Uh, so the two Spiderman's spider senses go off as they realize the bomb has reactivated for some reason. The virus has been removed, but the explosion could still hurt people. So scarlet spider takes it and tosses it over the river where it blows up harmlessly. And when the police do that in the first place,
00:59:27
Speaker
I think because the virus, originally the virus was still in there, so it could have like spread the virus, you know? Get a virus in the water. When the police finally arrive, Gwen disappears into the crowd. And so we are done with Gwen Stacy for this. Goodbye Gwen Stacy. Right. Later, Peter apologizes to Mary Jane over everything that he's done again, but decides there is something important he still has to do.
00:59:55
Speaker
He leaves as Spider-Man to meet Ben at his apartment. He tells Ben that the Spider-Man name and costume are his since he is the original Peter. Ben says he realizes the world needs a Spider-Man, but they need time to figure out which one of them should be the one to wear the webs. And that's what ends. To wear the webs. Maximum clonage omega. And it's, I mean, hmm.
01:00:23
Speaker
I guess it's one way to get rid of a lot of subplots really quickly. Yeah. I feel like I'm like, I'm very whelmed. Yeah. I'm not like, and I'm not underwhelmed because characters are
01:00:43
Speaker
gotten rid of that. I'm like, yeah, you made no sense. Uh, we still have subplots that have yet to be. Yeah. Like all of Scryer, all of Judith's traveler, uh, Mary Jane supposed on coming death. Yeah. Black cat. She just disappeared. She went to go hunt down Peter forever ago and she never came back. There's like the sinister six pro. Oh, there's stunner with her vengeance for her boyfriend.
01:01:15
Speaker
All of those things I could, so the Sinister Six stuff, that's easily dropped because it was more or less just like an exploration of Dr. Octopus. Like a cameo. Right. The stunner stuff you could easily just forget about because it was a small subplot anyway. Mary Jane's thing, I could see them forgetting about and just having it be like, oh, well, she could have died during this, whatever.
01:01:40
Speaker
But then you still have like, this ends with Gwen leaving and with Peter and Ben still not deciding on what to do moving forward.
Final Thoughts and Future Plans
01:01:55
Speaker
So I guess this was originally written or this was originally supposed to be an issue of Spider-Man Unlimited. That was the original idea.
01:02:12
Speaker
And I'm gonna quote from Glenn Greenberg, all right? Is it trivia time? There's a little bit of trivia time. This is longer, that's why I'm just, I tried to summarize in some parts, I have quotes and then I have summarizations of what he said,
01:02:29
Speaker
We don't have to get into every little detail. So Glenn Greenberg starts by saying that this issue was, to put it mildly, a disaster. And so because this was supposed to be an issue of Spider-Man Unlimited, it was going to be written by Tom Lyle because of that, because Tom Lyle writes Spider-Man Unlimited. Right.
01:02:55
Speaker
And there was, I'm gonna quote from him again. There was already a degree of concern among some of us that Lyle was perhaps too inexperienced to handle the conclusion of maximum clonage and the entire clone saga. When the issue became a big chromium covered all the bells and whistles Omega one shot, it became a matter of great concern. We were going to be charging 4.95 for this comic.
01:03:18
Speaker
This was going to be the culmination of a very long storyline. It was going to be a very important issue for us. Simply put, it had to be good. It had to be satisfying. It had to be worth the price we were charging for it. An assignment like this would have been a daunting task for even the most seasoned of Spider-Man writers. And the fact of the matter was that Tom Lyle was still an inexperienced writer and needed a lot more time to better develop his writing skills before he'd be ready to tackle a project of this magnitude.
01:03:48
Speaker
So essentially some of the Spider-Man editorial staff had tried to get rid of Lyle. They just did not want him on the book, but Bob Budiansky was unwilling to undermine Danny Fingereth. So Tom just stayed. And at the time, I don't know if you remember Tom DeFalco had stepped down as editor in chief.
01:04:11
Speaker
So Marvel Comics made an executive shift that involved having no single central editor in chief with each of the five different sections of Marvel getting its own EIC. Yeah. So like you have Bob over the Spider-Man slash New Warriors section of Marvel. And then Danny, who is an editor for the Spider-Man comics. Yeah, he shows up a lot.
01:04:37
Speaker
Right. And for some reason, I don't know why you would need both of them, but whatever. Uh, because Danny worked under Bob, Bob was like unwilling to undermine him because he thought that was kind of like a dick move. Right. Um, he's like, I want his boss, but he wanted them to be able to make their own decisions. Like he trusted him to make his decisions and which I kind of get, but at the same time, like you are the boss for a reason, you know,
01:05:08
Speaker
Hopefully, yeah. The funny thing here is apparently Danny Fingereth didn't even enjoy working under this new structure and he had either decided to move on or had already quit by this point, which meant that refusing to remove him off of the book did nobody any favors. The only thing it did was help out Tom Lyle and like he still would have been able to, like I'm sure his name would have ended up on it anyway.
01:05:34
Speaker
Because you know, I think the idea would be just have someone else help them out, you know, yeah So I'm gonna go back to quoting Glenn Greenberg
01:05:43
Speaker
To put it as simply and as delicately as possible, Tom Lyle just wasn't up to the task of writing this issue. Bob came to realize this pretty quickly. The issue went through endless rewrites. And as I recall, Bob ended up rewriting a lot of it himself. But since Bob didn't have a whole lot of experience with Spider-Man, this wasn't exactly a good solution either. I'm sure Eric Fine and Mark Bernardo gave their input and tried to improve it and make it
01:06:08
Speaker
flow smoothly, but there's no escaping the fact that a comic book, a good comic book, at least can't be written by committee. I don't think Tom Brevoort and I were too heavily involved in this issue, but we were certainly aware of what was going on. Oh, and the fact that there were four pencilers and five inkers on the book didn't help matters any. And that is why I think they had so many. It's because they kept changing their minds about like who was writing it, how it was going to get done, what was going to be put in the book.
01:06:38
Speaker
And I didn't take any notes on this part, but the entire point was they were supposed to kill Gwen Stacy. That was part of this storyline was like, she was supposed to die so that they can wipe all of these things off of the board and start fresh. And somehow they just didn't get around to doing it.
01:07:02
Speaker
And if they just committed to one plan as to who's doing what, this probably would have been a lot cleaner and a lot better. Regardless of the writing experience, at least you would have one solid thing. And if it doesn't go well, cool. Then I guess you got one or two people to blame it on. I don't know.
01:07:30
Speaker
And I think the- When you jumble it up so much, you're going to forget the big things like having to kill Quincy. Well, and now we have a situation where this was supposed to be the end of the Clone Saga again. And then they didn't end it. So we now have to extend it just so that we can wrap up like what's going to happen between Ben and Peter. Right.
01:07:56
Speaker
Like we need to, like, I can kind of understand ending it where, you know, it like, end it with like, let's have a talk. And then the very next issue that comes out, have it be like, Ben, you're a Spider-Man. I'm going to go to a farm somewhere and you'll never see me again. Yeah. It just like,
01:08:20
Speaker
blows my mind that this was ending attempt number two and there are still like 30 something different like story bundles that we have to go through. Like that hurts. We're over halfway though. I mean, so this is, I guess technically
01:08:47
Speaker
I don't know if we're halfway. We're probably close to it though. So we've been through 22 of these and we still have like 30 to go. So no, sorry, we're not halfway. And I'm going to extend it a little bit longer too because you're kidding me.
01:09:12
Speaker
I'm not adding anything to the clone saga part. We have a 50th episode coming up. Oh, hell yeah, we do. I'm halfway through writing a special episode for it. I'm so excited. I don't know what it is. This is one where I intentionally don't want to tell you because I want you to have as little information as possible. Don't tell me. I'll be mad.
01:09:35
Speaker
because I was reading about it, and I was like, son of a bitch, I thought I knew about this. And I definitely won't. I love it. Okay. I'm excited. Well, all right, gang. I thought that we were halfway, and then I just learned lives that we are not halfway. We are. We're almost there. Oh, it's such a good time. Never been more hurt in my life.
01:09:59
Speaker
There's so much here. And you know what's crazy is I'm looking through, there's one of the issues that we have, or you're actually, assuming this doesn't change things in terms of like who's reading what, way towards the end. Oh, actually both of us are. There are onslaught tie-ins, which are X-Men, it's an X-Men story, but it got wrapped up in the clone saga because it happened to be happening at the same time.
01:10:31
Speaker
Which if I don't know if onslaught has anything I don't like I've not read those I don't know if it has anything major to do with the story I can give you a very quick rundown if that ends up being the case because yeah
01:10:48
Speaker
It's like, that's confusing, but there's an easy way of like simplifying it. And I don't think hopefully the comic book will do a good enough job on its own. Like that's its job at this point. Just explain what the fuck is going on. Honestly, a lot of exposition at this point. What a journey this has been. Okay. Well, we made it through maximum cloned. At least we made it through like, uh,
01:11:15
Speaker
a mini event in an event saga. So you know what, positive spin, good on us. We've made it this far and we're going to keep going. I am so unbelievably happy that we made the decision to split this in two. Oh, thank God. What a fucking nightmare. I think I would be incredibly confused if I wasn't at least reading part of it.
01:11:43
Speaker
Yeah. There's so many movies. And you would start to hate your life a lot if you had to read just this by yourself. So many movies. Well, I just recently got back into reading older X-Men books. I took a long break, got back into reading.
01:12:03
Speaker
So I'm in 1997 or eight at this point. And I can tell you, I'm reading through these and just being like, there are some of them that I hate reading. I fucking hate them. But it's part of the completionist mindset where I'm just like, well, I gotta read it because I can't move on to the ones I like until I read this thing.
01:12:30
Speaker
Yeah. It's like saving the perfect bite for last. Right. Yeah. I getcha. I'm almost done the book that I've been reading for months and I can't tell you how excited I am to read other things. Like there's so many comics that I want to read. There's a book that I don't even know what it is. It's wrapped in parchment. It's like called blind date with a book. So it's like, I just, yeah, I only know the genre.
01:12:57
Speaker
Oh, what genre do you have? Nice. I'm on brand. So I'm excited to read that. And I am excited to make progress in this. Though it's torturous, we will be completionists together. So the book that I just got recently,
01:13:24
Speaker
I keep making like, I'll do like a hundred pages in like a day and then I won't pick it up for a week or two. Oh, see that's impressive. I like with this, I think it's just cause the book I'm reading is like, it's hefty and it's detailed. Like, so I make it a goal to just get through like a chapter and like, I'll get through a couple chapters and then I have to take a break and then like, I'll read another one. And then I'm like, I gotta stop. This is too much, but the journey.
01:13:54
Speaker
I feel like I got tricked by the book that I got, but it ended up being kind of good. So the book I got, it's called Feed. It was listed as like a zombie horror novel. Oh, is that the one with the cat in it? Yes. And so I was
01:14:20
Speaker
For anyone that's read it, they might be like, wait, what? Like it's a very small part of the book, but it was just like, I needed a whim. It's Derek knew that he had to tell me about the cat because he knows how I react about cats. So that's the only reason that's the only thing I know about the book. I don't know how iconic it was, but it's cute. The cat is cute. I forget the name. It's a weird name for a cat, but I like the cat.
01:14:46
Speaker
But it's an interesting book. It was sold to me via online stuff as like a zombie horror book with like some political stuff. And I was like, that sounds great. And it's less of a horror book. There are horror elements to it. Obviously there are zombies in it. But it's set in like a zombie apocalypse world where we've kind of just gotten used to zombies.
01:15:13
Speaker
We have a society built around testing people as you come in and out of buildings. Different parts of the world have different...
01:15:23
Speaker
you have to get different passes to go into certain areas based off of like the likelihood of infection and stuff like that. So it's more of like a sci-fi kind of dystopian future, but... It feels more Soylent Green than Walking Dead. Yes, that is very true. And the main characters end up following a person who's running for president.
01:15:50
Speaker
during all of this. And they are journalists following, come around. And so I got tricked into being like, oh, this is going to be great. It's going to be scary and gory and fun. And it's not that, but I do really like politics and political dramas. So it's scratching a different itch that I have. It's the unexpected itch.
01:16:15
Speaker
Yeah, I like it so far. It's about 600 pages in length. I think I'm about 400 in, so I only have a little bit left. Yeah, I only have less than 100 pages now, and I'm so excited in my book. It's like 600 something, and I can't wait. I'm gonna get through it. I can do it. I will do it. It'll be good. Okay.
01:16:44
Speaker
I don't even know how to wrap this up. This was a fuck, like the whole thing was a mess. We made it through. We made it through a good marker. And you know what? If you want to read this, you can find it at your local comic shop.
01:17:02
Speaker
There are plenty of mental health professionals out there in the world. I suggest that if you are going to read this, you should at least consult with them first. Download better help. We are not sponsored. We don't have sponsors. We got that one attempt once and I thought that was really funny.
01:17:24
Speaker
So I guess you can find more information at comicallypedantic.com. You can also follow us on Instagram by searching at pedantic cast. New episodes come out most Sundays on iTunes, Stitcher, Google podcast, Spotify, and at comicallypedantic.com. If you have any comments or questions, you can send them in text or audio recording to comicallypedanticgmail.com.
01:17:46
Speaker
Please indicate if you'd like your name or question read on the air, and don't forget, we still own fuckcomicsgate.com if you'd like to send a donation to the games and online harassment hotline. We will be back soon with another deep dive into the world of comics, but until then, you can find more exciting adventures at your local comic shop.
01:18:17
Speaker
I'm not even going to lie, at one point I had the idea, the reason I didn't do this is because it would have been so much extra work. Were you going to come up with fake commercials or something? Fake commercials. And they could be based off of shit that's happening in the episode. That's such a Mystery Science Theater 3000 thing and I love that. Well, I don't know if you know, I'm a huge Mystery Science Theater 3000.
01:18:40
Speaker
Oh, hell yeah. No wonder we're friends. Croperman was a master from Luxembourg, who was actually the size of Luxembourg.