Spider-Man: 101 Ways To End The Clone Saga

Background

In Spider-man 75, A goblin glider impaled Ben Reilly, thus ending the most lengthy story in Spider-man history: the clone saga. This special is essentially a spoofish visit to the offices of Marvel comics showing what might have been...

Story Details

Warning! There are a heap of inside jokes in this issue, and it would be virtually impossible to make any sense of it without some knowledge of Spider-man history in general and the clone saga in specific. This said, it is a greatly entertaining look behind the scenes. The setting of this comic is an office meeting where editors are furiously trying to solve the clone mess in the Spider-man books.

Of course, all of the editors have different solutions to the problem. One example had Peter on Doom's time machine, where he inadvertantly sent duplicates of himself to various times. Ben is taken five years back to complete the cycle. Another similar solution was when Scrier apologized for wronging Peter and sent Ben back five years. One explanation had Peter simply revealing himself as a clone of Ben to the world, but not mentioning the Spider-man thing.

Another, and by far the most entertaining, was that Ben simply melts. Like most of the solutions, no explanation was given. Another solution had the Master Programmer having done all of this. Suddenly, during a fight with Stunner, all of the problems, including Mary Jane, simply disappear because they were just holograms. It also included a discussion of 101 uses for a dead clone. Of course, one editor was serving the sole purpose of punching holes in the other editors' theories. The end featured the editors beginning to talk about the Green Goblin, under the appalled gaze of the Watcher.

General Comments

This is an entertaining comic for regular Spidey readers, with a fairly deep knowledge of Spidey's background, and a decent understanding of the clone saga. As I said, there are a lot of inside jokes. It is worth zippo to anybody that is new to Spider-man. The script is clever, and the art was acceptable, although not great. Many people were not satisfied by the revelations in Spider-man 75 and the Osborn Journal, but this issue proves that it could have been a lot worse. Mary Jane's a hologram?!

Overall Rating

This comic is not of enough general interest to get a perfect score, but I enjoyed it. Four webs.

Check out my list of the Top Ten Ways To End The Clone Saga.