A Silver Age Classic - "The Clone Saga" from Amazing Spiderman, new trade paperback ...
1/17/2012
The Amazing Spider-Man “The Original Clone Saga” - Gerry Conway, Ross Andru, others ... Review
By Eric Shapiro
Use the words “Spider-Man” and “clone” in the same sentence and you risk provoking an angry reaction from many a comic fanboy, and for good reason. Putting aside that the aforementioned words serve as an unpleasant reminder of the truly awful Clone Saga of the 1990s, the “return” of Gwen Stacy so soon after her death was an early example of one of the worst trends in superhero comics. That is, the tendency of publishers to kill off popular characters for shock value and bring them back a short time later to appease disgruntled fans. The issue in which Gwen Stacy died at the hands of the Green Goblin (and, from a certain point of view, Spidey himself) is rightfully regarded as one of the greatest Spider-Man stories ever told, in that it re-introduced the themes of guilt and responsibility that, to this day, drive the obsessive-compulsive Peter Parker to don his red and white pajamas.
Plus, Gwen was a pretty dull love interest. She contributed more to the Spider-Man mythos by dying than she ever did while alive. Peter Parker deserved better, and it was partly for this reason that Marvel killed her off to make room for the much more charismatic and quirky Mary Jane Watson. Yet, at Stan Lee’s behest, Gwen was “brought back” a short time later, albeit in clone form. However, as the clone possessed all of the character’s memories leading up to her fatal plummet from theBrooklynBridge, she might as well have been resurrected.
All of this is well established. Gwen’s return is a significant element of the Original Clone Saga, but it is not the onlything worthy of mention. The Clone Saga is primarily about the deteriorating mental state of Peter Parker, in which his ever-present personal ______ ? reaches a whole new level. In the past, his self-deprecating remarks, while certainly indicative of a neurotic mind, usually seemed somewhat tongue-in-cheek. In the Clone Saga, though, there is a subtle but important difference: Peter Parker seems to be on the verge of a true nervous breakdown. When he casually remarks on slitting his wrists and jumping off of buildings, we cannot help but suspect that a part of him is serious. And can we really blame him, given the circumstances of his life at the time? A clone of your dead girlfriend walking around, courtesy of your obsessed and brilliant college professor (Miles Warren aka the Jackal)? Aunt once again in the hospital after a man trying to kill you gave her a heart attack? You get the picture. The web-slinger’s travails would be more than enough to depress anyone. Spider-Man nothing is if not cognizant of the psychological dimension to his adventures, asking himself: “Who needs a shrink, when a guy has himself to talk to? A guy who talks to himself, that’s who!”
Spider-Man does not typically come to mind as one of the darkest superheroes of all time, but underneath the character’s upbeat veneer lies a desperate cynicism, a tacit acknowledgment that his perpetual battle with the forces of evil will not come without great personal costs. In this light, Spider-Man’s frequent quips seem more like a coping mechanism than the words of a man who is having a blast fighting crime.
Characters like Batman dwell in a dark, noir-kissed world. Spider-Man, on the other hand, lives in a world that closely resembles our own. He experiences the same ups and downs as most people. Hell, sometimes the authors even allow a period of happiness. Alas, we always know deep down that these periods are only temporary reprieves and that sometime in the not-so-distant future, our hero will end up in despair. Thus, in a way Spider-Man is a more genuinely tragic hero than Batman, whose entire life is monochromatically shrouded in darkness (not a criticism, fanboys, just an observation). The Clone Saga encapsulates better than most Spider-Man stories the co-existence of tragedy and humor in the life of Peter Parker. Even as he faces some of the most laughable and least creative villains of his career (Grizzly Bear and Tarantula, anyone?), his angst reaches whole new extremes. Which brings me to my next point.
The thrust of the Clone Saga has very little to do with cloning, which is little more than a plot device. No, the real focus is on torturing Peter Parker in new, ever-more-disturbing ways. One of the best Stan Lee and Steve Ditko stories has Mysterio, disguised as a psychiatrist, using his powers of illusion to convince Spiderman that he is going insane. Alas, this intriguing idea is resolved and dismissed by the end of the issue, with Spiderman discovering that he has been tricked. In the Clone Saga,Conwayfurther explores the possibility that the character we know and love is on the verge of losing his mind, if he hasn’t in fact lost it already. This time, however, the protagonist’s sanity remains an open question for many issues. At any moment, we realize, he might completely lose it. And lose it he does.
Ironically, the straw that breaks the Spider’s back has nothing to do with Gwen Stacy or his perpetually-ill Aunt May. No, it comes when the Masked Marauder (a thoroughly generic villain, although thankfully not animal-themed) blasts the wall-crawler with some kind of badly-named energy beam. As a result, he is temporarily blinded. Unfortunately, he takes the Marauder at his word that his vision loss will be permanent. It is this that finally pushes an already-stressed Peter Parker over the edge, causing him to lash out at the nearest target, namely an admirably patient Daredevil, who, being blind himself, understands what his crime-fighting acquaintance is going through.
Of course, Spider-Man eventually regains his sight (it turns out one of his Spider powers gives his retina some nifty regenerative abilities--go figure), but not before losing his mind for a little bit.
The interesting thing about Spidey’s vision loss is not that he, well, loses his vision. Rather, it is that the occurrence that pushes him over the edge is anything but selfless. He manages to retain some degree of self control when his murderous array of villains murder the people closest to him, but when faced with the prospect of living out the rest of his life as a blind man, he goes totally off the wall (no pun intended). Spiderman’s mental collapse is understandable; many of us have probably lost it for much more trivial reasons.
That being said, it contradicts something that we have likely accepted, perhaps erroneously, as a given since good ol’ Amazing Fantasy number 1: that Peter Parker is essentially a selfless character after he learns a harsh lesson in responsibility. Here, we are invited to ponder whether his motives may be less starkly altruistic than we have come to believe. After all, this is the guy who initially used his powers for personal gain, only inspired to devote his life to good after his failure to do the right thing (stop the robber) had a detrimental effect on his own life.
If Uncle Ben hadn’t been killed, perhaps Peter would have developed into one of the villains that he has devoted his life to fighting. Other choice words and events throughout the Clone Saga also bring up the possibility that Spider-Man is still driven in part by something other than his desire to do good. For instance, he tellingly wonders if he has committed himself to superheroism for the right reasons--to enforce the public good in a noble crusade against injustice, not give himself an adrenaline rush. If there’s any truth to the latter, then it’s not surprising that he responds the way he does to the loss of his eyesight. Confronted with the prospect of having to give up his life of endless adventure, he panics, highlighting the fact that Peter Parker, for all his good qualities, is a narcissistic character who is just as dependent on the lives of others being imperiled as they are dependent on him for timely rescue. Spider-Man has become his identity, and crime fighting his life’s purpose. For his so-called “other job,” he photographs his alter-ego in action. Talk about self-obsessed. Over time, the emotionally frail, insecure Peter Parker has been subsumed by the fearless, cocky superhero.
Speaking of secret identities, the main architect of the whole cloning phenomenon, the Jackal, just happens to be Miles Warren, Peter’s college professor who fell in love with Gwen Stacy when she was his student and subsequently blamed Spider-Man for her death. This is the type of story that could only have come about in the waning years of the Comics Code; a middle-aged man obsessed with a deceased college-aged student is more than a little disturbing. Unfortunately, most of the other antagonists the wall-crawler faces in the Clone Saga are not nearly as inspired. Carrion, a clone of the deceased professor Warren, comes across as a cheap gimmick. His origin story and powers are shaky even by the standards of superhero comics, and he does not fit in amongst Spider-Man’s street-level pantheon of rogues. Meanwhile, stories featuring tried-and-true villains like the Lizard and the Scorpion borrow excessively from superior stories from the Lee-Ditko era.
The benefit to all of this is that a lack of intriguing antagonists brings Spider-Man and his loved ones to the forefront, featuring some of the best portrayals of Betty Brant, Ned Leeds and especially Mary Jane, who with a combination of sass and sensitivity, more than earns her place as Spider-Man’s long-term love interest. Peter’s beloved Aunt May, on the other hand, does not fare as well. She has become an unfunny fount of clichés whose only purpose is to add cheap suspense to the story when she inevitably suffers yet another heart attack, a source of genuine suspense when it first occurred in the pages of Lee and Ditko’s classic Master Planner story arc, but now a rather stale plot device. All of this begs the question of whether the powers that be at Marvel would have been better off dispensing with the character altogether, or at least relegating her to an occasional cameo when the writers could actually find a good use for her.
If plot and characterization are somewhat inconsistent throughout the Clone Saga, the artwork serves to hold everything together. Ross Andru, who drew the majority of the stories collected in this volume, has not gotten as much credit as he deserves in recent years, perhaps because he followed in the footsteps of such imposing figures as Steve Ditko and John Romita. However, he manages to capture the expansive skylines and varied architecture ofManhattanbetter than his predecessors, and his sense of depth and perspective captures what it must feel like to go web-slinging through the Big Apple. The Clone Saga also features the early work of titans like Frank Miller (acclaimed for his work on Daredevil, the Dark Knight Returns, andSinCity) and Mark Bagley (most well-known as the longtime artist for Ultimate Spider-Man), bridging the gap between the late Silver Age and future eras.
At its best, the Original Clone Saga is a worthy successor to the classic Lee/Ditko/Romita period. While not as boldly imaginative or consistently great as the aforementioned pioneers, Gerry Conway and Ross Andru expand on classic themes while also contributing new ideas of their own. Despite some missteps along the way, the Original Clone Saga is greater than the sum of its parts, constituting a unique take on Spider-Man that should be enjoyed by hardcore and casual fans alike.
The Amazing Spider-Man “The Original Clone Saga” - Gerry Conway, Ross Andru, others ... Review
By Eric Shapiro
Use the words “Spider-Man” and “clone” in the same sentence and you risk provoking an angry reaction from many a comic fanboy, and for good reason. Putting aside that the aforementioned words serve as an unpleasant reminder of the truly awful Clone Saga of the 1990s, the “return” of Gwen Stacy so soon after her death was an early example of one of the worst trends in superhero comics. That is, the tendency of publishers to kill off popular characters for shock value and bring them back a short time later to appease disgruntled fans. The issue in which Gwen Stacy died at the hands of the Green Goblin (and, from a certain point of view, Spidey himself) is rightfully regarded as one of the greatest Spider-Man stories ever told, in that it re-introduced the themes of guilt and responsibility that, to this day, drive the obsessive-compulsive Peter Parker to don his red and white pajamas.
Plus, Gwen was a pretty dull love interest. She contributed more to the Spider-Man mythos by dying than she ever did while alive. Peter Parker deserved better, and it was partly for this reason that Marvel killed her off to make room for the much more charismatic and quirky Mary Jane Watson. Yet, at Stan Lee’s behest, Gwen was “brought back” a short time later, albeit in clone form. However, as the clone possessed all of the character’s memories leading up to her fatal plummet from theBrooklynBridge, she might as well have been resurrected.
All of this is well established. Gwen’s return is a significant element of the Original Clone Saga, but it is not the onlything worthy of mention. The Clone Saga is primarily about the deteriorating mental state of Peter Parker, in which his ever-present personal ______ ? reaches a whole new level. In the past, his self-deprecating remarks, while certainly indicative of a neurotic mind, usually seemed somewhat tongue-in-cheek. In the Clone Saga, though, there is a subtle but important difference: Peter Parker seems to be on the verge of a true nervous breakdown. When he casually remarks on slitting his wrists and jumping off of buildings, we cannot help but suspect that a part of him is serious. And can we really blame him, given the circumstances of his life at the time? A clone of your dead girlfriend walking around, courtesy of your obsessed and brilliant college professor (Miles Warren aka the Jackal)? Aunt once again in the hospital after a man trying to kill you gave her a heart attack? You get the picture. The web-slinger’s travails would be more than enough to depress anyone. Spider-Man nothing is if not cognizant of the psychological dimension to his adventures, asking himself: “Who needs a shrink, when a guy has himself to talk to? A guy who talks to himself, that’s who!”
Spider-Man does not typically come to mind as one of the darkest superheroes of all time, but underneath the character’s upbeat veneer lies a desperate cynicism, a tacit acknowledgment that his perpetual battle with the forces of evil will not come without great personal costs. In this light, Spider-Man’s frequent quips seem more like a coping mechanism than the words of a man who is having a blast fighting crime.
Characters like Batman dwell in a dark, noir-kissed world. Spider-Man, on the other hand, lives in a world that closely resembles our own. He experiences the same ups and downs as most people. Hell, sometimes the authors even allow a period of happiness. Alas, we always know deep down that these periods are only temporary reprieves and that sometime in the not-so-distant future, our hero will end up in despair. Thus, in a way Spider-Man is a more genuinely tragic hero than Batman, whose entire life is monochromatically shrouded in darkness (not a criticism, fanboys, just an observation). The Clone Saga encapsulates better than most Spider-Man stories the co-existence of tragedy and humor in the life of Peter Parker. Even as he faces some of the most laughable and least creative villains of his career (Grizzly Bear and Tarantula, anyone?), his angst reaches whole new extremes. Which brings me to my next point.
The thrust of the Clone Saga has very little to do with cloning, which is little more than a plot device. No, the real focus is on torturing Peter Parker in new, ever-more-disturbing ways. One of the best Stan Lee and Steve Ditko stories has Mysterio, disguised as a psychiatrist, using his powers of illusion to convince Spiderman that he is going insane. Alas, this intriguing idea is resolved and dismissed by the end of the issue, with Spiderman discovering that he has been tricked. In the Clone Saga,Conwayfurther explores the possibility that the character we know and love is on the verge of losing his mind, if he hasn’t in fact lost it already. This time, however, the protagonist’s sanity remains an open question for many issues. At any moment, we realize, he might completely lose it. And lose it he does.
Ironically, the straw that breaks the Spider’s back has nothing to do with Gwen Stacy or his perpetually-ill Aunt May. No, it comes when the Masked Marauder (a thoroughly generic villain, although thankfully not animal-themed) blasts the wall-crawler with some kind of badly-named energy beam. As a result, he is temporarily blinded. Unfortunately, he takes the Marauder at his word that his vision loss will be permanent. It is this that finally pushes an already-stressed Peter Parker over the edge, causing him to lash out at the nearest target, namely an admirably patient Daredevil, who, being blind himself, understands what his crime-fighting acquaintance is going through.
Of course, Spider-Man eventually regains his sight (it turns out one of his Spider powers gives his retina some nifty regenerative abilities--go figure), but not before losing his mind for a little bit.
The interesting thing about Spidey’s vision loss is not that he, well, loses his vision. Rather, it is that the occurrence that pushes him over the edge is anything but selfless. He manages to retain some degree of self control when his murderous array of villains murder the people closest to him, but when faced with the prospect of living out the rest of his life as a blind man, he goes totally off the wall (no pun intended). Spiderman’s mental collapse is understandable; many of us have probably lost it for much more trivial reasons.
That being said, it contradicts something that we have likely accepted, perhaps erroneously, as a given since good ol’ Amazing Fantasy number 1: that Peter Parker is essentially a selfless character after he learns a harsh lesson in responsibility. Here, we are invited to ponder whether his motives may be less starkly altruistic than we have come to believe. After all, this is the guy who initially used his powers for personal gain, only inspired to devote his life to good after his failure to do the right thing (stop the robber) had a detrimental effect on his own life.
If Uncle Ben hadn’t been killed, perhaps Peter would have developed into one of the villains that he has devoted his life to fighting. Other choice words and events throughout the Clone Saga also bring up the possibility that Spider-Man is still driven in part by something other than his desire to do good. For instance, he tellingly wonders if he has committed himself to superheroism for the right reasons--to enforce the public good in a noble crusade against injustice, not give himself an adrenaline rush. If there’s any truth to the latter, then it’s not surprising that he responds the way he does to the loss of his eyesight. Confronted with the prospect of having to give up his life of endless adventure, he panics, highlighting the fact that Peter Parker, for all his good qualities, is a narcissistic character who is just as dependent on the lives of others being imperiled as they are dependent on him for timely rescue. Spider-Man has become his identity, and crime fighting his life’s purpose. For his so-called “other job,” he photographs his alter-ego in action. Talk about self-obsessed. Over time, the emotionally frail, insecure Peter Parker has been subsumed by the fearless, cocky superhero.
Speaking of secret identities, the main architect of the whole cloning phenomenon, the Jackal, just happens to be Miles Warren, Peter’s college professor who fell in love with Gwen Stacy when she was his student and subsequently blamed Spider-Man for her death. This is the type of story that could only have come about in the waning years of the Comics Code; a middle-aged man obsessed with a deceased college-aged student is more than a little disturbing. Unfortunately, most of the other antagonists the wall-crawler faces in the Clone Saga are not nearly as inspired. Carrion, a clone of the deceased professor Warren, comes across as a cheap gimmick. His origin story and powers are shaky even by the standards of superhero comics, and he does not fit in amongst Spider-Man’s street-level pantheon of rogues. Meanwhile, stories featuring tried-and-true villains like the Lizard and the Scorpion borrow excessively from superior stories from the Lee-Ditko era.
The benefit to all of this is that a lack of intriguing antagonists brings Spider-Man and his loved ones to the forefront, featuring some of the best portrayals of Betty Brant, Ned Leeds and especially Mary Jane, who with a combination of sass and sensitivity, more than earns her place as Spider-Man’s long-term love interest. Peter’s beloved Aunt May, on the other hand, does not fare as well. She has become an unfunny fount of clichés whose only purpose is to add cheap suspense to the story when she inevitably suffers yet another heart attack, a source of genuine suspense when it first occurred in the pages of Lee and Ditko’s classic Master Planner story arc, but now a rather stale plot device. All of this begs the question of whether the powers that be at Marvel would have been better off dispensing with the character altogether, or at least relegating her to an occasional cameo when the writers could actually find a good use for her.
If plot and characterization are somewhat inconsistent throughout the Clone Saga, the artwork serves to hold everything together. Ross Andru, who drew the majority of the stories collected in this volume, has not gotten as much credit as he deserves in recent years, perhaps because he followed in the footsteps of such imposing figures as Steve Ditko and John Romita. However, he manages to capture the expansive skylines and varied architecture ofManhattanbetter than his predecessors, and his sense of depth and perspective captures what it must feel like to go web-slinging through the Big Apple. The Clone Saga also features the early work of titans like Frank Miller (acclaimed for his work on Daredevil, the Dark Knight Returns, andSinCity) and Mark Bagley (most well-known as the longtime artist for Ultimate Spider-Man), bridging the gap between the late Silver Age and future eras.
At its best, the Original Clone Saga is a worthy successor to the classic Lee/Ditko/Romita period. While not as boldly imaginative or consistently great as the aforementioned pioneers, Gerry Conway and Ross Andru expand on classic themes while also contributing new ideas of their own. Despite some missteps along the way, the Original Clone Saga is greater than the sum of its parts, constituting a unique take on Spider-Man that should be enjoyed by hardcore and casual fans alike.