History YMMV / TheCloneSaga

** On an overall sense, in the scheme of Spider-Man's comics publication history, the Clone Saga undermined the integrity of the main continuity. While not all stories between 1962-1993 were good and not everything published during the Saga was bad, Spider-Man was a corner in Marvel where realism reigned. Characters who died stayed dead, stories and status-quo changes had consequences and moved organically from one era to the next. There was CharacterDevelopment and growth, and there were never any large-scale continuity-destroying retcons. Not everyone necessarily liked these changes, or approved of the direction of the stories, but there was a sense that nobody would just undo something by saying something never happened and that [[ArcWelding new shifts would organically build]] on what existed. The Clone Saga absolutely destroyed those norms for good. The major point of the Clone Saga, was telling at least three or four generations that the Spider-Man they had read for 20 years [[AppealToObscurity based on a story only a few of them knew or remembered]] and even then in a form that has nothing to do with the original, didn't happen. Characters who were dead (Jackal) were revived in a way that was unrecognizable. The overall conspiracy and arcane clones of Peter went entirely against the kitchen sink/SmallStepsHero nature of Spider-Man's story. The one great story from the era (Issue #400, Aunt May's death) was retconned in an absurd way two years later that most fans saw as vandalizing a great story.

** For one thing, the first clone saga was published in 1976, and for nearly twenty years in-between characters like the Jackal and so on were forgotten and buried, to a large extent it was a plot point entirely forgotten about by most comics fans and general readers until TheNineties revived it. Creator/GerryConway's first clone saga began as a response to the backlash of Gwen Stacy's death and was commissioned by Creator/StanLee as a backdoor to potentially bring her back. Conway and Romita created the idea of a Gwen who returns being a clone as a compromise. If fans didn't like Peter and Mary Jane's romance, then this Gwen would have been made the real deal then and there. Since they did like it, Conway was able to spin a story that mostly served as a big TakeThat to Gwen Stacy's posthumous fans. Since Conway wanted to develop Mary Jane and Peter as ''the'' love story of the series, he wrote the story as a {{Deconstruction}} of fans not being able to deal with death, fixating on DoppelgangerReplacementLoveInterest and otherwise liking Gwen just because she died (as Conway pointed out in interviews hardly anyone has a shred or clue how she really was like as a character when she was alive and largely fetishize her for her death) which he illustrated in the villain Jackal who was a stand-in for, to use a modern phrase, "salty Gwen fans" and painting their stand-in as a creepy necrophiliac professor.

* OlderThanTheyThink: For all the grief that the Clone Saga gets for being an executive and marketing driven stunt gone wild changed to later attempting to bring Spider-Man "back to basics", it's often forgotten that the so-called "first" clone saga written by Creator/GerryConway largely as a sequel to ''ComicBook/TheNightGwenStacyDied'' was basically an executive mandated demand by Creator/StanLee to bring Gwen BackFromTheDead and go "back to basics" not really a story that Conway wanted to write. He did so anyway, mostly to prove why Gwen can't come back, since the entire story showed why the clone as a DoppelgangerReplacementLoveInterest wasn't the true Gwen that Peter remembered but an embodiment of Peter's guilt and that his true feelings were for Mary Jane whose relationship helped him move past Gwen[[note]]And in the opinion of Conway, was far more real and meaningful than it ever was with Gwen[[/note]]. Conway pointed out that the first clone story was never intended to [[OpeningACanOfClones open a can of clones]] or really as a science-fiction story, it was a comic-book metaphor for dealing with grief, loss and moving on[[note]]the denouement of the first Saga has Peter realizing that since he loves MJ, and that relationship happened after Gwen's death and him moving past it and experiencing CharacterDevelopment, that meant he was the real deal as opposed to the clones who were fixated and stuck in the past which also motivated his refusal to check the results since he was going with his feelings[[/note]].

** One of the things that may not be immediately apparent is that before the Clone Saga, Peter Parker was going through some changes in an attempt to make him DarkerAndEdgier. Among other things, he was abandoning his Peter Parker identity and calling himself "the Spider". It's likely that the initial interest in Ben Reilly was because at the time, ''he was more like Spider-Man than Peter Parker was''. No wonder some thought Peter was the clone. Oh, and the event that caused this dark turn was another story that went on too long: the supposed return of Peter's parents (the trend was already in place). It has been alleged that the writers [[IntendedAudienceReaction did this on purpose]] to make people accept Ben as the original and Peter the clone. Danny Fingeroth, the editor/writer behind the "Peter's parents" story, said that he started that plot without any idea where to take it and spun wheels until the writers got tired of it. Which did set a pattern for the Clone Saga's worst practices.

--> '''Creator/GerryConway''': "When I did find the gist of the story, that the previous ten years of Spider-Man stories didn't happen, I thought, this is a wonderful thing for a writer, because it means when I left the title, the book stopped."

* AuthorsSavingThrow: The entire point of the miniseries was to tell a more cohesive version of a three-year-long storyline that marked itself as '''the''' AudienceAlienatingEra for the ''Spider-Man'' franchise.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: The entire point of the miniseries was to tell a more cohesive version of a three-year-long storyline that marked itself as '''the''' DorkAge for the ''Spider-Man'' franchise.

** On an overall sense, in the scheme of Spider-Man's comics publication history, the Clone Saga undermined the integrity of the main continuity. While [[SturgeonsLaw not all stories between 1962-1993 were good and not everything published during the Saga was bad]], Spider-Man was a corner in Marvel where realism reigned. Characters who died stayed dead, stories and status-quo changes had consequences and moved organically from one era to the next. There was CharacterDevelopment and growth, and there were never any large-scale continuity-destroying retcons. Not everyone necessarily liked these changes, or approved of the direction of the stories, but there was a sense that nobody would just undo something by saying something never happened and that [[ArcWelding new shifts would organically build]] on what existed. The Clone Saga absolutely destroyed those norms for good. The major point of the Clone Saga, was telling at least three or four generations that the Spider-Man they had read for 20 years [[AppealToObscurity based on a story only a few of them knew or remembered]] and even then in a form that has nothing to do with the original, didn't happen. Characters who were dead (Jackal) were revived in a way that was unrecognizable. The overall conspiracy and arcane clones of Peter went entirely against the kitchen sink/SmallStepsHero nature of Spider-Man's story. The one great story from the era (Issue #400, Aunt May's death) was retconned in an absurd way two years later that most fans saw as vandalizing a great story.

* AuthorsSavingThrow:
** In the case of the First Clone Saga, Creator/GerryConway who was worried that his over-the-top story about clones and Jackal were a little too quirky for Spider-Man, later wrote in ''The Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #8'' during the crossover event "The Evolutionary War" that Miles Warren never actually cloned anyone. What the Jackal did was create a drug and experimented on a woman who had some of Gwen Stacy's attributes, with his cocktail altering her to genetically resemble Gwen. In other words, Jackal never actually cloned anyone, what he did was mutate subjects into clones. Conway saw this as a way to {{handwave}} how exactly the Jackal, a lowly college professor at ESU, was able to make a breakthrough in human cloning (he didn't), clarify and explain away the fate of the missing Gwen clone, and once and for all put to rest the idea of Spider-Man being any kind of clone. [[note]]Years later, this too was retconned to "Jackal actually ''did'' create legit clones, and all the stuff that said he didn't was made up by the High Evolutionary, whom Warren had worked with in his earlier years, to discredit him because some of his beast men were viewing him as a god-like figure and he didn't want that."[[/note]] Glenn Greenberg, who wrote the "Life of Reilly", expressed frustration at Conway for, as he put it, going "to great lengths to undo his own stories", plainly ignoring the memo that Conway felt that clones and the Jackal were both bad ideas beyond one-and-done stories.
** A few were built into the story, but they were never used properly as the collection of writers and editors battled for turf. [[WhatCouldHaveBeen A lot of ideas were bandied around]] and it's debatable if any of this would have truly worked in any capacity:
### Seward Trainer, the geneticist who claims that Peter is the clone, was mentioned as having past history with the Jackal; therefore, everything he says is unreliable. (Incredibly, Editorial vetoed this seemingly obvious exit route.)
### Ben Reilly is revealed to be the clone and melts away. Mary Jane ''also'' disintegrates, revealing that the Jackal had replaced her with a clone long ago, and that Peter was never married to begin with. (The idea that Peter had married a clone of Mary Jane was used to undo his marriage in ''Spider-Man: The Animated Series'')
### Ben and Peter get caught in an explosion; one of them dies; the surviving one has [[AmbiguousCloneEnding amnesia]] and can't be certain if he's the fake or not. Repeating what they thought was the situation in 1974, except without the larger thematic point that ultimately won out there.
### PredestinationParadox: Peter is sent back in time five years, loses his memory, and is led to believe that he's a clone, thus becoming Ben Reilly. Judas Traveler and Scrier ([[DramaticUnmask actually Mephisto]]) are revealed to be responsible for the loop, as part of a CosmicChessGame to see whether good or evil win out.
### Peter and Ben are ''[[DebateAndSwitch both]]'' clones. The real Peter Parker has been held in [[HumanPopsicle cryogenic captivity]] by the Jackal since the first Clone Saga ended.
### Ben dies saving Peter's life at the hands of the BigBad. Back in Portland, Mary Jane miscarries, blames Peter, files for divorce.

* WhatAnIdiot: Peter Parker is definitely at his stupidest here. He believes everything the Jackal says in ''Maximum Clonage'', despite the fact the guy's already proven to be an utter liar.
-->'''[[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall Linkara]]:''' ''(after Peter thinks the Jackal may have been lying)'' Gee, I don't know, Peter. Maybe I '''''should hit you with my CLUE STICK!'''''

### Ben Reilly is revealed to be the clone and melts away. Mary Jane ''also'' disintegrates, revealing that the Jackal had replaced her with a clone long ago, and that Peter was never married to begin with.

!!YMMV tropes associated with the Clone Saga overall:

* DorkAge: This is widely considered by most fans to be the start of a decay in Spider-Man's general quality that it never recovered from:
** One of the things that may not be immediately apparent is that before the Clone Saga, Peter Parker was going through some changes in an attempt to make him DarkerAndEdgier. Among other things, he was abandoning his Peter Parker identity and calling himself "the Spider". It's likely that the initial interest in Ben Reilly was because at the time, ''he was more like Spider-Man than Peter Parker was''. No wonder some thought Peter was the clone. Oh, and the event that caused this dark turn was another story that went on too long: the supposed return of Peter's parents (the trend was already in place). It has been alleged that the writers [[IntendedAudienceReaction did this on purpose]] to make people accept Ben as the original and Peter the clone. Danny Fingeroth, the editor/writer behind the "Peter's parents" story, said that he started that plot without any idea where to take it and spun wheels until the writers got tired of it. Which did set a pattern for the Clone Saga's worst practices.
** The story also featured one for Lizard. Someone got the idea for Curt Connors to be stuck in mutated-Lizard form. No one--not even a lot of people involved in the Clone Saga--liked it, so near the end, it was revealed that Connors didn't mutate and the "mutated" Lizard got {{retcon}}ned into being an experiment that Connors did in an attempt to rid himself of the Lizard.
** On an overall sense, in the scheme of Spider-Man's comics publication history, the Clone Saga undermined the integrity of the main continuity. While [[SturgeonsLaw not all stories between 1962-1993 were good and not everything published during the Saga was bad]], Spider-Man was a corner in Marvel where realism reigned. Characters who died stayed dead, stories and status-quo changes had consequences and moved organically from one era to the next. There was CharacterDevelopment and growth, and there were never any large-scale continuity-destroying retcons. Not everyone necessarily liked these changes, or approved of the direction of the stories, but there was a sense that nobody would just undo something by saying something never happened and that [[ArcWelding new shifts would organically build]] on what existed. The Clone Saga absolutely destroyed those norms for good. The major point of the Clone Saga, was telling at least three or four generations that the Spider-Man they had read for 20 years [[AppealToObscurity based on a story only a few of them knew or remembered]] and even [[CriticalResearchFailure then in a form that has nothing to do with the original]], didn't happen. Characters who were dead (Jackal) were revived in a way that was unrecognizable. The overall conspiracy and arcane clones of Peter went entirely against the kitchen sink/SmallStepsHero nature of Spider-Man's story. The one great story from the era (Issue #400, Aunt May's death) was retconned in an absurd way two years later that most fans saw as vandalizing a great story.

** One of the things that may not be immediately apparent is that before the Clone Saga, Peter Parker was going through some changes in an attempt to make him DarkerAndEdgier. Among other things, he was abandoning his Peter Parker identity and calling himself "the Spider". It's likely that the initial interest in Ben Reilly was because at the time, ''he was more like Spider-Man than Peter Parker was''. No wonder some thought Peter was the clone. Oh, and the event that caused this dark turn was another story that went on too long: the supposed return of Peter's parents (the trend was already in place). It has been alleged that the writers [[IntendedAudienceReaction did this on purpose]] to make people accept Ben as the original and Peter the clone. Danny Fingeroth, the edtior/writer behind the "Peter's parents" story, said that he started that plot without any idea where to take it and spun wheels until the writers got tired of it. Which did set a pattern for the Clone Saga's worst practices.

** Both [[http://marvel.fandom.com/File:Web_of_Spider-Man_Vol_1_117.jpg the cover]] for ''Web of Spider-Man'' #117 and the teaser for Spidercide's debut at the end of ''Spider-Man'' #56 make references to "the Spiderverse" years before [[ComicBook/SpiderVerse the 2014-2015 multiversal crossover of the same name]].

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Fans' reaction to [[spoiler:to changing Doc Ock's powers from {{technopath}}y to basically making him ComicBook/{{Magneto}}-lite]].

* CompleteMonster: This story marks the graduation of ComicBook/NormanOsborn from mentally ill SympatheticMurderer to complete and utter bastard. See Monster/SpiderMan for a list of his crimes.

* VindicatedByHistory: Not by much, as the story is still largely disliked, but characters originating from this arc -- specifically, Ben Reilly and Kaine Parker -- have been reevaluated over the years, and have had enough popularity to return to being mainstays of the comics. Norman Osborn's return also proved to be genuinely popular with fans.

* VindicatedByHistory: Not by much, as the story is still largely disliked, but characters originating from this arc -- specifically, Ben Reilly and Kaine Parker -- have been reevaluated over the years, and have had enough popularity to return to being mainstays of the comics.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Fans' reaction to [[spoiler:to changing Doc Ock's powers from {{technopath}}y to basically making him ComicBook/{{Magneto}}-lite.]]

* AuthorsSavingThrow: The entire point of the miniseries was to tell a more cohesive version of a three-year-long storyline that marked itself as ''the'' DorkAge for the ''Spider-Man'' franchise.

** One of the things that may not be immediately apparent is that before the Clone Saga, Peter Parker was going through some changes in an attempt to make him DarkerAndEdgier. Among other things, he was abandoning his Peter Parker identity and calling himself "the Spider". It's likely that the initial interest in Ben Reilly was because at the time, ''[[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy he was more like Spider-Man than Peter Parker was]]''. No wonder some thought Peter was the clone. Oh, and the event that caused this dark turn was another story that went on too long: the supposed return of Peter's parents (the trend was already in place). It has been alleged that the writers [[IntendedAudienceReaction did this on purpose]] to make people accept Ben as the original and Peter the clone. Danny Fingeroth, the edtior/writer behind the "Peter's parents" story, said that he started that plot without any idea where to take it and spun wheels until the writers got tired of it. Which did set a pattern for the Clone Saga's worst practices.

** The story also featured one for Lizard. Someone got the [[SarcasmMode bright idea]] for Curt Connors to be stuck in mutated-Lizard form. No one--not even a lot of people involved in the Clone Saga--liked it, so near the end, it was revealed that Connors didn't mutate and the "mutated" Lizard got {{retcon}}ned into being an experiment that Connors did in an attempt to rid himself of the Lizard.

* {{Wangst}}: Possibly {{justified|Trope}}, but a lot of it can also be considered bad writing. It would probably be more tolerable if the series was shorter and the angst moments weren't done to pad out issues.