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Spider-Man General Discussion

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This thread's for the Spider-Man comics and spin-offs, whether they're decades old or brand new.

  • Apart from the main Marvel Universe titles, Ultimate Spider-Man, Spider-Man "What If?" stories, crossovers, guest appearances in other books, Alternate Universe tales and things like Marvel's manga adaptations are all on-topic here.
  • Spider-Man 'family' books are on-topic (as are their own crossovers, guest appearances etc.) - e.g. Spider-Man 2099, Miles Morales, Spider-Woman, Silk, Spider-Gwen, Venom, Carnage, Black Cat, Red Goblin and Spider-Verse.
  • Characters and comics that originated in Spider-Man but are no longer directly connected to the spider-franchise (e.g. Punisher, Silver Sable) are not on-topic, unless you're discussing historical connections and crossovers. If in doubt, check before you write a long post. If this isn't the right place, there's a more general Marvel Comics thread which covers them.

Technically, Marvel's Infinity Comics (and their predecessors, Infinite Comics) are webcomics, not comic books, but it's fine to talk about their Spider-Man stories here.

Discussions that are only about Spider-Man adaptations in other media (films, video games etc.) are off-topic, but discussing the differences between the adaptations and the original comics is fine - as long as spoilers for the adaptations are tagged.

Please follow the spoiler policy rules - tag spoilers for the latest issues, for any previews or content leaks, and for off-topic comics. When including spoiler tags, try to write so that tropers can make an informed decision before viewing them (e.g. which series and issue will they spoil?).

     Original Thread OP 
Since everyone likes talking about him. I know little about him(Ironically,I got nearly all I know about him from a Batman thread),but he's apparently important so I made this thread. Enjoy.

Edited by MacronNotes on Jul 10th 2023 at 10:58:13 AM

Nofix from Over there Since: Jan, 2015
#30926: Oct 13th 2023 at 6:08:50 AM

Every clone after the 90s Clone Saga has long since passed the point of diminishing returns.

immortaleditor Since: Aug, 2023
#30927: Oct 13th 2023 at 6:22:23 AM

April’s great. I love the whole arc of May having to deal with what’s basically a Darker and Edgier OC version of herself.

FKJ10 Since: Mar, 2012
#30928: Oct 13th 2023 at 6:35:59 AM

April was nice shame they killed her off.

And yes the clone gimmick has been endless diminishing returns to the point of satire.

That if tomorrow Post OMD MJ has been revealed to be a clone by Mephisto to keep Peter miserable in a perpetual will they won't they relationship readers will just go.

"Makes as much sense as everything else."

It worked for Gwen and her "kids" with Norman.

RedHunter543 Crimson Paladin Since: Jul, 2016 Relationship Status: Barbecuing
Crimson Paladin
#30929: Oct 13th 2023 at 6:37:30 AM

[up][up][up] I thought Kaine was popular.

"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"
reppuzan Since: Dec, 2014
#30930: Oct 13th 2023 at 6:41:23 AM

@Nofix

I dunno, Miles' good clone, Shift, is pretty cool. Can't communicate well, but the idea of an amorphous, almost monstrous but sweet Big Little Brother is nice.

...Weird how he's vanished from the story in the current run.

RedHunter543 Crimson Paladin Since: Jul, 2016 Relationship Status: Barbecuing
Crimson Paladin
#30931: Oct 13th 2023 at 6:41:50 AM

Jessica Drew from the Ultimate verse was cool.

"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"
Zarius Since: Nov, 2012
#30932: Oct 13th 2023 at 6:48:00 AM

Everything about the April saga was gold. One of the best clone sagas that never gets much appreciation because nobody really read Spider-Girl towards the end. April was her own worst enemy, since she had an accepting family (despite Peter being distrustful, MJ was open to her) and Mayday really loved her despite their quarrelling, but April was always envious and still believed she was the real deal.

It also gave us an awesome final reckoning with Norman Osborn with everyone getting their hands on him. MJ, Peter, Mayday, April, even Aunt May's spirit.

Whenever a Spidey fan brings this story up though, all they talk about is Anya's body hijack of Mayday and making out with Black Tarantula.

Nofix from Over there Since: Jan, 2015
#30933: Oct 13th 2023 at 6:49:27 AM

[up][up][up][up]I like Kaine. I should probably finish his Scarlet Spider run one of these days, and tackle the herculean task of reading all of his and Ben's comics.

[up][up][up]You know, I knew Miles had a clone, I just didn't know what it entailed. And apparently the answer is "Good Spidercide."

immortaleditor Since: Aug, 2023
#30934: Oct 13th 2023 at 7:12:49 AM

The problem with Clones in Spider-Man from the Second Clone Saga onwards is just that the editorial and writers behind them didn’t know when to let the concept rest and always spiral it out of control, on top of them all too often only using those clones as cheap plot devices in their “anti adult Spider-Man” crusade.

For the 90s Clone Saga, the only clones that strictly needed to exist were Ben and maybe Kaine, and accordingly those are the two clones that everybody likes and is willing to let stay around. But to drag the plot on, editorial just kept adding more and more clones until it became a parody of itself with all the different versions of Peter and other characters running around that had to be trimmed down to just Kaine when it came time to wrap it all up (long past when it should’ve ended). And the whole thing was made worse because Ben’s reintroduction into the story was done purely to try and get rid of Peter and MJ, to dismiss every Spider-Man story that happened since the college years as not real and not mattering because Ben was the “real” Spider-Man as a young single swinging dude.

The irony is that editorial could’ve actually gotten what they wanted. Ben was always a decently popular guy, I don’t think many would’ve inherently objected to the story going in a direction where Peter rides off into the sunset and Ben carries on the Spider-Man name, and those who did could’ve been won over… but Spider-Editorial couldn’t resist themselves. They HAD to have Ben as the “legitimate” Spider-Man. He couldn’t be a new character, he had to be THE one and only real Peter. And that destroyed any chance of people liking Ben as Spider-Man, because the story was so blatantly Spider-Editorial tearing down past stories and the character readers had followed for decades, denigrating the marriage and Peter’s character development into an adult as having ruined the comic forever in their eyes.

With later clone stories, the problem has repeated. At best, they contribute nothing to the story beyond more headaches, especially with the well poisoned by the Clone Saga. At worst, they seem to serve no purpose but undoing prior acclaimed stories, something the series already has a massive issue with.

In the case of April, she’s in the same boat as Ben and Kaine as a clone people actually like because she has none of this baggage attached to her. She brings something to the story and has an actual role beyond “shitting on everything the editors don’t like”, and her story is pretty simple and straightforward. She’s the one and only clone of Mayday, not the first in a long line of Mayday clones, and she had the decency to die once her role in the plot was fulfilled and due to the nature of MC2 she’s almost assuredly not being dragged back to life in a way that destroys the character’s legacy like poor Ben has.

miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)
Goku Black
#30935: Oct 13th 2023 at 7:17:53 AM

They should have kept both Ben and Peter the entire time. I've seen this tossed around and would have fixed so. We would have gotten happily married spidey superhero with his family and cool bachelor single Spiderman.

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
RedHunter543 Crimson Paladin Since: Jul, 2016 Relationship Status: Barbecuing
Crimson Paladin
#30936: Oct 13th 2023 at 7:25:18 AM

Yeah but readers and writers don't like the idea of a clone of Peter actually have the identity of Peter for some reason.

Like part of the backlash towards the idea of Peter being the clone was that it meant the Peter we knew was a FRAUD.

"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"
immortaleditor Since: Aug, 2023
#30937: Oct 13th 2023 at 7:27:18 AM

Yeah they could’ve done that too. Really, there’s so many ways that Spider-Editorial could get their precious young and single Spider-Man WITHOUT pissing off their readers and crippling the book. But that would require effort, them to respect the older married version of Peter, and them to make compromises. But they don’t want to do any of those, they just want to force everything back into the high school days and they want it done ASAP.

[up]As I noted above, that’s because that’s exactly how Spider-Editorial intended it and people, subconsciously or not, saw through it. In their eyes, Ben was intended to be the “real” Spider-Man and everything Post-College for Peter was going to be dismissed by sending him and MJ off on a Long Bus Trip. Ben was their vision of what Peter “should” be, and him being treated as such knee-capped the character by changing him from simply a new member of the cast to “an editorial favored replacement”. Hell, it got to the point that when Marvel decided against making Ben the original and to make Peter the original again, the writer of Ben’s book (John Byrne, I want to say?) quit in protest over the idea of writing for a “fake” Spider-Man and the character became toxic to a lot of Marvel’s writers and editors for being a “superfluous knockoff”, which is likely what led to him being killed off.

Edited by immortaleditor on Oct 13th 2023 at 7:33:15 AM

RedHunter543 Crimson Paladin Since: Jul, 2016 Relationship Status: Barbecuing
Crimson Paladin
#30938: Oct 13th 2023 at 7:36:44 AM

I guess you can only be replaced by a clone in the long term if you are a less popular character like Black Widow.

"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"
miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)
Goku Black
#30939: Oct 13th 2023 at 7:46:32 AM

Tbf that was more Back from the Dead as their functionally the Same person and treated as such. Which helped.

Here. Peter and Ben we're always treated as different.

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#30940: Oct 13th 2023 at 8:18:37 AM

Black Widow being replaced by a clone seems basically the same as any given Krakoa resurrection

It’s clones all the way down.

Hell, Tony is a clone of himself at this point.

But it’s not used for existential who is the real one handwringing. It’s just an extra body to bring a character back

Edited by Bocaj on Oct 13th 2023 at 11:19:45 AM

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
FKJ10 Since: Mar, 2012
#30941: Oct 13th 2023 at 8:23:39 AM

@immortaleditor Basically put Spider-man The Real Clone Saga had the right idea on the "Who was the real Peter clone debate?"

The answer? It doesn't matter they're both there own individuals with their own lives.

Peter decides himself he can't continue being an active superhero now that he has a daughter to take care of and Ben is happy with his life now that he's gotten closure.

immortaleditor Since: Aug, 2023
#30942: Oct 13th 2023 at 9:00:35 AM

Yeah exactly. That was the solution. It was right there and it would’ve been great for the series if the editors were willing to pull their heads out of their asses. But they weren’t and the results speak for themselves. It kinda highlights the immaturity that runs rampant amongst Spider-Editorial that leads to the series’ Dork Ages. That attitude of “my headcanon is the only real version of Spider-Man and anyone who writes him differently is doing it wrong” and obsession with “legitimacy”, not to mention the insanity of treating getting older as Character Derailment.

RedHunter543 Crimson Paladin Since: Jul, 2016 Relationship Status: Barbecuing
Crimson Paladin
#30943: Oct 13th 2023 at 9:01:57 AM

This is why Batman wins out over Spider-Man since despite all the constant reboots, Batman has been allowed to grow.

Granted, he also has problems with marriage and editorial.

"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"
immortaleditor Since: Aug, 2023
#30944: Oct 13th 2023 at 9:10:29 AM

Well said. Batman has had his share of problems like this, but always moves past them, especially now that DiDio, the main perpetrator of those problems, is gone. He’s been allowed to grow middle aged and have all of his family around him and it improves his stories massively. Like, say what you will about the current story Batman is doing, but it’d be even worse if Zdarsky weren’t allowed to use all of Batman’s family like Nightwing, Cass, and the others, and if DiDio were still around it’d be done as an excuse to dump the rest of the family and make Batman a “brooding loner urban legend” again even though any chances of him being that disappeared the moment he joined the Justice League.

knightstorm Since: Feb, 2022
#30945: Oct 13th 2023 at 9:55:04 AM

Everything would've been fine if they let go of their obsession with basically erasing decades of character development. Everytime they've tried to "reset" Spider-Man the results are worse than the last. OMD/BND took all of the most hated parts of the Clone Saga...with none of the good...and found a way to make it even worse. It's honestly impressive in a horrifying way.

FKJ10 Since: Mar, 2012
#30946: Oct 13th 2023 at 10:06:26 AM

It helps the original Batman grew old retired, had a kid with Catwoman and died a hero.

Plus Batman thanks to Robin is always in the Dad role

Peter with Miles, sans Spiderverse and Insomniac, is unfortunately your college dropout older brother in between jobs and crashing at grandma's place.

.....Damn that last one hit too close to home.

immortaleditor Since: Aug, 2023
#30947: Oct 13th 2023 at 10:58:23 AM

[up]You kinda sum up why I dislike Miles being in 616. The “Peter and Miles duo” dynamic only works if Peter has years — decades preferably — of experience under his belt by the time Miles comes along. It’d be fine if they permitted Peter to retain the decades of experience and characterization he had Pre-OMD, but Spider-Editorial’s desire to pretend like he’s a teenager instead of in his mid thirties at least just makes the whole dynamic look awkward and weird, because Peter and Miles are too close in age and more importantly, Miles’ life is so much better adjusted then the supposedly Older and Wiser Peter.

It creates this uncomfortable situation where Miles (and all the other Spider-People like Kaine and Silk) have their lives together and yet Peter, the supposed greatest of them, is a total loser with a toxic, self-destructive life that he has no excuse not to have grown past by now.

In general, their insistence on Peter being “young and relatable” hits the massive brick wall that none of the other offices in Marvel are doing the same with their characters. Yes, all of Marvel is affected by Comic-Book Time, but everyone else is allowed to act as if time is progressing, even if it’s much slower than real time. Characters change and visibly get older and even die. Gerry Duggan’s Iron Man acknowledges that Ol Shellhead is now middle aged. Franklin Richards is an angsty teen now instead of a dumbass kid and has a Reality Warper excuse for not aging accurately. Kitty Pryde, Nova, and Jubilee were all introduced as scrawny teens when Spider-Man was a young adult getting married, yet by now the former three are all well into adulthood (Kitty and Nova are written as if they’re pushing or even past thirty, Jubes is firmly written as if she’s in her twenties) while Peter has seemingly regressed mentally and physically to act like they did when they were teens.

Spider-Man is turning into a walking time paradox because the world around him is constantly changing, he used to change with it, but now he’s not just stopped changing but seems to be aging backwards Benjamin Button style. Eventually we’re gonna get a book where Peter acts like a literal child while still looking like a man in his thirties.

windleopard from Nigeria Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
FKJ10 Since: Mar, 2012
#30950: Oct 13th 2023 at 11:22:44 AM

[up][up] Yes he's had his shit together for a while. Turns out being abrasive, willing to kill and generally not putting up with others nonsense means life is less likely to make you it's punching bag.

Did I mention that the Peter with the happiest life is Punisher!Peter?

You know what's funny about Jubilee she is a mom now and she's was supposed to be that hip and cool teen.

Edited by FKJ10 on Oct 13th 2023 at 11:27:56 AM


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