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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

Zarius Since: Nov, 2012
#32176: Nov 18th 2023 at 7:11:51 AM

It's been confirmed that the Renew Your Vows Family are coming back on the Marvel Infinity app in issues 14-16 of Spider-Man Unlimited. The story begins December 5th

Edited by Zarius on Nov 18th 2023 at 7:21:48 AM

immortaleditor Since: Aug, 2023
#32177: Nov 18th 2023 at 8:18:11 AM

Hooray, more 616 Peter getting it rubbed in his face what a pathetic failure he is in comparison to his alternates! That’s not sarcasm, the memes about Insomniac Peter mocking 616 Peter for having no bitches were fucking gold, I can’t wait for more.

HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#32178: Nov 18th 2023 at 8:24:31 AM

Did Insomniac Peter dunk on 616 Peter that hard?

I haven't read it, so I wouldn't know. I know there's no Gwen Stacy in the Insomniac verse (which could be seen as dunking on Gwen, but probably wasn't meant to be anything more than a highlighting of the difference between the two worlds).

One Strip! One Strip!
RedHunter543 Crimson Paladin Since: Jul, 2016 Relationship Status: Barbecuing
Crimson Paladin
#32179: Nov 18th 2023 at 9:55:04 AM

De-age Annie May Parker!

"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"
Cortez from Parts Unknown (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#32180: Nov 18th 2023 at 4:09:41 PM

[up]×2

It would be a reach to say it's dunking the character and simply that they didn't have plans for the character.

immortaleditor Since: Aug, 2023
#32181: Nov 18th 2023 at 4:15:24 PM

Yeah, Insomniac never really dunked on Gwen, they just never had a need of her so she didn’t show up.

knightstorm Since: Feb, 2022
#32182: Nov 18th 2023 at 4:54:50 PM

At this point the only joy I get from 616 Peter...is laughing at how pathetic he is compared to literally every other version of Spider-Man in the Spiderverse.

HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#32183: Nov 18th 2023 at 4:55:17 PM

I pretty much agree.

Though Gwen not really being needed seems to be a recurring issue with her.

But it's far more likely they just didn't need her for the story they wanted to tell.

One Strip! One Strip!
immortaleditor Since: Aug, 2023
#32184: Nov 18th 2023 at 4:57:44 PM

[up]You joke, but there’s a lot of reasons Gerry Conway killed her off and “she brings absolutely nothing to the story” is a big one. Think its telling the best versions of Gwen tend to be the ones that are nothing like how she was written in the original runs of the main comic.

HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#32185: Nov 18th 2023 at 5:02:57 PM

Oh. I'm well aware.

There was a dude here a few years back who was very vocal about Gwen (and how unnecessary she was). I'm blanking on the name right now, but he shed a lot of light on the subject.

Gwen had the poor luck of all the stars aligning to make killing her off possible. I still think that killing her off was a shame, as there were probably still things that could be done with her (finding out Peter's identity would have lead to a lot of interesting development, and there's still the issue of dealing with the fact that Otto killed her dad), but when you know all the facts, it's easy to understand why it happened.

MJ being the better choice, Gwen's death having the right amount of punch, since love interests don't die outside of flashbacks, the writers not wanting to let her and Peter get married (that sounds !@#$%-ing familiar), etc, etc.

And it might not have happened if Stan hadn't done such a poor job of getting people to like her...or perhaps read the room and stopped trying to force people to like her.

One Strip! One Strip!
immortaleditor Since: Aug, 2023
#32186: Nov 18th 2023 at 5:25:46 PM

Yeah. Stan openly talked about how much he came to hate how he wrote female characters in his early career and with Gwen, you can definitely see why.

RedHunter543 Crimson Paladin Since: Jul, 2016 Relationship Status: Barbecuing
Crimson Paladin
#32187: Nov 19th 2023 at 3:54:03 AM

He hit the jackpot with Mary Jane.

"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"
Cortez from Parts Unknown (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#32188: Nov 19th 2023 at 7:58:40 PM

finding out Peter's identity would have lead to a lot of interesting development, and there's still the issue of dealing with the fact that Otto killed her dad

Going by Clone Conspiracy, it seems she would have eased up had she known Pete was Spider-Man.

immortaleditor Since: Aug, 2023
#32189: Nov 19th 2023 at 8:19:14 PM

[up]I mean, Clone Conspiracy also featured a nasty retcon that Gwen heard what was happening around her before she died and thus found out Peter was Spidey, and there her response was basically unbridled rage and disgust with her practically dying cursing Peter’s name. While the clone of her forgave him, that was a clone, not the actual Gwen.

Admittedly, Dead No More/Clone Conspiracy was annoyingly prone to acting like cloning is somehow resurrecting the dead in total contradiction to how its usually portrayed (as a whole ass separate person with the same genes who, at best, has a crude facsimile of the original’s memories). Lord, that story sucked.

HamburgerTime Since: Apr, 2010
#32190: Nov 19th 2023 at 8:25:23 PM

I thought it was fine. My biggest complaints were actually not using the resurrected characters enough, and the whole Debate and Switch thing with the "they turn into mindless zombies" twist. Other than that it was solid.

I recall the "perfectly copied memories" thing actually did have an explanation, but I can't remember exactly what at the moment.

Edited by HamburgerTime on Nov 19th 2023 at 10:37:01 AM

Cortez from Parts Unknown (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#32191: Nov 19th 2023 at 9:40:01 PM

While the clone of her forgave him, that was a clone, not the actual Gwen.

But wasn't the clone exactly like the original? This was also how Ben Reilly was resurrected.

Though admittedly it varied from writer to writer whether they were just clones or not.

RedHunter543 Crimson Paladin Since: Jul, 2016 Relationship Status: Barbecuing
Crimson Paladin
#32192: Nov 20th 2023 at 1:24:12 AM

For what it's worth, Peter himself thinks that Gwen Stacy is a clone and tells her that.

"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"
HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#32193: Nov 20th 2023 at 7:17:01 AM

But he still wanted her to live.

And I think he would have respected the choice of how she wanted to live.

One Strip! One Strip!
RedHunter543 Crimson Paladin Since: Jul, 2016 Relationship Status: Barbecuing
Crimson Paladin
#32194: Nov 20th 2023 at 7:19:37 AM

Well yeah, he's Spider-Man after all. He just personally can't think of her as the same girl he fell in love with.

Peter has a bad habit of treating clones in kinda shitty ways. Remember in Life Story where Peter let Gwen Stacy die because he assumed she was the clone, and divorced his wife when it turns out she was a clone.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Nov 20th 2023 at 11:19:43 PM

"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
#32195: Nov 20th 2023 at 7:56:08 AM

The thing is, as noted, originally and for most of Spidey history it was near always portrayed that the Jackal clones aren’t “perfect”. They’re not identical in personality and behavior or even memory to the original in any sense because they’re literally an entirely separate person who maybe has a facsimile of the original’s memories uploaded in their brains as a placeholder. This is spelled out explicitly in the original Clone Saga where Peter is able to distinguish between himself and the then-unnamed Ben because Ben was still hung up on Gwen and her death long after Peter has dealt with his grief and fallen in love with MJ — this being a reflection of how Ben was created and his personality influenced by Miles Warren, a man who himself had never gotten over Gwen’s death. Ben, Kaine, Joyce, Spidercide, pretty much every clone has a radically different personality from the person they were cloned from.

Dead No More completely changed that and acts like the clones are somehow people resurrected from the dead, which is nonsense even by comic book standards. Its not the first time writers have stupidly done that kind of thing as a weak justification to bring dead characters back (e.g., how Black Widow is technically a clone and not the actual Natasha but nobody acknowledges it), but its definitely one of the more egregious examples of it.

TrashJack Confirmed Doomer from beyond the Despair Event Horizon (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Confirmed Doomer
#32196: Nov 20th 2023 at 8:10:18 AM

[up] I like to think that for "Dead No More", Ben modified Warren's cloning tech (or maybe Warren himself did it before Ben stole his tech and identity) in order to make his New U clones effectively indistinguishable from the people they were based on where Warren's had slight differences in memory/personality/etc., but that the New U clones' degeneration was guaranteed as a tradeoff (except for the prototype clone body that Ock got away with; Ben wasn't able to make any more thanks to New U going up in smoke).

Edited by TrashJack on Nov 20th 2023 at 11:28:15 AM

"Cynic, n. — A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be." - The Devil's Dictionary
HamburgerTime Since: Apr, 2010
#32197: Nov 20th 2023 at 8:14:43 AM

I did respect that DNM tried to give both Gwen and Mattie Franklin more agency in their own deaths. You could tell Slott and the other writers involved did not like that they went out as total damsels.

Cortez from Parts Unknown (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#32198: Nov 20th 2023 at 8:56:48 AM

Dead No More completely changed that and acts like the clones are somehow people resurrected from the dead

According to Ben, it's because the cloning process was different now. It's how Ben came back and tye narrative treats Jackal Ben as the original. Even though he should just be a clone of a clone.

[up]

Gwen grabbing the pumpkin bomb before dying was badass.

Edited by Cortez on Nov 20th 2023 at 12:57:37 PM

Mrph1 he/him from Mercia (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: This is not my beautiful wife!
he/him
#32199: Nov 20th 2023 at 9:02:41 AM

Didn't they add some sort of Jackal / Mister Sinister connection at some point relatively recently?

Sinister's clones are sometimes presented as much the same people, even without the extras added by "The Five" and the X-Men's Krakoa arc.

And we did get the Gwen / Cyclops / spider clone chimera turn up again recently.

immortaleditor Since: Aug, 2023
#32200: Nov 20th 2023 at 9:08:14 AM

[up]Its less that Sinister’s clones are presented as the same person, I feel, and more that they’re all purposefully programmed by prior Sinisters to act that way. Immortal X-Men even cracks jokes about how Sinister’s inconsistent personality is because the clones are constantly tweaking each other and themselves to make Sinisters act differently, like the current one mentioning how he’s no longer racist because he surgically removed the racism from his brain and replaced it with camp. But in any case, the Sinisters all act like they’re same person because they’re specifically designed with the same memories and drives.

Edited by immortaleditor on Nov 20th 2023 at 9:09:25 AM


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