Clone Saga
| "The Clone Saga" | |||
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Cover to Web of Spider-Man #117 (October 1994), which officially launched the 1990s "Clone Saga"
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| Publisher | Marvel Comics | ||
| Publication date | October 1994 – December 1996 | ||
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| Main character(s) |
Spider-Man Ben Reilly |
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| Creative team | |||
| Writer(s) |
Terry Kavanagh Joey Cavalieri Todd Dezago J. M. DeMatteis Tom DeFalco |
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The Clone Saga or Spider-Clone Saga was a major story arc in Marvel Comics which ran from 1994 to 1996 involving many clones of Spider-Man.
The story is one of the most controversial Spider-Man stories ever told. Although it was intended to wrap up in less than a year, the comics sold very well and the writers were encouraged to prolong the saga as long as possible. This led to some changes to the storyline that ultimately proved unpopular.
Although there were many people involved, the Clone Saga is most closely associated with Terry Kavanagh, who proposed the idea, Howard Mackie, who worked on the majority of the smaller crossovers involved in the overall storyarc and Gerry Conway, who devised the original story. Executive editors on the storyline included Tom DeFalco, Bob Budiansky, and Bob Harras.
There were two "Clone Sagas": the original storyline in the 1970s and the second saga which consumed all the regular Spider-Man series, several limited series and one shots between 1994 and 1997. Between the two, there were also two smaller storylines that dealt with elements from the original saga.
In the summer of 1973, writer Gerry Conway made the decision to kill off the girlfriend of Peter Parker, Gwen Stacy, because the editorial team felt that Gwen had become stale as a character and they wanted to instill an additional element of tragedy into Peter Parker's life. In the follow-up arcs, Conway introduced a new villain called the Jackal and let Gwen Stacy seemingly return from the dead.
The Jackal was the secret identity of Gwen and Peter's biology professor Miles Warren, who could not cope with the death of Gwen with whom he had a secret infatuation. As an expert on cloning, he creates clones of both Gwen and Peter, discovering Peter is Spider-Man as a result. Jackal blames Spider-Man for Gwen's death and wants to kill him. The Jackal kidnaps Spider-Man and forces him to fight his clone. Both men believe they are the real Peter Parker. The two Spider-Men soon decide to work together, but one is seemingly killed by the same bomb that kills the Jackal. The surviving Spider-Man determines he is the original because he is in love with Mary Jane Watson, which did not happen until after Prof. Warren created the clone. Spider-Man drops the body of the clone into an incinerator. Gwen Stacy's clone disappears to find a new life for herself.
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Wikipedia