Clone Madness (Epilogue)

So now it’s time for me to deliver my final verdict on THE CLONE SAGA as a whole. As I stated back in my first CLONE MADNESS review, THE CLONE SAGA is quite easily one of the most controversial and infamous comic in both Spider-Man and comic book history. In fact, before the abomination known as ONE MORE DAY came out, this was undoubtedly the most hated and despised story in Spidey’s mythos, and is still believed to be a complete mess that was an insult and ruination to Spider-Man’s character. Do I agree with those statements? Not entirely… 

While I freely admit that the saga is plagued with problems, as it went on for way too long, suffered heavily from marketing interference, and did produce some truly awful story lines like SMOKE AND MIRRORS, THE TRIAL OF PETER PARKER, and especially MAXIMUM CLONAGE, in all honesty, I do not hate THE CLONE SAGA. Unlike something like ONE MORE DAY, where there was no evidence of effort or respect to Spidey’s fan base, I saw signs of genuine effort and creativity from the writers of the saga. While they were ultimately setback by the marketing department and Marvel’s approaching bankruptcy, they still wanted to tell an epic story line that not only revitalized Spidey’s mythos, but also brought him back to the roots that made him a great character in the first place. Signs of this effort were present throughout THE CLONE SAGA in stories such as THE EXILE RETURNS, WEB OF DEATH, THE GIFT, THE GREATEST RESPONSIBILITY, THE FINAL ADVENTURE, and especially THE LOST YEARS and its sequel REDEMPTION. I also felt that there were enough good characters to keep me invested in the story and want to continue reading. So while the saga did create some awful characters like Judas Traveller, Spidercide, and it’s version of the Jackal, it also gave us some truly great characters like Ben Reilly, Kaine, Janine Godbe, Dr. Seward Trainer, Detective Raven, Louise Kennedy, Jessica Carradine, and even Ken Ellis, each of whom were incredibly fleshed out and compelling characters in their own right. It was these great characters and the aforementioned good stories that made reading the saga a worthwhile experience for me, despite having to endure some crap. And to be fair, the saga was nowhere near as bad as many people claimed it to be in my opinion, as out of the dozens of stories that I had to read, there were only three of which that I actually hated (the other lackluster stories were mediocre at worst…). So overall, while I acknowledge THE CLONE SAGA’s problems, I feel that it possesses several overlooked good elements that are not only worth checking out, but also deserve to be cherished and remembered. Just like Ben Reilly, I was able to maintain a noble and optimistic viewpoint of one of the most infamous comics of all-time, and found some worthwhile content that I’ll cherish forever as a result…