Hi gang, I had quit comics by this point but I have heard about it endlessly. I wont comment on the quality of the stories as I dont intent to read them but...

The general idea actually sounds pretty good to me. A chance for Spider-man to get a fresh start, unattached and basically as fnord notes, kinda young again. We like a young Spidey deep down. It wouldnt invalidate any of the past adventures. In fact, Id be happy that that Spider-man got a happy ending instead of being stuck in the eternal loop that superheroes live in. And it would give us a Spider-man learning or re-learning the ropes again, with a good excuse for inexperience and irresponsibility.
At least the idea sounds 100 per cent better than the Metphisto nonsense.
(after writing this I realise it would work better in the forum. Sorry fnord.)

There are plenty of stories you can tell with a married Peter Parker. I like your ideas of having different ideas for each Spider-Book. That seems like a very easy way to get around writing stories with MJ. Bending over backwards to get rid of the marriage without actually, you know, doing it... always felt so cheap.

Why didn't they just kill MJ? Don't get me wrong, that's a horrible idea, but it's also a very 90's way of dealing with the situation. And at least it's simple.

Just my opinion, but killing MJ would make Peter a WIDOWER which would age him more than a divorce. I mean the only widowers most people know are grandfather age.

Just skimming through reviews, I think these comics look interesting. I’ve been buying them up after a long time out of comics. Can’t wait to read them!

I agree with bigvis497. In fact, the very first Spider-story I effectively read was the conclusion to the Lobos/Kingpin/Maggia War. Up to that point I had hardly read any super-hero comics; I was a big fan of the "Turma da Mônica" franchise, the top kiddie-oriented comics (in no pejorative sense of the word) of Brazil.

Thus was I introduced to the more realistic, more serious and less cartoony world of costumed crimefighters living in New York: Peter and Mary Jane discussing marriage issues, financial troubles, the problem of finding a new place to live, her difficulty in getting work as a supermodel, Lorraine's drug addiction, Aunt May's poor health, and Kristy's bulimia. I didn't know what bulimia was, and it shocked me. And I loved the whole marriage/family subplots, as much as I loved the super-hero stuff (I became an instant fan of the Lobo Brothers and Chameleon, Hammerhead and especially the Kingpin). So yeah, you CAN write plenty of stories with a married Peter Parker. And even a child can relate because the spirit, if not the problems, have universal human elements. Peter may have been a grownup, but he reacted with the kind of passion, perplexity, guilt, and strength of character that can really touch the human heart. Spider-Man's shtick is not being "a young dude", it's being "a young dude who had to mature far too quickly, that makes thing even harder." Marriage is not a problem; reacting to tragedy like a psycho is. Thus the curse of the post-Lifetheft period.

Yuck! This shit drove me away from comics and destroyed my love for Spider-Man for years. I hate everyone involved in it. Concept, intention, execution — just garbage. Fuck this.

For what it's worth, I think for the sake of your project some kind of coverage of this mega-story is necessary with regard to an analysis and history of continuity in the Marvel Universe, both month-to-month and across the decades. That said, it's your website/project, money, and time invested into this so don't let me tell you what to do. I will enjoy reading whatever you decide to post here as supplementary commentary to Life of Reilly.

I agree that editors and writers were unconnected to readers. I never saw anyone wish to have Peter return as a teenager. In fact, everyone seems to forget that Peter Parker was not a teenager for that long in comics. He graduated from high school in Lee/Dikto era. It’s a very brief time, comicwise. The Peter Parker that readers were used was a young adult, not a teenager. No wonder no one ever complained about him as an adult. I also don’t buy the criticism towards his marriage. No one complained about it during the McFarlane or Larsen eras.

The truth is that editors and writers thought that by reversing him back to young adulthood somehow things would get better, but they clearly forgot to come up with good stories for the proposed new status quo. The proof of this is that once they pushed Ben Reilly as a blond waiter, they simply forgot about the amazing supporting cast that Spider-Man always had. The real problem is that they milked the cow too much. There had been too much Venom, Carnage and crossovers and big events. The worse of all is that they still haven’t learned the lesson.

P.S.: The only aspect of Peter’s marriage that never worked for me was having MJ as a super model. I buy him having a gorgeous wife, but she should have had a normal career.

I think I agree with everything Lecen just said. I don’t understand why current creators think that every superhero must be a teenager. Most superhero’s have been depicted as adults.

My primary books as a child were Fantastic Four and Iron Man. I never closely followed the Spider books, but probably kept up with them via Wizard, or maybe perusing them in the magazine aisle. Even as a 9 year old, when I heard what was going on with the character during the Clone Saga I had no idea what was going through the writers' minds. None of it made sense to me.

Regarding the desire of the writers to write a teen, rather than an adult, I think it's relatively understandable. Teens generally have a larger number and variety of 'issues' that can be explored by the writer. They are more impulsive, less restrained, and still growing into themselves and their roles as a hero.

In the world of comic book continuity the status quo is incredibly powerful. It's hard to think the writers and editors genuinely believe this could be pulled off elegantly.

'And when i say that there was a disconnect between fans and writers... well, obviously the writers and editors involved with all of those decisions to have Peter "age" at any given moment clearly weren't against the idea.'

Well, as you know, that's not entirely true. You pointed out in your entry for ASM Annual 21 that the marriage was mandated by Stan Lee and Jim Shooter, and that at least then-editor Christopher Priest was strongly opposed. I imagine other creators chafed at that kind of editorial dictate. Frankly the marriage didn't make all that much sense in continuity at the time.

That said, you're right that the marriage is no excuse for the precipitous decline in quality. Ah the 90s

"I don't know when word came down that the event had to be extended (i.e. what we see in the issues up to #400 may have already been changed from the original intention based on the order to extend the event)." As I understand it, the changes started when DeFalco was fired and Bob Budiansky took over the Spider books- Dr. Octopus's death was one of the first ones.
The problems with the Clone Saga were there from the beginning. The writers had no explanation as to why the clones were actually clones and not genetic constructs as established during the Evolutionary War. Nor did they have an plan for Ben to take over the Peter Parker identity, since if Peter lived and stayed married to MJ, wouldn't he continue using the Parker name?
@Transparent Fox- I think that the quality of the Spider Books had declined by late 1993. Of course, the Clone Saga wasn't the answer.

"Dr. Kafka tells Judas Traveller that Ravencroft has had a riot and a breakout already." I think the riot was supposed to be the incident in Web of Spider-Man Annual 10, not Spider-Man Unlimited 1, since the incident in the Annual involved multiple people.

I know you like Roger Stern a lot fnord, but I would think his refusal to write a married Spider-Man would be a big black mark on his record. It reminds me of John Byrne's description of why Aunt May was brought back after the Clone Saga, which he says was a big reason he agreed to take the job of writing the Chapter One-era reboot: "It was realized that killing off such an important, cornerstone character was a mistake -- the same mistake DC had made a couple of decades earlier, when they killed off Alfred and then realized the Batbooks did not work properly without him."

Not to rehash my looooong comment on the marriage issue, but this is what a hack writer would think, who thinks that every story featuring a character should follow a specific formula that precludes the passage of time and any meaningful change. Obviously there are certain elements of Spider-Man's identity that remain inviolate - it's hard to say that a story about, say, Peter as a well-paid researcher with a sizable fortune from patents is really a Spider-Man story (whoops). But if Spider-Man must remain forever single and worrying about his Aunt May, he effectively must remain frozen in a particular moment in time, unable to progress or move on in any way.

Stern, Byrne, and Quesada may not be able to write any other Spider-Man, but if no good writer would write a married Spider-Man without Aunt May and still feel like they were writing a "real" Spider-Man story, then he effectively isn't really a character so much as a franchise, closer to an early Silver Age DC character than a modern Marvel character. Marvel's inability to attract good writers to Spider-Man has more to do with their creative bankruptcy at this time and running out all their actual good writers with respect for continuity and change for the sake of the Image artists than getting away from the Spider-Man "formula". Hell, Tom DeFalco will end up creating Spider-Girl which will end up having a long life despite being constantly threatened with cancellation. If Tom "everything should be just like it was in the Silver Age" DeFalco can do it, it can't be that hard.

It’s really just a shame. I wholeheartedly agree that the books have been creatively bankrupt for years at this point, and that the Clone Saga is total drek, as executed. But only as executed: a temporary replacement by a seeming “original” who eventually turns out to be the clone after all — it could have been awesome. But as executed, it’s, um, not.

Wizard started pummeling the Clone Saga from day one before it even had a chance to really suck, naming Scarlet Spider "Mort of the Month" (i.e. lamest character of the month) with the mort-o-meter off the scale. In a reply to a letter they explained they were simply mad about the ending to the first Clone storyline (20 years old at that point) being revised away and that two Spider-Men diluted the franchise even further. They never really went into the quality of the books themselves.

I recently reread "Back from the Edge" and thought it was okay, but "Exile Returns" is abysmal. Maybe more thoughts later.

I really hope you decide to continue with the Clone Saga, Fnord. I didn't read these in real time, but was able to track it all down a few years ago. I'll echo other posters in that I was expecting the worst, but tbh, knowing ow much of a train wreck it end sup being is actually part of the fun.

Also, there'l at least6 be the Todd Dezago issues of Sensational int he mix. Those're worth it for the Looter story alone.

Regarding the comment about killing MJ, that actually was the next way of undoing the Spider-Marriage that they tried after the Clone Saga failed, and Kveto is correct that it just made Peter into a depressed widower. Clone sagas, wife apparently dying in explosions & deals with the devil were all different ways that editorial tried to make Spider-Man young again by getting rid of his marriage.

As Fnord points out, they didn't really need to get rid of the marriage at this point, what they needed to do was to get better writers than the likes of Kavanagh, & write the marriage better. Spider-Man was probably my favourite character & I'd quit the books (with the exception of some of DeMatteis' work on Spectacular) a few years ago at this point. The marriage hadn't got rid of me, it was terrible stories, lame villains, bad melodrama etc.

Michelinie's work had severely deteriorated in the last part of his run, and editorial dictating plots to him like "bring back Peter's parents, and we can't tell you yet if they're really his parents or not" certainly contributed to this. So in some ways it seems like editorial were bringing the clone back to fix the malaise that editorial were themselves causing. I appreciate the point about Stern not wanting to come back, but surely there were some better creators who wanted to work on Marvel's flagship character, marriage or not? Instead the editors were just trying to create another sales event like Death of Superman/Knightfall etc.

I honestly don't see the problem with a married Spider-Man-" Grant Morrison spent his whole run in Animal Man with the main character married with kids. And it was a really good book.
Everything can work if you put a real writer in charge.....

According to DeMatteis' recollection in "Comics Creators On Spider-Man", DeFalco was the last to be convinced of the idea of the clone taking Peter's place, and initially hated it. Kavanagh & Fingeroth convinced the other writers, with Fingeroth claiming that there was a perception that Spider-Man was "boring" & that they "needed to do something to really goose the books, something to get people excited".

DeMatteis says at first he was not interested in the clone ("Oh, God, no!") but when Kavanagh elaborated on the idea in a following meeting, he became interested in the psychological aspects of identity that the clone plot raised, and "the more we discussed the Clone idea, the more pumped we got". DeFalco turned up at the next meeting intending to talk them out of it, but instead they convinced him with their enthusiasm & he decided to write on of the books himself.

The same book also includes DeFalco interviewing Stern, there's an amusing moment where they mention that Stern had intended to stop readers writing in asking about the Gwen clone by writing a story showing the Gwen clone had aged at an exponential rate & was now an elderly woman about to die. DeFalco (then Stern's editor) told him to forget about clones, which they both acknowledge was good advice that DeFalco should have followed himself.

So, uhm... is it lame to admit that, when I first read that story (which happened near the end of my high school years), I actually thought that Judas Traveller was cool? And that he might've been one of the factors that influenced me to study psychology during my university time..?

Yes

*cries*

Judas Traveller was a nice character concept - certainly far better than most of those that ran around those days, such as Venom for one.

In a better climate he could have been memorable.

Hey, I started a Spider-man: Marriage thread in the forum if anyone is interested: https://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=140

Hi fjord, the riot at Ravencroft that is being referred to actually took place in Web of Spider-Man annual 10. That was also perpetrated by Shriek.

Judas Traveller is just another version of the Beyonder.

I can't recall what was the final fate of Traveller. The writers clearly had no endgame with this character. That suggests a lack of planning with the Clone Saga.

"That suggests a lack of planning with the Clone Saga."

You don't say..? ;)

Anyway, the final fate of Traveller was the reveal that he was just a perception-altering mutant deluded into thinking he was some sort of demi-godlike character. Which seemed to go against that one issue when he got stuck in a time-space vortex and he was shown to be immortal and having been present during Christ's crucifixion...

@Jonathan, son of Kevin: "Instead the editors were just trying to create another sales event like Death of Superman/Knightfall etc."

Things would get even worse in the "Norman Osborn is Responsible for Everything Including People Slipping on Banana Peels" Era. They tried to recreate "Born Again" by having Spider-Man kick the living shit out of Norman Osborn ON CAMERA (spider-sense must've been on sleep mode) and being accused of murdering some shmoe. 'Cuz Spider-Man was never given a bad rep. Osborn is no Kingpin, people!

Did Judas Traveller ever get a partner called Blues Priest?

Good one, Mark. Maybe that's what Scrier was supposed to be, the Blue Priest. Of course, he's no bluer than "Mystery Men"'s Blue Rajah, but considering all the stuff Scrier was supposed to be but oops he wasn't, it'd be a minor detail.

Piggybacking off Mr. Drummond's comment, Judas Traveller could potentially be the name of the world's strangest novelty/cover band. Though I would imagine they would not be near the class of Dread Zeppelin.

And if Judas Traveller wanted to exchange communication with Blues Priest, they’d use Quicksilver Messenger Service.

Ba dum bum.

That would make Judas Traveler Tortelvis!

Supposedly the creators’ growing older led to them making Spidey older—but in fact, I’m pretty sure the opposite was the case. Older writers pined for their bygone youth, and for the Spidey of their youth. Marvel as a whole had a weird mix of nostalgia and ‘90s ‘tude during the DeFlaco years, but real change and growth was out of the question. Although that becomes ironic with the Spider-Cline because instead of getting a reset, unmarried Peter Parker, we get a blond dude named Ben who works at the coffee shop that the characters from Friends frequent. Scrapping 20 years of continuity would be one thing, but replacing Peter with a dull new Character (in effect) was nuts.

Traveller I thought was a DeMatteis character. He’s reminiscent of Haven, the new age-y villainess he created for X-Factor.

Thanks Michael and Bigdaddyk regarding the riot reference.

Pootas, don't be so hard on Piotr! There, there, Piotr, I used to think Judas Traveller was pretty cool too, when I first knew of him. And you're a better man for studying Psychology, anyway. Like Luis said, the concept of Judas Traveller was cool (if not very Spider-y), or could've been, if the writers themselves knew what the concept was. Back then, I thought they did, and I eagerly anticipated each tantalizing clue they dropped me, blissfully unaware they needed some themselves. Hey, he's connected to the Jackal somehow, and "Kaine't Be Beat" Kaine knows of Scrier the Blue Priest, and woooo, there's certainly some stuff about to happen and...sheesh, when are his motivations gonna get a LITTLE BIT clearer? It seemed they were dropping more questions than clues. As someone pointed out, if it was just about "understanding evil" he could've boned up on his Immanuel Kant and Thomas Aquinas. Shit, Judas Traveller inspired Piotr to study Psychology, but I doubt it if Piotr ever took over an insane asylum and threatened to kill its inmates (if you have, Piotr, gives us a heads up). And heck, that's kinda sorta evil in itself, maybe Judas oughta look in the mirror sometimes (and realize his threads aren't really doctor material). BTW, it soon dawned on me that Judas's and his "large entourage's" outfits made it seem they belonged in an asylum in more ways than one. How come Kafka didn't pick up on that?

Oh, I am so so so so glad that I stopped reading all of the Spider-Man books a few months before this happened!

Judas Traveller and his entourage look like they're ready to go clubbing in Manhattan.

It does bother me a bit that when Ben tells Peter he's the clone, Peter refers to him as "the Jackal's pawn". Obviously Peter's not in his best frame of mind & has been dealing with duplicates of his parents etc relatively recently, & obviously Ben was created by the Jackal, but it just seems like an odd choice of words by Kavanagh, any readers who hadn't read ASM =149 might have got the impression that Ben actually assisted the Jackal in some way.

Instead, it was just that Peter & Ben fought for about a page because the Jackal said only the real Spider-Man could defuse the bomb (how exactly that would work I don't think was ever explained), & at the end Peter wasn't sure whether he was the clone or not, but he didn't think of himself as "Jackal's pawn". In fact, the whole cloning of Peter serves no real purpose for the Jackal other than to mess with Peter's head a bit more, because the Jackal knocks Peter out more than once, and could just have killed him as he'd already tried to do at the end of ASM # 147.

It seems to take away a bit of the punch of the ending of #149 if Peter doesn't see the clone as an exact duplicate of him who thinks exactly like him but died, instead seeing him as a pawn. But then I guess at this point that's already been changed by Conway himself who retconned them to be innocent people who'd been modified into 'clones'.

I realise there are at least 263 things in this issue more worth complaining about, but for some reason it bothers me.

Good point, Jonathan, son of Kevin. It hadn't occurred to me and now that you mention, it does seem a little weird.
On the other hand, it can be said that, even when considering the possibility of being a clone, Peter wouldn't think of HIMSELF as the Jackal's pawn. He did, after all, have a sense of self. Once it had been established that he was indeed the original, it would've been easier to regard the fake Peter as a pawn meant to 'mess with his head a bit more'. In the opening scene, Spider-Man says it doesn't matter whether the other 'Peter Parker' was "an other-dimensional doppelganger, a state-of-the-art replicoid or the Chameleon himself"; he was reacting as if that "incredible simulation" was meant to fuck him up. So in that sense he could've been described as the Jackal's pawn, so long Kavanagh made it clear that Spider-Man half expected some weird shit like that come out of leftfield just to antagonize him further.
On another subject: in that scene where Mr. Nacht inquires about Ravencorft's treatment programs, there are a few loons on the monitors, and I've been wondering: is that Shriek to the left of Carnage? I know it's her on the right, and the character designs are a bit different, so might it be some OTHER pale-skinned psycho? Or did they feel like putting Shriek in two different screens with mildly different looks?

I realise there are at least 263 things in this issue more worth complaining about

Kind of weird how you picked the exact number of issues "Spectacular" lasted.