Comics If you could/had to reset Spidey continuity, where would you start?

[The Shredder]

Reboot the entire Clone Saga into something much more pleasing. And what I mean by that is keep the good (Kaine and what not), and take out the more unsatisfying aspects of the overly long running story. Then go start from there, as it wouldnt hurt my feelings seeing alot of the stuff seen during the mid-late 90's erased (Hobgoblin Lives being an exception though).

 

[Redwoods Wolf]

I would reset it to just after the Revenge of the Sinister Six arc, and eschew the whole clone saga, ultimate, civil war, what have you. That was the last time Spidey comics felt fresh and entertaining to me.

 

[CrimeMaster!]

I would reset it right around the end of the first Clone Saga from Amazing Spider-Man 141-151.

This way Peter's young in college,has a supporting cast and has the classic rogue gallery with no Venom or Carnage.

 

[freemadison]

I dunno???...i guess you could say that. Although what i would write doesn't make me think of it that way.

I am thinking "MORE" alternate...Ultimate to me, ...is TOO close to regular continuity. More of a "young" spidey. They wanted to go different, i think, but keep too many things the same, imo.

But yeh, It'd either start out before Gwen's death or at the beginning.

If i was to take the time to reboot and do things differently...i say go all out, FAR BACK, and do things VERY DIFFERENTLY....that's is, if it were ME...lol...

Wow, that's a lot of Spidey-lore to not like....

 

[freemadison]

Reboot the entire Clone Saga into something much more pleasing. And what I mean by that is keep the good (Kaine and what not), and take out the more unsatisfying aspects of the overly long running story. Then go start from there, as it wouldnt hurt my feelings seeing alot of the stuff seen during the mid-late 90's erased (Hobgoblin Lives being an exception though).

I more or less agree with this. It would have been nice if the Clone Saga was given a much more satisfying conclusion and had been retained as an important part of the Spidey mythos. Hobgoblin Lives was pretty sweet too. Gathering of Five, Morlun, Shathra, and Sins Past....not so much.

But you know what, I actually kinda like *gasp* where Spider-Man comics are going right now (although i will reserve judgement until I read One More Day).

 

[3dman27]

I would reset it right around the end of the first Clone Saga from Amazing Spider-Man 141-151.

This way Peter's young in college,has a supporting cast and has the classic rogue gallery with no Venom or Carnage.

NO droolboy or nutjob ? that i can see

 

[moraldeficiency]

I'd stop Joe Q's parents from meeting.

 

[farmernudie]

Wow, that's a lot of Spidey-lore to not like....

I didn't ever say i didn't like any of that time period...lol....in fact....i love the older stuff way more than the current...you'll have to re-read my posts..

I was just saying, if i was going to take the time to just "Rewrite" stuff, i might go WAY back, or all the way back....(for the fun of doing it). (But would write it out of continuity, like Ultimate...however, it would be a VERY different Spidey world, unlike Ultimate which i feel follows too closely to the real timeline)

If i were going back, strictly to fix continuity....prolly jsut before the CLONE SAGA...because that was along drawn out thing, that marvel admits lost them lots of fans, that i don't think ever came back.

 

[spider greg]

I know many of you hate the idea of continuity being rebooted. But, if you had to pick a cut off point in Spidey's history and rewrite everything that happened from that moment on, where would you start?


Personally, I'd start at the end of Tom DeFalco's first run on AMZ (circa AMZ 285 or so). I think Spidey started to suffer creatively when the original Hobgoblin storyline concluded (or appeared to conclude) in issue 289. From that point on things were never quite the same. I've always liked MJ, but the wedding really was rushed. Peter had just broke up with Felecia, now he's ready to committ to a woman he really hadn't dated in years.

If I had to keep the marriage intact, I'd start with the 30th anniversary issue of AMZ. At that point neither the character or the continuity were broken and the era of bad stories had yet to begin:

1)Spidey making deals with Venom
2)return of the robot parents
3)the clone saga
4)gathering of the five
5)Sins Past
6)The Other
3)

Where would the rest of you start?

I'd have to say after #250 because the Hobgoblin mess needed fixing. Though to an extent, I guess it was fixed in "Hobgoblin lives."'

 

[Spydernorbs]

I'd stop Joe Q's parents from meeting.

 

[shinlyle]

Unlike the decision makers at Marvel during the mid to late 90's I have balls and am not greedy.

Ben Reilly would have stayed the one true Spider-Man, plain and simple. Peter Parker and Mary Jane would have given birth to baby May and lived happily ever after. Ben Reilly would have continued his adventures as Spider-Man and you would have had a single Peter Parker without killing Mary Jane, without divorcing Mary Jane from Peter, or without any of that bad stuff.

Peter and MJ would have, of course, stayed in the books as main characters. Peter always giving Ben advice on some of the villains and the other heroes that he'd interact with. Lots of visits between the three as Ben Reilly will want to visit his "niece" from time to time.

Fans can complain all they want. But the fact of the matter is that Ben Reilly being the one true Spider-Man is one hundred percent more logical and better than Gwen Stacy banging Norman Osborn. It's a hell of a lot better than Peter Parker dying, shedding his skin, and becoming Super Spider-Man. It was a hell of a lot better than pissing all over Amazing Spider-Man # 400 because someone was too afraid of Aunt May being out of the books.

That's just what I'd do. It's not the most popular opinion around here but that's why I'm me and that's why I freakin' rule, baby!

I died a little inside while I read that. Ben Reilly sucked. Peter Parker rules!

If I had to do anythign with Ben Reilly, I would have left him as the Scarlet Spider, changed the stupid sweat-top, and made him a New Warrior or an Exile or something, and made it so that he and Peter could NEVER meet again.

Of course, they would, and we'd be back in the same s*&* again, which is why they killed him off....and that's probably the best way to handle it.

 

[shinlyle]

I'd stop Joe Q's parents from meeting.

SLAP!!! LOL!!

Man...I just got an image od Joey Q fading away ala Marty from Back to the Future.

 

[Sloth7d]

Everything from Sins Past to date would get retconned if I had say, but since I don't I'll just come here and ****h about it.

 

[Arcturus]

I've been so out of the loop with 616, i'm not even sure what the Totem crap is, i've vague understand of Sins Past, just from what I read here. So i'd start with that stuff, maybe go all the way to the very first issue and have Uncle Ben shot by the Walrus, rather then the burglar.

 

[SpideyInATree]

I died a little inside while I read that. Ben Reilly sucked. Peter Parker rules!

If I had to do anythign with Ben Reilly, I would have left him as the Scarlet Spider, changed the stupid sweat-top, and made him a New Warrior or an Exile or something, and made it so that he and Peter could NEVER meet again.

Of course, they would, and we'd be back in the same s*&* again, which is why they killed him off....and that's probably the best way to handle it.

Actually you just confused yourself. Peter Parker does rule. Which means that Ben Reilly DOES rule as well because Ben Reilly IS Peter Parker. t:

But, hey, to each their own I think the Spidey books would have been better off with Ben Reilly as the one true Spider-Man. Fans didn't even want to give it a chance and the creative forces were too cowardly to go through with it.

So, hey, we get what we have now in the books. We've got JMS and Joe Quesada doing a huge Spider-Man storyline and, apparently, MJ or Aunt May is going to bite the big one. So, either way, however things turned out...there would still be non-stop complaining about how Joe Quesada is destroying Spider-Man, heh.

 

[farmernudie]

SIAT: Actually you just confused yourself. Peter Parker does rule. Which means that Ben Reilly DOES rule as well because Ben Reilly IS Peter Parker. t:

But, hey, to each their own I think the Spidey books would have been better off with Ben Reilly as the one true Spider-Man. Fans didn't even want to give it a chance and the creative forces were too cowardly to go through with it.

Everyone at Marvel admits that the Ben Reilly long drawn out Clone Saga (re-visiting) was a mess that caused a lot of damage. This was the first time in the history of my favorite comic I actually (sadly!!) walked away from it for some time. Marvel has stated (admitted) that MANY left after that, & that they've never truly recouped after it, just like the MLB Strike. When you anger your core fans in anything, it is NOT a good thing. It is hard to get them back, whether Spidey comics or the national past-time. I am befuddled how we would have been better off with Ben Reilly as the "real" Spidey, unless better off meant losing practically the entire core of fans that made Spidey a success over his long history.

I think that when you try & tell such a giant group of fans that their favorite (flagship) hero they've grown up reading was a fake, it was a really cheap shot Marvel should've seen coming. That'd be like DC trying to get rid of Superman & saying that the one we've grown up reading about is really an animated puppet & that the real superman is all of the sudden some guy named Louie Loggins, who has been curiously out of the picture all these years. It was very forced, and you can't just spit on a character so many people love & make him out to be nothing, when he is THAT important to so many fans!

(i mean, the story coulda been "ok" if they had quickly went there with that tease, and then came back...but instead they REALLY went out of their way & poked the badger, ignoring fans.)

The other thing so obvious about it, is that everytime Marvel brought back a Gwen clone or any clone, over the years,...they ALWAYS stated in hindsight that the fans "DO NOT SEEM TO APPRECIATE these CLONE STORIES"...yet someone at Marvel would get the itch to TRY ANOTHER, never learning from history or their fans.... They'd even joke before they would solicit a new "clone story" about how unpopular it is, but how this new one would be different. That's the part i never got. Any business, needs to KNOW and target their fan base...not flick their nose at them.

 

[SpideyInATree]

There lies the problem. Most of the Spider-Man fans are looking at it like, "Oh, that other Peter was just a "fake" the entire time".

If you sit down and read the story it's actually quite a captivating story about someone losing a life, but not really losing a life, and gaining it back through a twist of fate. And it upsets me that the Clone Saga, in true honesty, is probably one of the most captivating stories in Spider-Man history but is tarnished due to a drawn out story and incredibly overreacting fans who don't even give something a chance to develop.

I do believe the Spider-Man books would have flourished with Ben Reilly as Spider-Man. Marvel may have lost people but with excellent storytelling and a strong stance by your decisions would have brought them back to the book. And, there WAS good storytelling coming out of that but the problem was there were too many hands in the pot. Too much of the marketing department into the creative process as well. And, as we saw, it became quite a drawn out process.

It's really sad that era of Spider-Man is tarnished because there were A LOT of amazing stories out of that era that writers WISHED they could capture again with today's Spider-Man.

 

[Sloth7d]

If you sit down and read the story it's actually quite a captivating story about someone losing a life, but not really losing a life, and gaining it back through a twist of fate. And it upsets me that the Clone Saga, in true honesty, is probably one of the most captivating stories in Spider-Man history but is tarnished due to a drawn out story and incredibly overreacting fans who don't even give something a chance to develop.

I'm glad someone agrees with me on this. Clone saga wasn't bad. It was just too long.

 

[freemadison]

The other thing so obvious about it, is that everytime Marvel brought back a Gwen clone or any clone, over the years,...they ALWAYS stated in hindsight that the fans "DO NOT SEEM TO APPRECIATE these CLONE STORIES"...yet someone at Marvel would get the itch to TRY ANOTHER, never learning from history or their fans.... They'd even joke before they would solicit a new "clone story" about how unpopular it is, but how this new one would be different. That's the part i never got. Any business, needs to KNOW and target their fan base...not flick their nose at them.

Well, I think the thing that makes the Clone Saga unique is that it's an interesting spin on an old cliche.

Usually, the clone stories that no one ever likes is the Gwen Stacy, Clor, doppleganger type stories. Often we're fooled by the return of a character (like Thor or Gwen Stacy), only to find out that it's a clone. A cheap plot device. The other annoying Clone story is the evil twin. The main villain clones the main character (kinda like Thailog, Goliath's evil twin in Gargoyles, or Bizarro or something) and pits him against the real one. Heck, the original clone saga follows both cliches.

But the interesting part about the second Clone Saga is the fact that they bring the clone BACK. He's no longer a cheap plot device. He's not an "evil twin" (Kaine doesn't even fit this mold) or out to steal the main character's life (like Spider-Cide, a really crappy character with little depth). He's a person who has the deal with the memories that were implanted by the villain and has to try to assemble a life after the fact. I think that's one of the reasons why Ben Reilly was so interesting and why the Clone Saga was one of the top selling period of comics in Spider-Man comics history. It was only the Big Reveal followed by the awful, awful Maximum Clonage that put the bad taste in everyones mouths.

Still, many waited until things would reverse themselves, thinking that there's no way in hell that Marvel really intended to keep Ben Reilly as the REAL Spider-Man in the long haul. But Marvel had to stay the course, as it really WAS their plan to have him be real permanently all along, this in turn made people like SIAT and me (I didn't care if he was real or not, but i wanted him alive) become attached to the character even more. In the end, it was too late for them to recover many of their pissed off fans who hated that Peter was a clone and those who hated that Ben Reilly was killed off.

 

[freemadison]

Unlike the decision makers at Marvel during the mid to late 90's I have balls and am not greedy.

Ben Reilly would have stayed the one true Spider-Man, plain and simple. Peter Parker and Mary Jane would have given birth to baby May and lived happily ever after. Ben Reilly would have continued his adventures as Spider-Man and you would have had a single Peter Parker without killing Mary Jane, without divorcing Mary Jane from Peter, or without any of that bad stuff.

Peter and MJ would have, of course, stayed in the books as main characters. Peter always giving Ben advice on some of the villains and the other heroes that he'd interact with. Lots of visits between the three as Ben Reilly will want to visit his "niece" from time to time.

Fans can complain all they want. But the fact of the matter is that Ben Reilly being the one true Spider-Man is one hundred percent more logical and better than Gwen Stacy banging Norman Osborn. It's a hell of a lot better than Peter Parker dying, shedding his skin, and becoming Super Spider-Man. It was a hell of a lot better than pissing all over Amazing Spider-Man # 400 because someone was too afraid of Aunt May being out of the books.

That's just what I'd do. It's not the most popular opinion around here but that's why I'm me and that's why I freakin' rule, baby!

You know I'd be totally okay with all of this if only Ben was still a clone. There was no real reason to make him the REAL Parker. Clone or not, he was less experienced than Peter and had far less claim to the mantle than Peter did.

If Peter was still unable to get his powers back, then Ben would've been forced to take up the Spider-Man mantle. Peter can still BE Peter Parker and the original. Him and MJ could've been main characters in the book. Ben could've been "Uncle Ben" and would be free to date whoever he wanted while fighting crime.

Hell, the reverse would've even been fine by me. Ben could've lost his powers or been crippled somehow and stayed on as an important supporting character (god knows he needs more of those now, i'm so sick of mj and aunt may, without harry or old flash he needs a brother figure). Peter could've still been the original and remained Spider-Man, there'd be no concern about Ben Reilly stealing his spotlight, and many Ben Reilly fans would've been contented with him as a supporting character. But NOOOOO, now he's a cult classic character. Stupid ass Marvel.

 

[shinlyle]

Actually you just confused yourself. Peter Parker does rule. Which means that Ben Reilly DOES rule as well because Ben Reilly IS Peter Parker. t:

But, hey, to each their own I think the Spidey books would have been better off with Ben Reilly as the one true Spider-Man. Fans didn't even want to give it a chance and the creative forces were too cowardly to go through with it.

So, hey, we get what we have now in the books. We've got JMS and Joe Quesada doing a huge Spider-Man storyline and, apparently, MJ or Aunt May is going to bite the big one. So, either way, however things turned out...there would still be non-stop complaining about how Joe Quesada is destroying Spider-Man, heh.

First off, the only worthy replacement of a mian character was when Kyle Raynor replaced Hal Jordan as Green Lantern...simply because he didn't try to be Hal Jordan...and he wasn't supposed to be. He was an entirely new character, and his being a Green Lantern was okay because there has always been more than one.

Ben Reilly was a CLONE of Peter. He was an inferior little test-tube-Peter-Parker, and that's it. He was brought in to replace the ONLY REAL Spider-Man (aside from Miguel O'Hara, who ruled). That was his only purpose. When you tell the readers that the past 15-20 years of stories they've read have been about a generic version of their hero, they're going to get pissy about it, and you can't blame them.

The "Peter was the clone all along" thing was a screw-up of gargantuan proportions. If they wanted to replace Peter, they should have brought in some completely unknown character into the mix to do so, as opposed to reviving a long-dead and oft-forgotten character to replace a hero alot of fans had put a great financial and emotional investment into.

Also, writing Peter out of it all and having "Ben" take over was just a disaster all along. Peter was still around, and we knew he would come back eventually. That's why they didn't just write out Ben. They killed him....3 times. He was stabbed through the back with a Goblin Glider (fatal), Dropped 50 stories (fatal), and he disintegrated into dust (FATAL). For all those who want to give me the "perfect clones don't disintegrate" bull-s***, I offer this: HE WAS DEAD. HE RETURNED TO HIS BASE ELEMENTS AT A GREATER RATE OF DECOMPSITION THAN A NORMAL HUMAN BECAUSE HE WAS A HOME-GROWN HUMAN. So eat it.

Now, I know BR had some fans, and that's cool. Then again, Cyborg Superman and NFL Superpro have fans out there as well. It's not called "The Amazing Spider-Clone" or "The Amazing Spider-Exile", it's "The Amazing Spider-Man".

 

[farmernudie]

SHINLYLE: First off, the only worthy replacement of a main character was when Kyle Raynor replaced Hal Jordan as Green Lantern...simply because he didn't try to be Hal Jordan...and he wasn't supposed to be. He was an entirely new character, and his being a Green Lantern was okay because there has always been more than one.

Ben Reilly was a CLONE of Peter. He was an inferior little test-tube-Peter-Parker, and that's it. He was brought in to replace the ONLY REAL Spider-Man (aside from Miguel O'Hara, who ruled). That was his only purpose. When you tell the readers that the past 15-20 years of stories they've read have been about a generic version of their hero, they're going to get pissy about it, and you can't blame them.

The "Peter was the clone all along" thing was a screw-up of gargantuan proportions. If they wanted to replace Peter, they should have brought in some completely unknown character into the mix to do so, as opposed to reviving a long-dead and oft-forgotten character to replace a hero alot of fans had put a great financial and emotional investment into.

Also, writing Peter out of it all and having "Ben" take over was just a disaster all along. Peter was still around, and we knew he would come back eventually. That's why they didn't just write out Ben. They killed him....3 times. He was stabbed through the back with a Goblin Glider (fatal), Dropped 50 stories (fatal), and he disintegrated into dust (FATAL). For all those who want to give me the "perfect clones don't disintegrate" bull-s***, I offer this: HE WAS DEAD. HE RETURNED TO HIS BASE ELEMENTS AT A GREATER RATE OF DECOMPSITION THAN A NORMAL HUMAN BECAUSE HE WAS A HOME-GROWN HUMAN. So eat it.

Now, I know BR had some fans, and that's cool. Then again, Cyborg Superman and NFL Superpro have fans out there as well. It's not called "The Amazing Spider-Clone" or "The Amazing Spider-Exile", it's "The Amazing Spider-Man".

My question then & now is...why did they feel the urge to replace THE MOST FAMOUS SUPER HERO to begin with??? And reduce the hero we've spent our lives reading about, invested in, to nothing but a fake...?...(And someone actually thought that was a brilliant idea??)

"Clone" in dictionary reads...one that appears to be a copy of an original form, an individual grown from a single somatic cell nucleus & only genetically identical to the true original cell.

So, they wanted to not only replace Spider-Man, a BIG TIME HERO, not some second or third stringer...but they also wanted to let us fans know that we've spent our lives & hard earned $$ reading "Spider Grown Nucleus Man" all along!

Why wouldn't the fans of Spidey be mad?? And the way they STRETCHED IT OUT FOR ALL ETERNITY. Oy yoy yoy. BR could have been good, in a short story, MAYBE...but what they did was just bizarre, imo. (It felt like)They spat on the fans & dug themselves the biggest hole they could possibly dig.

Like i said...why did Spidey even NEED to be replaced??? I feel like people at Marvel (and not just marvel) sometimes pull too many false fire alarms, ala marriage controversys. Fixing things that don't need fixing. Creating problems that don't need creating.

And to say Marvel would have been better off leaving BR as Spidey, as some have said,...is kinda funny, because that's what all Marvel exec's admit to causing lots of fans to flock away from the title, just like MLB strike years ago, like i've said before. If marvel could go back and change one storyline or reboot, i am SURE they'd start RIGHT BEFORE all the MAXIMUM CLONAGE crap they did and caused fans to leave the title...many to have never come back.

I am happy that i did...although now with the Maximum Marriage stuff that seems to be coming down the tracks...it looks lke marvel is out to lose more fans AGAIN.

I just want the comics to be GREAT again....not just good.

 

[Sloth7d]

But the interesting part about the second Clone Saga is the fact that they bring the clone BACK. He's no longer a cheap plot device. He's not an "evil twin" (Kaine doesn't even fit this mold) or out to steal the main character's life (like Spider-Cide, a really crappy character with little depth). He's a person who has the deal with the memories that were implanted by the villain and has to try to assemble a life after the fact. I think that's one of the reasons why Ben Reilly was so interesting and why the Clone Saga was one of the top selling period of comics in Spider-Man comics history. It was only the Big Reveal followed by the awful, awful Maximum Clonage that put the bad taste in everyones mouths.

Spider-man fans hated Maximum Carnage too? May I ask why?

 

[SpideyInATree]

First off, the only worthy replacement of a mian character was when Kyle Raynor replaced Hal Jordan as Green Lantern...simply because he didn't try to be Hal Jordan...and he wasn't supposed to be. He was an entirely new character, and his being a Green Lantern was okay because there has always been more than one.

Ben Reilly was a CLONE of Peter. He was an inferior little test-tube-Peter-Parker, and that's it. He was brought in to replace the ONLY REAL Spider-Man (aside from Miguel O'Hara, who ruled). That was his only purpose. When you tell the readers that the past 15-20 years of stories they've read have been about a generic version of their hero, they're going to get pissy about it, and you can't blame them.

The "Peter was the clone all along" thing was a screw-up of gargantuan proportions. If they wanted to replace Peter, they should have brought in some completely unknown character into the mix to do so, as opposed to reviving a long-dead and oft-forgotten character to replace a hero alot of fans had put a great financial and emotional investment into.

Also, writing Peter out of it all and having "Ben" take over was just a disaster all along. Peter was still around, and we knew he would come back eventually. That's why they didn't just write out Ben. They killed him....3 times. He was stabbed through the back with a Goblin Glider (fatal), Dropped 50 stories (fatal), and he disintegrated into dust (FATAL). For all those who want to give me the "perfect clones don't disintegrate" bull-s***, I offer this: HE WAS DEAD. HE RETURNED TO HIS BASE ELEMENTS AT A GREATER RATE OF DECOMPSITION THAN A NORMAL HUMAN BECAUSE HE WAS A HOME-GROWN HUMAN. So eat it.

Now, I know BR had some fans, and that's cool. Then again, Cyborg Superman and NFL Superpro have fans out there as well. It's not called "The Amazing Spider-Clone" or "The Amazing Spider-Exile", it's "The Amazing Spider-Man".

You are the one labeling Ben Reilly a little test tube Peter Parker. Maybe that's your view on Ben Reilly. But nowhere in the storyline did they say that Peter Parker was a cheap version of the real Spider-Man. Marvel wasn't saying, "The past 15 to 20 years were by a generic hero". What the moral of the story was that whether it was a clone or the real Peter Parker...the same decisions would have been made and lives would have been saved. Because, in the end, both Spider-Men were heroes.

And, to me, it didn't matter whether it was Ben Reilly or Peter Parker. We had Spider-Man and it was still THE SAME GUY. The SAME CHARACTER. So, yeah, I do feel there is overreaction to it and STILL to this day it's overreaction.

And I added in my view of the reset that I would have kept Peter and Mary Jane in the comic as main characters, as well as Baby May. I didn't like that Peter and Mary Jane moved to Oregon either.

It's rather obvious that you thought that the Clone Saga was a horrid storyline but I read that storyline front and back, over and over, and I'm in love with it. In my opinion there were some of the best Spider-Man stories ever written in that time period and it's ashame that it's looked down on in the midst of such contreversey.

 

[Sloth7d]

Only way I would have not liked clone saga is if Ben Reilly did turn out to be the original, but seeing as he didn't, I rather liked it.