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We love the fandom gags The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is cramming into its viral marketing. But the latest hint dropped in the Daily Bugle has gone a little too far.
How far? Try Clone Saga, according to Sony’s viral marketing blog:
Manhattan’s Empire State University announced a new class for the 2014 fall semester in advanced biogenetics that will actually require the successful cloning of a living creature. Introduction to Live Cloning, taught by noted geneticist Professor Miles Warren, is the first class of its kind anywhere in the world.
Oh, and this story is filed by Ken Ellis, just to rub it in, before ending with a jab about “cloning co-eds.” While those of us who read comics in the nineties are busy doing this:
Let me explain to the more casual Spidey fans. The Clone Saga was one of the dumbest things Marvel ever did to Spider-Man. Miles Warren up there, the Jackal, cloned Spidey and Gwen Stacy in the early ’70s, before being defeated in Merry Marvel style. The clone was killed, the Jackal was taken down, everything was peachy. Well, not really, but as close to peachy as it gets when you’re the Web-Slinger.
Twenty years or so later, it comes out that the Peter Parker we’ve been reading about and enjoying the exploits of is actually the clone from the ’70s, and the real Peter Parker had been dicking off for twenty years because Aunt May was a drag, and calling himself Ben Reilly. Confused yet? Oh, it gets a lot worse from there, but the PTSD is kicking in something fierce. Suffice to say that in the end, Marvel spent two years yanking our chains before revealing it was the Green Goblin all along, Peter was really Peter, and Ben Reilly died.
Except not really. Come on. This is comics. Nobody dies for long.
Along with Superman: Electric Boogaloo and turning Batman into a grim and gritty knock-off of the Punisher, the Clone Saga is pretty widely considered one of the most… misguided storylines of the 1990s. Even nearly twenty years later, it still makes fans want to break stuff.
Don’t do it, Sony. Just… don’t do it. Spare us the pain. Wasn’t Spider-Man 3 enough?
via The Daily Bugle
![[avatar]](https://profilecdn-woven.netdna-ssl.com/photo/569/profile)
Where can I find this Batman-as-Punisher story? Sounds awesome. And to think, I always found the Punisher to be the total antithesis of grim and gritty.
But yeah, Ben Reilly can gtfo.
Well, I meant Azrael’s stint as Batman, but that works too.
In the Flashpoint Paradox, Thomas Wayne is Batman… and he’s very Punisher like :D
I like the easter egg aspect of the Tumblr, and I always wanted a montage of Spidey whuppin’ all of the minor league guys to open a movie, but this would be TOO FAR.
The story was incredibly confusing, but I’d rather have Ben Reilly back rather than Otto/Peter.
He is the Superior Spider-Man! Get it? Superior? Like the name of the book? Get it?
I’m under the impression that a lot of the stuff in the Tumblr is just references to past Spidey stories and necessarily ones they plan on including in the movies
That’s how I read that. I don’t think they’ll be working a character like The Puma into any movies anytime soon.
Growing up reading comics in the 90s, I can safely say without a doubt that the Clone Saga was my favorite Spider-Man story, and one of my favorite stories in general from the period (Clone Saga and Knightfall are like, neck and neck in my mind). It gave us Scarlet Spider! And the awesome Ben Reilly costume! And Kaine! I never realized there was so much hate for the story because I didn’t get back into following comics until two years or so ago, and I was like “WHAT?! How do people not consider this one of their fondest memories?” I tore those single issue to pieces rereading them.
That said, I doubt much if anything of the Daily Bugle stuff ends up in the movies. It seems more like a “check out how much we actually know about stuff!” than anything else. If anything, I bet they’re testing reactions to what they’re posting to see potential directions and characters to include.
I think a lot of fans who were into comics in the 90s disliked the Clone Saga because it managed to be both totally unbelievable (in the bad way) and a giant fuck you to fans. This is why nerd children across the globe hurled whiteboard markers at their substitute teachers and screamed, “God is dead!”
Also, fuck Judas Traveller all day. Erreday.
I grew up reading comics in the ’90s too, and I do admit there’s a little nostalgia for it in my mind. But by the same token, it was kind of a terrible story! “EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS CHANGING! EXCEPT NOT! BUT YOU’LL BUY THE COMICS ANYWAY!”
I freely admit Superman Red/Superman Blue was a hell of a lot worse, though.
The mid-90’s is about where I started to check out of comic. Too much weird (not the good kind) and way too much Leifeld. And since I’ve some back to comics in the last couple of years, I don’t know what the hell is going on with Spider-man.
Yeah, as someone who grew up emulating Peter Parker as a man and loving Spidey as a character, the Ben Reilly thing was a punch in the nuts. Everything you’ve been reading during the formative years of your life? The books from which you’re actually learning a lot about morality and right and wrong? Lies, lies, lies. Remember when Kraven “killed” Peter and buried him alive? No you don’t, because that was Ben Reilly! Remember when Peter married and had all teh secks with MJ? BEN REILLY!
The only good thing(s) to come out of the Clone Saga was the single issue story “What About Carrion” and the clone of Gwen Stacy and how much that fucked with Peter’s (no Ben’s…no, Peter’s) head.
See, I think the weakest thing about the whole saga was when they revealed that Peter really WASN’T the clone. Just because he would’ve been a clone throughout all that, it didn’t make him any less of the Peter Parker we knew and loved for years. It just added an element that was unique and brought up interesting existential self-conflict for the characters.
It wasn’t perfectly executed, but it is damn sure less of a kick in the nuts than Superior Spider-Man.
I wouldn’t mind if they did the original Clone Saga. That’s a fine enough story. No need to get into any of that mid-90s bullshit though.
IT’S ALL TAINTED. ALL OF IT.
OK, not really, and if they do follow through with bumping off Gwen Stacy (I’m guessing they don’t), it’d be a good direction for the movies to go in.
I’ll allow it only if they cast Tobey as Ben Reilly.
I lol’d.
Or Elijah Wood. “Hey, aren’t you Tobey Mc-” “Hey, aren’t you a dumbf***?”
I’ll take Elijah Wood over Tobey. I never liked Tobey. I like Andrew Garfield even less, but Elijah Wood has this sort of berserk charm to him. When’s Wilfred coming back?
The Clone Saga was terrible… terrrrrrrrrible.
But it did bring us Kaine, who’s Scarlet Spider book was sweet.
Yeah, I love his brutal, no nonsense Spider-Man. And how they sort of brought back the “The Other” story with him and had him choose the opposite of Peter.
I was just about to say! Kaine was very cool.
Look, fuck all this bullshit about individual Spidey movies or whatever. Can Fox, Sony and Disney just reconcile so we can have the SECRET WARS trilogy that logic / passion / science / god / the universe demands?
No. Cuz Secret Wars best moment was Doom accidently recreating Cap over and over again because of insecurity, while Klaw/Beyonder echo-cho-cho-cho’s everywhere. And Hulk holding up a mountain while Rhodey in the Iron Man armor makes everyone feel creepy about their non-existent racism. If I don’t get to be happy, no one gets to be happy.
They should do Identity Crisis instead. RICOCHET! DUSK! THE BEE GUY WITH A JETPACK WHO’S NAME I FORGET! PROTEUS!
You forgot to add that his costume was just Spider Man in a Belechek sweatshirt.
The original Scarlet Spider outfit was put together in fifteen minutes in the back of a Wal-Mart.
If you think that’s bad, wait til you hear that the rebooted Amazing Spider Man films are the result of Tobey Macguire’s Spidey going through the One More Day storyline.
…
…
Actually, that makes a lot more sense.
One More Day was fucking awful, and then just when I started enjoying the Spidey books again, they pull this Superior bullshit. Hey, Marvel, Spider Man is your most popular fucking character, you don’t need to keep fucking around with the formula.
I’m with Yellow. OMD was ten times worse than the Clone Saga and that time we had to watch the Green Goblin bang Gwen Stacy, combined.
in retrospect, its not as bad as it was made out to be compared to BND and OMD.
It’s just viral marketing. I guarantee you, the Shocker, the Enforcers, Puma, and whatever else has been “teased” in the viral marketing won’t end up in the movie.
That being said, still have very low expectations for ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’. Besides the multiple villains and the first one being not all that great anyway, the sequel looks like it’s going to suffer from a late-in-the-game decision to transform the series into an expanded universe in the style of The Avengers. This means cutting MJ from the movie, and de-emphasizing the conflict with Electro in favor of a grander conflict with Oscorp.
Plus it’s written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. EVERYONE should have low expectations.
To be fair, Electro’s a doofus. Despite his awesome powers, he’s only one step higher than Hydro-Man and the Fabulous Frog-Man. Slyde brings more to the table by accident than Electro on a good day.
MAXIMUM CARNAGE OR GTFO.
Screw that, let’s go Minimum Carnage on this bad boy.
God, if they made a minimum carnage movie, I would love the shit out of that. That was probably the best bit of silly comics I read last year. Minimum Carnage was my gateway drug back into comics.
Please God let them do it. Maybe it’ll kick off a series of events that will lead to Spider-man going back to Marvel Studios.
I hated the Jackal. Never liked him. I just couldn’t take a guy who looked like Bat Boy from Weekly World News seriously as a mastermind villain. I mean the guy was naked half the time.
I didn’t mind the Ben Reilly Spider-Man suit and at some point in the movies I’d LOVE to see a “mark of Kaine” moment from Peter, where he uses his “wall-crawling” hands to rip the skin off some fucker’s (Osborne’s) face. That’d be nice.
Spiderman 2: convoluted boogaloo
I wasn’t a comic reader myself at the time, but one of my best friends used to go on and on about the Clone Saga and how great it was.
Your friend is a bad person with bad taste and he should feel bad.
Your friend probably thought Norman coming back was the greatest thing ever and secretly wanted his haircut.
PLEASE can we get at least a mention of Kraven and an eventual “Kraven’s Last Hunt” movie?
The problem with a “Kraven’s Last Hunt” is that the story works better if you know who Kraven actually is, which 20 years of appearances did for the guy.
Also, Sony does not have even the ball hairs, let alone balls, to have Kraven off himself with an elephant gun at the end of an anticlimactic final punch-out that doesn’t even really happen–Spidey pops Kraven one in the face, knocks around a stuffed elephant, chases after Vermin, and then *BANG*.
I dunno if you’d need the 20 years. Spectacular did it pretty well, but that was back when everyone knew who Steve Irwin was. The only reason doing Kraven now wouldn’t work is the producers would want to make him more like Survivorman and the last thing we need in a Spider-Man movie is a guy drinking his own urine.
This Daily Bugle Tumblr has been far more entertaining than the actual reboot was. In that it’s actually entertaining.
Ha, that’s funny. I thought one of the faces on the electronic billboards in that poster they released last week looked kind of like The Jackal, though I think it was actually supposed to be the [whichever] Goblin.
what? don’t know who you’ve been asking, but clone saga was pretty good. people loved Ben Reily.
How have you gone twenty years without hearing Clone Saga jokes?
I can live with a clone saga movie, as long as we don’t have to deal with a One More Day movie. If we really wanna go into hated Spider-Man storylines I’d love to see a movie of The Other.
The clone saga itself was mishandled and shoddy, but the concept itself isn’t bad. Ultimate Spider-Man did a pretty good job of putting a better spin on it. The mini-series released a few years ago, intended to be how the clone saga was originally planned to go down wasn’t bad either. If they set it up properly and allow for Jean-Raphio to play Ben Reilly, I’d say LFDI.