The Big Picture: Groan Saga

[DTWolfwood]

yeh i'll take the convolutions of DC over Marvel any day XD

i don't know i just feel like DC characters are a bit easier to follow. Considering that Spiderman is this messed up and not to mention the X-Men crew, I can't follow marvel if i even wanted to >.<

 

[Moeez]

The reason why I love you doing these "comics are weird!" videos are, they're essentially history lessons for a n00b like me. It's interesting how much the social climate affects the comic's run, and how much it's dictated by what seem like marketing think tanks.

Probably why I stick to trades.

 

[qbanknight]

Jebas Christmas that sounded utterly retarded, I thought Joe Quesada enjoyed sniffing paint to come up with that bafflingly awful One More Day story. But apparently, Marvel's been on LSD-induced trip for quite a while now

 

[pigmy wurm]

While I remember hearing a bit about it when growing up I actually found out about the clone saga by my self largely through reading about it on wikipedia. Piecing together curios bits of plot synopsis a lot of the ideas seemed really good, and they could have done good stuff with it. Then I was actually exposed to the source material and found that what I had been reading was both an incomplete picture and had painted it in a really good light.

 

[Unesh52]

Ok... then where does Mephisto come in?

 

[Sylocat]

Okay, now that I've watched it, it was good.

It's nice to see a summary of that saga that is actually more possible to follow than the saga itself ever was. I wasn't much into superhero comics in my childhood, though, but still, I heard all sorts of talk about this.

 

[Sovereignty]

Wow. I didn't realize it was so complicated...

Can someone explain what the hell Doppelganger is please?! I mean is he a clone that still lives? (Cause he wears a spiderman outfit...)


Who knew Spidermans past was as complicated as the X-mens. (Seriously is Xavier even alive in the comics anymore?)

 

[Wieke]

Why is the clone a blonde, i though Peter Parker had brown hair?

 

[Snake Plissken]

Whatever, Mr. Chipman. The Clone Saga is the whole reason I began reading comic books in the first place. Ben Reilly handed Venom his own ass far better than Peter Parker ever could, and I think BOTH of his costume designs are far better than Spiderman's ever was. You may like to think that the sleeveless hoodie was to appeal to the "hardcore" crowd, but it seemed relatively functional. Perhaps not as functional as plain spandex, but far more functional than a regular hoodie. That combined with the fact that Mark Bagley did a shitload of the artwork makes me more than happy to reminisce about the good times I had with the Clone Saga.

For the record, though, the Jackal and Spidercide are really fucking stupid...

I think that pointing people in the direction of Wikipedia is doing a great disservice to them. I found plenty of great emotional moments between Ben and Peter in the books that would be lost in a simple overview of the series.

Seriously, folks, go read the books. They may not be perfect, but you have no right to ***** about the series unless you've actually read it.

 

[warboss5]

Hey Bob, since the people are, apparently, clamoring for my comic book stuff, how about introducing them to a GOOOD comic, like the ever-lovin merc-with-a-mouth Deadpool? Even getting beyond Deadpool's own weirdness, there's the story arc about whether or not his arch rival T-ray is, in fact, the real Wade Wilson and how his death at Deadpools hands tore the universe a new reality hole that could only be closed by resurrecting him... all of which Deadpool attributes directly to whoever might be writing him at the time. Comics are weird indeed

 

[MowDownJoe]

And the majority of my exposure to Spider-Man was from the 90s cartoon (which did a nice job of having running story arcs... although watching this, and watching how they worked their way out of the Parker/MJ marriage, I couldn't help but facepalm).

 

[JediMB]

The Clone Saga did not make Spider-Man sales go down. They went up. By a lot. That's why the story dragged on for over two years.

Not even replacing Peter with Ben (whom I will always love) made the sales go down. The reason Ben was eventually killed off and Peter returned to the role of Spider-Man wasn't because the audience didn't have any faith in Ben's character, but because the Marvel management didn't.

The story also spawned most of the very best villains Spider-Man had gained since the 70's.

And Spider-Girl was the only comic that kept me from completely losing my faith in Marvel... until that too was canceled for the fourth or fifth (and final) time, and I just haven't bothered with American comics since.

 

[dalek sec]

See, stuff like this is why I don't think I could ever get into comics. I like the idea of comic books in theory, but their plots often seem to just be a product of the state of the comic book market (as in this case) rather than independent and creative stories.

Same here, the only comics I've read in my entire life were two of the Sin City stories and Watchmen and that's it. The plots sometimes just get crazy like this so much that even I couldn't be able to enjoy it.

 

[rayen020]

This is why spiderman is better as a TV show really.

Also the 90s didn't completely suck. 2 things.
1)Gas prices
2)No star wars prequel triology and the ensuing futile piles of bullshit that followed becasue it turns out that stuff mr. lucas wrote first weren't as good as the stuff he wrote after. and because it wasn't the time rending mega nerd fan service homage that mega nerd fans wanted. and because it didn't have han solo. and becasue it got delayed a couple of times. and because star wars special edition already put a bad taste in people mouth. and because it created new plot holes. and because it didn't have as many wookies. and because jedi were a dime a dozen and not superheros. and because it tried to appeal to all ages instead of just 30-40 year old nerds who loved the first ones because it appealed to all ages(<- that one is actually really important and causes most arguments against the prequels to fall apart). and because it showed darth vader as an innocent boy. and becasue it didn't involve a death star.

I sorry this is way off topic and turning into a rant against rants against the prequel triology.

Clones made me think of star wars... anyway... how bout them cowboys?

 

[littlerudi08107]

I liked Scarlet Spider, I thought he was cool

 

[Swaki]

I actually liked the 90s, best television ever, like biker mice, transformers and batman, we had one of the best prime ministers, and other general good stuff happened plus a shit ton of personal good stuff.

Somewhat OT, i never really got into spiderman, partly because i live in Denmark where Donald Duck & Co is basically the only comic sold outside the very few comic book stores there is, in Scandinavia Donald is bigger than DC and marvel combined, oh and btw they just tried getting him married as well, but it turned out to be a dream...i think, anyway, i always thought spiderman was a really boring character, it never seemed like he had any positive impact at worst he made everything worse than it was before and at best he just had no influence on anything around him.

 

[rayen020]

Kudos to Sach, they really should, I now hate rift more than that damn SlimJim

cool review, and i still think Norman is a great character, and you cant pick on him for being Retconnd. Their commics Jean Grey has died and ressurected more times that Christ
<--See prof pic

you do realize thats only once right? and that once is less that most comic book characters..

 

[RatRace123]

Ah, the clone saga... you beautifully confusing plot mess.
Even amongst all the confusion back then, looking back now (especially after OMD) it's remembered more fondly. The Scarlet Spider costume is well known enough to appear as an unlockable alternate suit in a bunch of Spidey games, at any rate, so he has a bit of a cult status.

Also, thanks for appealing to the COMICS ARE WEIRD fanbase... I always love these episodes.

 

[JediMB]

I liked Scarlet Spider, I thought he was cool

He was.

Ben becoming Spider-Man permanently would have saved us a lot of crappy stories in the last decade or so as well. All the stupid attempts to shake up the status quo that culminated with One More Day/Brand New Day, which was the point where I stopped reading Spider-Man.

 

[Preston_r]

I was around 18 when the Clone Saga started for Spiderman. At that time I had subscriptions to several Marvel comics. 2 Spidey titles and (IIRC, that was a looong time ago for me) 2 X-Men.

I canceled my Spiderman subscriptions after the clone saga started and they split the 4 spiderman books in half between the 2 spiders. My 2 books started following "Ben" and not "Peter". Incensed at what I felt was a piss poor storyline from marvel I canceled. Not long after that I canceled X-Men as well.

I stuck with Image for awhile after that, but not too long until I grew tired of them as well.

I still love super-heros. Comics always have a fond place in my heart. But the clone saga was the beginning of the end for me. Comics got too weird, too convoluted, and too damn stupid at times.