Ultimate Spider-Man - Volume 17: Clone Saga

I've collected all the Ultimate Spiderman books now and just finished getting through the Clone Saga. One thing I enjoy doing with graphic novels is to thumb through initially and see if I can guess to story from the images... I'm usually off-base and this was no exception. Like everything I've read from the Bendis/Bagley team, the story sucks you in and holds your attention and the panels are second to none. If you like Spidey and enjoy new twists on previously told stories, you have to get not only this book, but the entire series! Must admit this did not fulfill missing Gwen from the line up though...

After being disappointed in the issue before this and the venom saga lacking i thought the clone saga would suck also but I was pleasantly surprised. If You enjoy seeing poor spidy getting his life even more screwed up You'll enjoy this one. The two reviews already posted explain it much better then i could but what I'm posting here is don't worry, they didn't screw up the clone saga to bad.

I got started reading Ultimate Spider-Man a few years back. I liked the idea of being able to jump right into the story without reading 40 years of back issues. While I have a lot of respect for the original Spider-Man (go Stan Lee), Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley have put together an awesome retelling of the Spidey legend. The Clone Saga is the best volume yet! The storytelling is excellent; many twists and turns, yet not too confusing to follow. Many rewarding surprises and conclusions. And the artwork is outstanding! I get tired of comics where every guy is super-ripped, and every girl is busting out of her clothes. Mark Bagley's characters are attractive, expressive (love the eyes), and instantly recognizable (every guy and girl doesn't look exactly the same with a different color hair and outfit). If you've been following the Ultimate Spider-Man series, you will love this book. But if you're just getting started, you will want to read some of the back story first.

More than any previous TPB, the clone saga proves that the Ultimate Spider-man comics are not about regurgitating the original Spider-man characters and plots. The Scorpion and even Dock Ock featured in the Clone Saga are not at all the same characters conceived in the 1960s. The Mary Jane, Gwen Stacy, and Aunt May are also very different characters than we would expect from the mainstream Spider-man universe, and they have very different relationships with Peter Parker. This is not at all a bad thing. It means that instead of grasping at someone else's vision, Brian Michael Bendis is telling the story that to him and his present-day audience is fresh and meaningful. Don't get me wrong, though. This is still good comic book fun, with all the ludicrous, over-the-top twists and turns the genre implies; in fact, it is even more extremely so. But if you are the kind of person that can suspend your sense of disbelief for a little bit and enjoy some pure entertainment, it doesn't get better than the Clone Saga. Penciller Mark Bagley is in top form here--there are some truly steller panels in this TPB. As Bagley leaves Ultimate Spider-man for other projects, his contributions to Ultimate Spider-man, and especially his work in the Clone Saga, will not be forgotten.

I approached the "Clone Saga" that makes up "Ultimate Spider-Man, Volume 17" with great trepidation. After all, it was the cloning plotlines that became for me where "The Amazing Spider-Man" jumped the shark and I stopped reading it and the rest of Marvel's Spider-Man titles. Then there is the way that writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Mark Bagley have consistently come up with creative twists and turns on the original Spider-Man stories, which becomes an additional concern when you are getting up to issue #100 of "Ultimate Spider-Man" because the first time around Stan Lee came up with Peter Parker creating a formula so he would no longer be Spider-Man and it backfired, ironically making him more like a spider by giving him two additional pairs of arms. So you link "Spider-Man" and "clones," and I start getting really nervous. "Ultimate Spider-Man, Volume 17: Clone Saga" collects issues #97-104 (which means it does not include #105 containing the epilogue). At this point Peter is dating Kitty Pryde and since everybody knows her identity as Shadowcat, when she is seen romantically with Spider-Man that means Kitty cannot be seen dating Peter. However, the fact that Peter is still seeing Mary Jane is driving Kitty crazy: what she calls "hanging out" he calls "going to school together." Their relationship is not helped when MJ drags Peter to the mall so they can talk and he can get back on his game and Ultimate Scorpion shows up and a fight ensues. The ante is upped considerably when Spider-man unmasks the Scorpion and sees his own face looking back at him. Meanwhile, MJ is suddenly abducted from her own bedroom. Spider-Man takes the unconscious Scorpion to the Baxter Building so that Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four can run tests. The results show a 94.2% DNA match with Peter Parker and now the fun begins in earnest. Bendis and Bagley really pour it on in this story line. In addition to the debut of the Ultimate Scorpion we have the first appearance of the Ultimate Spider-Woman, the "return" of Gwen Stacy, and another even more surprising appearance by somebody who is supposed to be dead. When Aunt May finds Peter and the late Gwen Stacy in her kitchen you figure that things could not be getting any more complicated, but it does, and all before we actually get to issue #100. We still have Ultimate Carnage, Ultimate Six-Armed Spider-Man in a Black Costume, and Ultimate Kaine (sort of), so there are more than enough clones to shake a stick at in this story arc. The net result is, in a word, excessive. I have not yet listed all of the clones let alone all of the major players that make up the "Clone Saga." In these issues Bendis and Bagley get to one of the landmark moments in the history of Spider-Man and because it happens in the middle of everything else that is going on the effect is rather diminished. Or maybe I was just numb after reeling from all of these things being dumped on our young hero. One of the strength