Spider-Man: The Clone Saga- Blood Brothers

PART 13

Writers: Dan Jurgens, Tom DeFalco, Howard Mackie, and Todd DeZaggo

Artists: Dan Jurgens, Klaus Janson, Mark Bagley, John Romita Jr., and Sal Buscema

An incredibly suspenseful tale filled with twists, turns, and betrayals, BLOOD BROTHERS begins unraveling the entire CLONE SAGA!

Ranking: 4 stars

Welcome to the 13th part of CLONE MADNESS Ben Reilly fans, where we attempt to untangle the web of insanity that was THE CLONE SAGA!

Back in my review of THE FINAL ADVENTURE, I that according to Glenn Greenberg in THE LIFE OF REILLY essay, that the story’s ending was heavily rewritten due to the changing editorial direction of the CLONE SAGA as a whole. I bring this piece of information up because it heavily contributes to the story that I’m currently reviewing, BLOOD BROTHERS. As I’ve stated before, following THE GREATEST RESPONSIBILITY story arc, the writer’s intention was to have Ben Reilly permanently replace Peter Parker as the new Spider-Man, while Peter moved away with his pregnant wife to live a happily ever after. Because of this, the Spider-Man titles were rebooted to star Ben as the main character, resulting in several stories that ranged from mediocre (VIRTUAL MORALITY and CYBERWARS), average (FAMILY PLOT and ALONG CAME A SPIDER), good (MEDIA BLIZZARD and YOU SAY YOU WANT AN EVOLUTION), to downright exceptional (THE FINAL ADVENTURE). Unfortunately, while the creators of the saga were highly enthusiastic to permanently implement Ben as Spidey, not only did fans protest against the replacement of Peter, but several writers then-currently working on the saga did as well. One of the most vocal of these writers was Dan Jurgens, who not only wrote the MEDIA BLIZZARD storyline I previously talked about, but was also brought on to head the Ben Reilly reboot with the new SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN book. Because Jurgens was brought into the saga so late in the game, he found the idea of Ben permanently replacing Peter to be incredibly insulting to long time fans, and felt that the creative team needed to get Peter back in the spotlight as soon as possible. As a result Jurgen’s protests, the ideas for the reboot were dropped completely, and editor Bob Budiansky was convinced to have Peter return as the one true Spider-Man. While the road to end THE CLONE SAGA ended up becoming an unimaginable nightmare for the writers, we did get some suspenseful and intriguing stories that gradually began to unravel the makings and mythos previously established by the saga, and the six-part BLOOD BROTHERS is easily one of the most important of these stories.

As usual, I need to provide some backstory to previous events in THE CLONE SAGA before I delve into BLOOD BROTHERS. In a story line called THE RETURN OF KAINE, the failed Spidey clone Kaine was not only brought back from the dead (and thank goodness for that!) after being insultingly killed off by Spidercide in MAXIMUM CLONAGE, but an ominous discovery ends up luring Peter and Mary Jane back to New York. It turns out that inside the old smokestack that Peter threw Ben’s body into back during the 1970’s, there was an old skeleton wearing a tattered Spider-Man costume. The discovery of the skeleton in the smokestack causes both Peter and Ben to panic, as they are now confused as to whether this skeleton is just another red herring, or if it’s actually the original clone from the 70’s CLONE SAGA. And if it’s the latter, does that mean that Peter is truly Ben’s clone, or something else entirely. I’m not going to delve into this plot point too much as this was another instance where the writers had no idea what it was meant to represent, and ultimately, the skeleton ended up raising more questions than it answered (insert your own joke about LOST here). All that’s really important about the smokestack skeleton in terms of the overall plot is that it brings Peter back to New York, and he and Ben are now determined to report these findings to Dr. Seward Trainer, the man who confirmed that Peter was the clone and Ben was the original in the first place. Unfortunately for them, Dr. Trainer suddenly began behaving suspiciously, avoiding all contact with Peter and Ben, and hiding behind a company called Multivex. At the ending of the previous story arc WEB OF CARNAGE, Peter, Ben, and the reader’s suspicions were further deepened as the story featured Trainer talking to a mysterious individual hiding behind the shadows.

The story opens at the Daily Bugle, where J. Jonah Jameson is celebrating over the fact that Spider-Man has been branded a criminal, as Ben Reilly had previously stolen the Spidey skeleton from the city morgue, making him a suspect for murder. As Peter attempts to get Jameson off his and Ben trails, Ben is currently struggling in managing the relationship with his girlfriend, Jessica Carradine. In previous stories, it was revealed that Jessica held an obsessive hatred of Spider-Man, whom she blamed for her father’s death. Problems are cemented further after Ben conducts some research discovers that she’s actually the daughter of the burglar who murdered Uncle Ben. Knowing that her father actually died of a heart attack way back in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #200, Ben is desperate to convince Jessica that Spider-Man was not responsible for her father’s death, but matters become even more complicated when Jessica takes a picture of Spider-Man unmasking after stopping a jewelry store robbery. Shocked to discover that her boyfriend was in fact the man she hated, Jessica breaks off all contact with Ben, and contemplates on whether or not she should enact vengeance on Spidey by revealing his identity to the world. While this is going on, Ben and Peter search desperately for Dr. Seward Trainer, who is still behaving suspiciously. As their search continues, a depowered Peter is attacked by cyborg mercenaries employed by Gaunt, the mysterious individual Trainer is shown to be working for, who wears a life support suit and resembles a living corpse. Ben has it worse however, as Gaunt orders Trainer to supplant false information about Ben’s employment history, block access to his bank accounts, and to make matters worse has cafe Ben was working at bombed. Will Ben be able to recover from the shock Seward’s betrayal, will Peter learn the truth behind this double-cross, and above all else… will either of them discover the identity and motivations of the mysterious Gaunt?

For a while I was conflicted about my thoughts on this story arc were. While BLOOD BROTHERS is incredibly suspenseful, and provides the reader with the feeling that major events went down, there were several problems from the creative process of the book that prevent it from being a complete success in my opinion. That doesn’t mean that BLOOD BROTHERS is a bad comic. Far from it in fact! One of the most important aspects of any story is to make sure that the reader remains invested in the narrative, and is provided incentive to want to continue reading. BLOOD BROTHERS definitely excels in that regard, as the plot kept me in suspense throughout its entirety, as I was always curious as to what was going to happen next, and wondered how the characters would react to the situations presented to them.

Two areas where this constant building of suspense was particularly evident to me were in the constant failures that the protagonists endure, along with the mysterious nature of the main villain Gaunt. Throughout the comic, the main characters were constantly confronted by disastrous events that ultimately impede their efforts to accomplish their goals. For instance, Ben struggles throughout the story to uncover the mystery behind Seward Trainer’s disappearance but each attempt is met with failure however. This is conveyed through Ben being falsely accused of having a violent employment history, the suspension of his bank accounts, losing the trust of his co-workers after he is accused of bombing The Daily Grind, and ultimately betrayal from a man who helped him recover from one of the darkest periods of his life. Further suspense is provided behind the mysterious villain Gaunt, who is not only the individual responsible for Trainer’s betrayal, but is also hinted to be behind the events of the entire CLONE SAGA. The intrigue behind this antagonist is that while his identity is unknown he claims to be an individual that Spidey has met before. I found this to be effective method of suspense-building as unlike Judas Traveller, who was a mysterious villain with no defined backstory or motivation, the reader has a reason to be interested in Gaunt as he could be someone we’ve already met before in Spider-Man history, providing us further incentive to want to discover his identity. Similar to THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, the atmosphere of BLOOD BROTHERS creates a sense of dread and suspense due to the intrigue behind its antagonist, as well as the fact that every thing that could possibly go wrong for our heroes in this story, does go wrong.

The one aspect of BLOOD BROTHERS that I enjoyed above all else though, was the sub-plot involving Jessica Carradine. Having been introduced back in SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN #0 and MEDIA BLIZZARD, Jessica is another character introduced during THE CLONE SAGA that I took great interest in. While she was initially set-up to be a love interest for Ben Reilly, there was always something odd about her behavior, as whenever Spider-Man appeared, she would drop everything she was doing and take pictures of him. Her photography of the wall-crawler was shown to be borderline obsessive, as she would continuously take pictures of him while ignoring any potential dangers surrounding her. This behavior of Jessica’s concerned me at first, as I was afraid that the writers were going to reveal that she had a cliched obsessive-stalker crush on Spider-Man, but to my complete surprise, it was revealed that she actually hated him with a burning passion. This was because she blamed Spidey for the death of her father, whom she believed to be a decent man wrongfully murdered by him, and was taking pictures to gain photographic evidence that would prove a criminal. While this revelation in itself provided a great amount of depth to Jessica’s character, the writers went a step further by revealing that her father was actually Uncle Ben’s killer, making the conflict personal for both her, and Ben Reilly, who she was currently dating. BLOOD BROTHERS marks an interesting turning point in Jessica’s character arc, as when she discovers that the supposed menace she blamed for her father’s death, was actually the kind-hearted and noble person she had fallen in love with. This leaves Jessica both emotionally shaken, as well as with an impossible choice. As she has hated Spider-Man for the death of her father, she is tempted to turn over evidence of Ben’s identity to the authorities. At the same time however, she wants to believe that Ben is indeed noble, and still retains feelings for him. This creates a suspenseful dilemma for the reader, as we ultimately want Jessica to overcome her hatred of Spider-Man and acknowledge Ben’s nobility, but at the same time, we fear the possible ramifications that might occur if she chooses the love for her father over the protection of Ben’s identity. Overall, this sub-plot with Jessica Carradine is quite easily one of the greatest things to come out of THE CLONE SAGA, and comes to an astonishing conclusion in the 6th issue of SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN, which is quite easily one of my favorite stories of the entire saga.

While BLOOD BROTHERS was well written and incredibly suspenseful in multiple areas, there were quite a few problems that accompanied this story line as well. As I stated before, this story was one that attempted to undo most of the changes introduced during THE CLONE SAGA, and permanently bring back Peter Parker as Spider-Man. According to THE LIFE OF REILLY however, when BLOOD BROTHERS was first conceived, it was actually intended to be the ending of THE CLONE SAGA (similar to MAXIMUM CLONAGE and THE GREATEST RESPONSIBILITY). While the story does help progress the plot of the saga in the writer’s intended direction, it was not the ending of THE CLONE SAGA, which was delayed, yet again for another 6 months. The reason for this was that Marvel’s creative staff faced another reorganization in the wake of their upcoming bankruptcy, and several writers and editors were fired as a result. Because of this reorganization, Bob Harras replaced Bob Budiansky, who was then the editor-in-chief of the Spider-Man books during THE CLONE SAGA. Being the EIC of the X-Men books as well, Harras ordered for the end of the saga to be pushed back by six months in order to avoid competition with the then upcoming X-Men event, ONSLAUGHT. As a result, BLOOD BROTHERS comes a cross as a set-up for the saga’s ending rather than the actual end.

Similar to THE FINAL ADVENTURE, this delay in the saga’s narrative resulted in much of the ending of BLOOD BROTHERS being heavily altered, and while this didn’t hurt the book’s overall quality for me, it did create some noticeable problems. The most apparent one in my opinion was the mystery surrounding Gaunt’s identity. While Gaunt was still an effective and intriguing antagonist, his identity is not yet revealed until REVELATIONS. This conflicted with the writer’s original plans for the character, as he was meant to be the sole-mastermind behind the entire CLONE SAGA, manipulating all of the events from behind the scenes. Instead, at the end of the book, it is revealed that Gaunt is actually not the one manipulating Peter and Ben’s lives from afar, but is rather just another henchman working for the true mastermind. While this does work in the favor of future CLONE SAGA stories, it comes across as jarring here as the first half of the BLOOD BROTHERS builds up Gaunt as the ultimate villain of the saga, and then he turns out to be another red-herring when it’s revealed he’s actually working for someone else. This somewhat hurts the tone of the story in my opinion, as it renders some of Gaunt’s build up to be pointless, and throws the readers yet again for another loop when it’s not necessary. Despite the problems surrounding this plot point though, I still enjoyed it as the build up did heighten my investment in the story, and Gaunt’s character still had a satisfying resolution for me when they finally did reveal his true identity in THE CLONE SAGA’s final arc, REVELATIONS (which I dare not spoil!).

Ignoring the editorial problems surrounding this story, BLOOD BROTHERS is an incredibly suspenseful and gripping comic that effectively sets up the upcoming end of THE CLONE SAGA. The constant dangers and failures that Ben and Peter faced kept me heavily invested in the story, the villain Gaunt provided an atmosphere of mystery and intrigue, and the sub-plot involving Jessica Carradine and her dilemma upon discovering Ben’s secret identity helped make her one of my favorite characters produced by the saga! Overall, while BLOOD BROTHERS did possess some serious flaws and delayed the saga’s ending even further, it didn’t feel superfluous or unnecessary, as it helped set up the events and characterizations that would help prepare the reader for the saga’s ending in REVELATIONS. This is definite proof that even when the direction of a story is heavily altered from what it was originally intended to be, it is still capable of finding a new purpose and direction.

“The suspense of a novel is not only in the reader, but in the novelist, who is intensely curious about what will happen to the hero.”

-Mary McCarthy

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