Spider-Man: Clone Wars (Part 1)

TIMELINE OF THIS REVIEW: I was at the supermarket with my mom, and she got me a Spider-Man comic titled "The Real Clone Saga". Years later, I went to Carls Jr. to order the new Thunderbolts Promotional Burger combo. The only thing these things have in common is that I'm reviewing them today. First off, the easiest one to explain.

Marvel's Thunderbolts are a bunch of guys that no one knows put together on a superhero team. They got a movie recently that I haven't seen but I probably will soon. In order to promote this movie, Mexican Carls Jr. restaurants are serving "The Team Burger", which is a combo consisting of a Burger with a special sauce, fries, and a cup for your beverage of choice. 

There's actually 2 ways to have this burger, one is the small version with small fries, a burger with one patty and a small soda, and the other is well... How do I put this... A burger with 2 patties, large fries and a large soda. I ordered the former because I haven't reached Level 100 in being a fatass.

I've tried this promotional thing twice now, and here's what I have to say about it: First thing I noticed was the sauce, it is spicy as fuck, but it's not bad. There were a few oversights and mistakes I noticed when I tried it for the first time, ONE, the employee fucked up putting the fries in the bag, but that's okay, I forgive them, and TWO, there was too much fucking lettuce in my burger. That being said, this is a pretty standard burger, lettuce, cheese, patty, bread, sauce, it's pretty good... One thing I noticed about the patties at Carls Jr. is that every first bite tastes like you're eating soggy cardboard with a little bit of Goodyear car tire. 

One thing that helps improve this burger is adding the Ranch dressing to it, but don't tell anyone I said that.

My stomach is gonna thank me later, but for now, let's all have a big, nice look at whatever it is I'm reviewing right now.

Way back in the 1990's, a little obscure event happened called the Spider-Man Clone Saga. It dragged on for like 3 years and it was shitty. Some of its effects still show on Spidey comics today and everyone makes fun of it, even Marvel themselves.

One of the many people involved in this hellhole was Tom DeFalco, editor in chief for Marvel for many years. 

After the clone saga, there was a short time where the Spider-Man series was still going and it was... Eh, it had its moments, then Howard Mackie took over and it was all gross and yucky and stuff according to SpiderFan.

Artist Todd Nauck is really cool, though I only remember him from the Obama comic.

What do these artists have in common? Well, they got together in order to make the comic I'm gonna be looking at today. This is how the Clone Saga was apparently supposed to be told. 

This is the cover, showing Spider-Man and the other Spider-Man... Fighting? To me it looks like they were just swinging and are about to crash into each other but maybe that's just me.

I am going to get a damn bookmark for this because this book won't fucking stay open, I swear to god. I mean, it's bad enough that this is larger than a regular comic book or a regular Trade Paperback for that matter, it drives me crazy, it wouldn't fit on what used to be my Spider-Man shelf, and now I have to struggle to keep it open in order to fucking read this travesty.

I've actually read this first issue before on the Marvel website, they used to have it available for free... Though, I think they removed it as soon as I stopped reading.

Spider-Man is swinging. Mary Jane is preggo (Peter doesn't know yet). Absolutely NOTHING can go wrong... Well, other than the fact that Aunt May is sick again. 

Over at a diner, some mysterious guy that doesn't look like Peter Parker just quit his job and drives away to New York. 

Peter and Mary Jane are visiting Aunt May at the hospital when Peter has a baaad feeling about this (Spidey Sense), so he puts on his Spider-Man tights and swings away, unaware of the fact that some strange shadowy person is looking at him from afar... 

The fella from the diner also visits May at the hospital until he decides to go to the top of the building to find Spider-Man! Spidey doesn't seem too surprised to find someone that looks exactly like him because back in a comic that I didn't read, he met a clone of himself, so he just figured that the clone must've come back despite the fact that we clearly saw the clone die.

Suddenly, the strange shadowy creature starts to attack both Spideys, but meanwhile, Mary Jane finds out that she's pregnant, which is gross because it implies that her and Spider-Man did the nasty. EEEWWWW. 

Anyway, the Spideys survive the attack, and the shadowy creature talks to his boss through skype or something like that. The issue ends.

This is actually an unchanged recap of events from the original... This leads me to believe that the original started with Tom DeFalco's vision. Though, I think it works well enough as part 1 of a story, there's still many loose ends to tie up, who was that mysterious figure? Who was the other mysterious figure giving him orders? How is MJ gonna tell Peter the big news? Will Aunt May live? You gotta buy the next issue to find out, but guess what, I already have the entire series. The artwork by Todd Nauck is great, for the most part, though I would've preferred if cover artist Pasqual Ferry had drawn the interiors. I'd say this is a pretty good start. 7/10.