Power and Responsibility

Power and Responsibility was the chromium-covered four part flip book epic that kicked off the Spider-Man clone saga.

No, not the original clone saga from the 70’s. 

No, not the awesome “What If” follow up that looked at what would have happened if the clone had lived. Although, wait... the clone DID live. And this isn’t what happened. But no time for thinking about that. 

And no, this isn't your typical Spider-Man vs. "Spider-Man" fight. This is the definitive Spider-Man vs. "Spider-Man" saga. Any and all previous stories involving Spider-Man fighting a crappy version of himself are officially obsolete. No time for that shit.

No time for anything except figuring out how you’re gonna locate and pay for back issues of Maximum Carnage. Speaking of which, Power and Responsibility has 14 pages of ads for the Maximum Carnage video game in 4 issues, just like how there were 14 parts in the Maximum Carnage “story”! Each issue had an ad on the inside back cover, an ad promoting the game, a full page ad for tips and tricks to playing the video game, and Spec had another 2-page splash ad for the game.

There has been a lot of criticism of Power and Responsibility and the Clone Saga, not just from fans, but from the writers themselves. In particular, the writers admitted that they weren’t quite sure what they were doing with the seemingly omnipotent Judas Traveller and his band of specialists. The original ideas for the story arc kept changing and morphing as writers got replaced and sales figures kept coming in. The clone saga just kept getting extended because sales were up, and writers were scrambling to figure out how to make the sorry last longer, which meant that the story was getting more convoluted and was straying further from the original vision literally each month. It ended up lasting from 1994-1997. Whew!

I’ve heard that the writers were concerned that Peter Parker being married to MJ was really putting a damper on writing exciting stories—and sure, maybe people enjoyed reading about Spidey living life on the edge with the Black Cat as opposed to Spidey having marital problems. It’s certainly less free-wheeling and whimsical, although I doubt anyone would describe marriage to a red-headed supermodel as mundane by any stretch. So the writers may have been looking at ways to get rid of MJ, either by making her unbearable so the fans would hate her or maybe by having her die? There was a whole sub-story about Mary Jane’s smoking habit that permeated across the Spider-titles. Maybe they were considering giving her cancer? Only the Watcher knows for sure.

Power and Responsibility actually had a “Marvel Survey” that you could cut out and mail in, featuring bombshell questions like “who is your favourite hero?”, “should X-Men be published twice a month?”, and “should Peter Parker get a divorce?” Holy fuck.

Side note, this isn’t the first time that writers have put things to a vote. At one point, DC had a phone in campaign where you could decide whether Robin should die or not (proving once again that the only people that are more hateful than the writers are the fans, as Robin got voted to death)

Apparently, another idea being floated around was that the clone would just replace Spider-Man entirely, and permanently. That would solve the Mary Jane problem and would bring Spidey back to the basics. Too bad everyone (especially yours truly) hated the idea that every Spider-Man comic for the past 20 years starred an impostor. I wonder what the producers of the Maximum Carnage video game would have thought if the story was retconned so that players were actually controlling a clone instead of the real Spider-Man. Would people care? You bet your sensational Spider-Ass they would.

All that being said, the clone saga has received a lot of hate. It was trying to be epic, which quite frankly, it needed to be, considering that all the big names at the time were doing crazy big stories. X-Men did Age of Apocalypse, Batman did Nightfall, Superman did the death of Superman, and Archie had a crossover with the motherfucking Punisher.

Spider-Man had Maximum Carnage, sure, but it needed something even more dramatic. 

I fucking loved the 90’s clone saga. Sure it was meandering, but comic books are soap operas anyway. Sure, it had a new Spider-Man-ish character in a similar costume, but so did Nightfall. The Reign of the Supermen had like 5 Supermans in it! Sure, every book just added more layers to the mystery and never provided any answers, but guess what: it was the 90’s. People shit their pants over the “X-Files”, which was premised entirely on never giving any answers or ever resolving any mysteries, ever. Not even in the X-Files movie. 

Also—FLIP COVERS! Rad to the max!

So what if Traveller was too powerful, Scrier was too mysterious, the clone’s costume was too 90’s, or Mary Jane was too naggy? That ignores the most important mantra in all of comics: “just go with it”. 

Just fucking go with it! Maybe it will take you somewhere cool. Maybe it’ll take you somewhere smart! Maybe it will take you to somewhere dumb! Having two Spider-Mans lends itself to some cool stories, and having the two of them living intertwined lives made me feel like each issue was building toward something even bigger. 10 times out of 10 I’d rather see the Scarlet Spider fight Venom and hit on Betty Brant than read another godawful Tombstone filler issue in the Spectacular Spider-Man.