The Clone Conspiracy #1 - Marvel Comics

THE CLONE CONSPIRACY No. 1, January 2017

Described by Editor Nick Lowe as “the craziest Spider-Man story I’ve ever worked on”, Issue One of “The Clone Conspiracy” arguably plays to one of Dan Slott’s supposed strengths by heralding the return of a number of “classic characters from Spidey-Lore” such as the Rhino, Otto Octavius, Gwen Stacy and her father, Captain George Stacy. Indeed, even this publication’s ten-page secondary story, “The Night I Died”, must have delighted its 90,285-strong audience with the Eisner Award-winner’s re-imagining of Gwendolyn’s murder at the hands of the Green Goblin “a lifetime ago” and subsequent revival by the Jackal “in a lab. In San Francisco, of all places.”

Fortunately however, this opening instalment of the “Spider-Man event of 2016” is not just about having some of the franchise’s most popular dead make ‘shock returns’, and instead actually starts with Peter Parker doing a bit of ‘low-level’ snooping, just as he once did when he worked for the Daily Bugle. Admittedly, “the CEO of his own technology company” is accompanied by his trustworthy aide Anna Maria Marconi whilst questioning Jerry Salteres’ wife, and inevitably he dons his famous red and blue costume in order to conduct some “industrial espionage” at the New U’s Headquarters. But the entire tone of the super-hero’s investigation is highly reminiscent of the basic legwork he once employed before “his (and Spider-Man’s) friendly neighbourhood” got a lot bigger, and resultantly imbues the narrative with a nostalgic atmosphere somewhat akin to that of the character’s John Romita days; “This is just me cutting through all the red tape and saving everybody tons of time.”

Jim Cheung’s incredibly detailed artwork also clearly contributed towards making this comic the eleventh best-selling title of October 2016, with the British penciller’s dynamic drawings of Aleksei Sytsevich, the new Electro and Web-head’s riotous battle down amidst the Jackal’s “very mad-scientist-y” laboratory proving particularly pulse-pounding and thrilling. In fact, the co-creator of the “Young Avengers” provides such consistently outstanding breakdowns, whether they be Jay Jonah’s grim-faced burial, Emma Salteres ‘interrogation’ or Parker’s alter-ego kicking the Rhino in the chops, that for this aspect alone the mini-series is “one Spidey fans will be talking about for years!”

The variant cover art of "THE CLONE CONSPIRACY" No. 1 by Mark Bagley