AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #24
Writer: Dan Slott & Christos Gage
Penciler: Giuseppe Camuncoli
Inker: Cam Smith
Colorists: Jason Keith
Letterers: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover Artist: Alex Ross
Variant Cover Artists: Gabiriel Dell’Otto & Joe Jusko
Release Date: 02/15/17
Rating: Rated T+
Price: $3.99
Professor Miles Warren, the supervillain named the Jackal and master Geneticist who specialized in cloning has harbored a longtime obsession with his student Gwen Stacey and her boyfriend Peter Parker. Warren blamed Spider-Man for Gwen’s stacey and cloned Peter to ruin his life. The first Clone, now known as Kaine Parker was imperfect, but the next clone now known as Ben Reilly was such a success that for a while both Peter and Ben thought him to be the true Peter Parker until a battle with Norman Osborn ended with Ben decomposing into a pile of goo.
Professor Warren improved his cloning process and used some of the goo remains of Ben Reilly’s body to create a new clone with all the memories of the previous right up until the moment of death. Warren continued to kill and clone Reilly until he broke free and turned the tables on Warren. Reilly cloned Warren, and never told him which one was the true Warren which were the clones making each dependent on the drug they need to stay from decomposing.
Ben Reilly assumed the the mantle of Professor Warren making the real professor and his dupes to work for him. Reilly set out to bring back all the people Peter Parker had “failed” during his career as Spider-Man under his new company New U Pharmaceuticals. Using a dangerous new cloning process that required the clones to take a pill a day or face decomposing. During a confrontation with the revived Doctor Octopus, Doc Ock released a frequency that threatened to release the Carrion virus to clone and humans alike.
Plot: It is Doc Ock Vs Ben Reilly! The two battle to the death as the Carrion virus ravages their bodies. Can Peter and Anna save the rest of humanity from their fate? What happens to the original Jackal now that the clones are revealed?
Story: This is a Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy tie-in as the last few issues were. I have to admit most of the time when companies do these big events they are usually followed with a mess load of tie-ins that really have little to no impact on the main event. I am pleased that this time the Amazing Spider-Man tie-ins to The Clone Conspiracy are really good. I see each issue sort of like deleted scenes in a DVD. What I mean by that is Slott and Gage have found the perfect formula for a tie-in that gives you all of these great addition scenes for the main book, but at the same time doesn’t make neither the tie-ins or the main book to suffer or want due to the inclusion/exclusion of the other.
I’m a huge Ben Reilly fan and with the new ongoing announced, this issue was a must read for me. I want to know how the setup for Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider and I think they paint a good picture of where that book will go. I will admit though I am not crazy with this new attitude with Ben, being so angry and violent. But the ending of this issue really shows us that he is leaving behind the Parker memories and even his old life/lives so what we get in the new book is something new for the character.
Art: The art here is great as all of Giuseppe Camuncoli’s work. He does a great job taking what we saw in the pages of Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy #5 and expanding on them making the scenes explode even more. Cam Smith and Jason Keith team up for a great one two punch that makes Camuncoli’s art pop even more.
The layouts of the pages really flow nicely from one scene to the next lending an almost cinematic feel to the book. I really felt this issue was one of the strongest artwise for these tie-ins, and really did a great job capturing not just the action but the emotional impact of the scenes.
Verdict: Overall this issue is a pretty good issue and is definitely worth a pick-up. This book does a great job adding to the main Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy event and serving as a set up for the upcoming Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider ongoing series.