SPIDER-MAN Clone Saga TV Series Nearing Green Light at Prime Video
Things could get very weird in Sony’s Spider-Man universe, and for anyone familiar with the Clone Saga, that’s exactly what you’d expect.
Prime Video is reportedly nearing an order for a new Spider-Man series inspired by Marvel Comics’ infamous Clone Saga, specifically the second Clone Saga storyline involving Peter Parker’s clones Ben Reilly and Kaine Parker.
If this thing embraces the identity-swapping madness from the comics, there’s plenty of material for a wild Spider-Man series.
The project is being written by Kelvin Yu, creator of American Born Chinese, and would essentially take the baton from Spider-Noir, which Prime Video recently canceled after one season.
That series starred Nicolas Cage as Ben Reilly, who operated as Spider-Man Noir. That was already a major departure from Marvel Comics, where Spider-Man Noir is an alternate version of Peter Parker.
This new series will apparently dig further into a different version of Ben Reilly and his mythology, although exactly how closely it will follow the comics remains unclear.
In Marvel Comics, Ben is a clone of Peter Parker who eventually builds his own life and becomes the superhero Scarlet Spider. His name comes from Peter’s Uncle Ben and Aunt May’s maiden name, Reilly. Kaine Parker is an earlier and imperfect Spider-Man clone whose life takes a considerably rougher path.
Sources caution that the comics will serve as inspiration rather than a strict blueprint, so the TV version could make some major changes.
One version of the story reportedly has Ben and Kaine discovering that they’re clones and struggling with that revelation while encountering additional clones. That could potentially open the door for characters such as Spidercide, another Peter Parker clone who becomes a villain in the comics.
Other sources suggest the show could change Ben and Kaine’s clone origins altogether and give the characters different identities.
That would be a major departure, especially because the clone question is the entire engine behind one of the craziest periods in Spider-Man comic history.
The Clone Saga famously reached a point where Marvel revealed that Ben Reilly was supposedly the original Spider-Man while the Peter Parker readers had been following was actually the clone. Fans didn’t exactly embrace that development, and Marvel eventually reversed it, restoring Peter as the original.
Whether the series goes anywhere near that level of comic book insanity remains to be seen, but the material gives Yu plenty to play with.
The project is part of the multi-title agreement between Amazon MGM Studios and Sony Pictures Television to develop shows using characters from Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters, particularly characters connected to Spider-Man.
Like Spider-Noir, the Clone Saga series is expected to premiere on MGM+ before becoming available to stream on Prime Video.
Amy Pascal, Phil Lord, and Christopher Miller, who oversee Sony’s television universe and served as executive producers on Spider-Noir, are expected to executive produce the new series alongside Yu.
I’m curious to see what they do with this because Ben Reilly and Kaine are great characters, and the Clone Saga offers some wonderfully strange Spider-Man material to pull from. A TV adaptation could also clean up and reshape one of the messier chapters in Spider-Man history into something that works really well on screen.
I hope it turns out great. Still, if I had to choose what I’d rather be watching next, I’d probably take a second season of Spider-Noir. Cage playing Ben Reilly in that world had a lot more potential, and it’s a shame we won’t get to see where that series might have gone.
Source: Deadline