Spider-Man: Clone Saga Omnibus Vol. 2 collects material from Amazing Spider-Man nos. 402-406 and Super Special, Spider-Man nos. 59-63 and Super Special, Spectacular Spider-Man nos. 225-229 and Super Special, Web of Spider-Man nos. 126-129 and Super Special, Venom Super Special, New Warriors nos. 61-66, Spider-Man: The Jackal Files, Spider-Man: Maximum Cloneage Alpha and Omega, Spider-Man Unlimited no. 10, Spider-Man Team-Up no. 1, Spider-Man: The Lost Years nos. 1-3, and Spider-Man: The Parker Years. This volume picks up where the previous omnibus left off, with Peter Parker facing trial for murders committed by his misshapen clone, Kaine. Meanwhile, the Jackal continues to wage his mind games against Peter Parker and Ben Reilly, referring to them as sons and creating Spidercide, a more powerful clone, in the process.

Things come to a head in this volume when genetic tests prove that Peter Parker is the clone, while Ben Reilly was the original the whole time. Peter, who had thought himself the original due to the Jackal’s clever manipulations during Amazing Spider-Man nos.139-150, undergoes a breakdown where he questions the entire life he’s lived over the five years since the original Clone Saga. Amid all the melodrama, one cannot help but feel bad for Mary Jane in the middle of this story. Pregnant with Peter’s child, she worries about the effect his radioactive blood will have on their child’s development while Peter goes through his existential crises, even slapping her at one point. He had walked out on her briefly during one such crisis at the beginning of the first omnibus and he does it again. These actions begin to strain the willing suspension of disbelief because Mary Jane, having grown up in an abusive home and broken off ties with family members for her own well-being, should not have allowed Peter to act this way towards her. While the various writers attempt to portray her as supportive, it instead leaves the reader wondering why she doesn’t just go stay with her Aunt.

After the “Maxiumum Cloneage” story, in which Ben Reilly was revealed to be the original and Peter Parker the clone, the volume begins to focus more on Reilly/Scarlet Spider with stories involving the Lizard, the Vulture, Scarlet Spider’s place on the New Warriors team, and the new Doctor Octopus, Carolyn Trainor. Though the editorial staff of the Spider-Man books intended this to serve as a way to shake things up like the title-wide crossover Age of Apocalypse in Marvel’s X-Men titles, it becomes clearer and clearer over the course of this volume that there wasn’t much of a plan in place for how to wrap things up. For example, the “Maximum Cloneage” storyline reads more like a parody of the whole premise with its very title a play on the earlier – and more popular – “Maximum Carnage” story. This volume ends with the gritty “Lost Years” series, which fills in part of the backstory of Ben’s time away from New York, and the “Parker Years” one-shot, which was to be a final goodbye to Peter as Spider-Man.

Though the editors may have intended Ben Reilly to take on the Spider-Man mantle as a way to reinvigorate the character and clean up nearly 40 years of continuity, they later changed their minds, requiring a lengthy explanation to put things back to normal. At one point, Marvel even released a one-shot comic titled Spider-Man: 101 Ways to End the Clone Saga. Ultimately, it took the follow-up to the Clone Saga – The Ben Reilly Epic – to resolve matters. Currently, Marvel publishes The Complete Ben Reilly Epic in six volumes, though the first omnibus volume is due in January of 2019 and will collect material from the first three trade paperback volumes.

Over the course of this volume, the quality of the art noticeably improves as compared to the earlier overreliance on excessive line work and unnecessary pouches and shoulder pads that characterize the 1990s, though Todd McFarlane’s influence continues to shape Spider-Man’s overall appearance and there are some stories that relapse into the garishly exaggerated artistic style of this period. Spider-Man: The Jackal Files, while nominally about the Jackal implanting information into Spidercide’s memory, also serves to catch readers up on much of the continuity of the Clone Saga up to that point. The “Planet of the Symbiotes” storyline, though occurring at the same time as the rest of the Clone Saga, interrupts that story to tell an unrelated tale featuring Venom as does a series of Scarlet Spider stories about mercenaries and the Lizard following “Maximum Cloneage,” so that the reader needs to wait to for resolution between Peter and Ben. For two years, the Clone Saga dominated the various Spider-Man titles and even influenced Spider-Man: The Animated Series and Ultimate Spider-Man. Recently, the Clone Conspiracy storyline returned to events from this series, making this somewhat infamous story relevant once again.

Marvel’s omnibus editions collect a great deal of material – this one includes 44 comic books – but that size makes them rather unwieldy when compared to DC’s omnibus editions. That said, they are quite comprehensive for the collector looking to establish a comics library. ( )