That story seemed more or less finished in 1975’s Amazing Spider-Man #149, with the clone apparently dying in an explosion. Flash-forward two decades to 1994, when a mystery man said to look exactly like Peter Parker begins appearing. Although the stories left open the possibility that the mystery man was Peter, who was suffering from a nervous breakdown that made him think of Spider-Man as a separate identity, the Power and Responsibility arc that ran across the four series published at the time—Web of Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man, Spider-Man, and Spectacular Spider-Man—established that the clone made by Miles Warren had lived.
After some hero-on-hero fighting, Peter and the clone come to an arrangement. The clone takes the name Ben Reilly, after the first name of his uncle and the surname of his Aunt May, and begins fighting crime as the Scarlet Spider. At the same time, more clones appear, including another copy of Peter called Kaine and a clone of Miles Warren, once again masquerading as the Jackal.
So far, so good, right? Yes, there are a few too many clones, but nothing that out of the ordinary for a superhero comic. Plus, Marvel gets a few new Spider-people to play with, just as the novelty of Venom has worn off.
What A Tangled Web We Weave…
But that’s when Marvel editorial gets an idea. The brass had long worried that Spider-Man comics had lost the plot. Peter Parker began as a teenager, and his stories from the ’70s portrayed him as a young adult who had to balance dates, money troubles, and freelance jobs with his superheroing. By the mid-’90s, Peter had grown up, married super-model and actress Mary Jane, and the two were expecting a baby.
They saw the emergence of Ben Reilly as their ticket out. Thus, the stories began to retcon the original Clone story from 1975. The comics revealed that the explosion in Amazing Spider-Man #149 gave Peter amnesia, and it was the clone who walked away from the wreckage. The man we knew as Ben Reilly was in fact the true Peter Parker. The man we’ve been following as Peter, the man who married Mary Jane and was expecting a child, was in fact the clone.
So Marvel attempted a great switcharoo. The Peter we’ve been following dyed his hair blonde and moved to the West Coast with Mary Jane, taking on the identity of Ben Reilly. The guy we thought was a clone took up his rightful name of Peter Parker, and stayed in New York City as Spider-Man.