The Clones Went Down To Utah

Spider-Man: The Lost Years (by J.M. DeMatteis, John Romita Jr., Klaus Janson, Christie Scheele, and Richard Starkings) was a mini-series released during the '90s Clone Saga detailing a particular part of the time Ben Reilly spent wandering the country after surviving the original Clone Saga. I thought it was going to cover a longer arc, show more brief snippets of his travels, but no. Ben drifts into Salt Lake City for awhile, meets a waitress with a secret named Janine, and the two fall in love. Ben starts consider staying around, and begins going out fighting crime at night.

Kaine's there, stalking Reilly, but meets and falls in love with tough cop named Louise Stockton. And for a while Kaine starts to think things can be better. So that shit can't last, and it doesn't, as Kaine ultimately commits a murder which ends up coming back to bite Peter Parker in the ass (right as he's mourning Aunt May no less).

DeMatteis is working on a theme about hope, with some characters having lost it, others wanting to lose it, and others trying to convince themselves they don't believe in it at all. Kaine bought in for a moment when he met Louise, but when things went south, he gave up. Part of the going south is his cellular degeneration kicking into overdrive, and that gives him a much more monstrous and tortured face. Janson goes real heavy on the inks, to the point that, combined with the wild hair Romita gives Kaine, you can barely discern his face.

You could argue whether Ben and Janine maintain hope. They opt not to trust that if they tell the police the truth things will work out alright, and it would seem things didn't end up working out somewhere down the line. They trusted in each other, but not in anyone else.

I've always thought of this as that time where Romita Jr. draws everyone really bulky, but here, it's more than everyone is wearing heavy clothes. Every shirt, coat, pair of pants has a ton of folds in it. I don't think it's set during winter, maybe early fall, but either Romita or Janson got too busy with the lines. Lot of shadows and darkness to the story, except for a few scenes during the day when Ben's working as a teaching assistant of spending time with Janine. Even at night though, the shadows recede from his face when he's with her, and the same is true for Kaine when he's around Louise, for a briefer stretch.

There are a few fight scenes, Romita keeps things up close, rarely pulls back. The panels are a tangle of fists and Kaine's hair and assorted rubble. They're personal affairs, the other people around aren't part of what's going on, because it's these few people struggling with themselves. Is Ben going to be the hero, even as he insists the power and responsibility thing has nothing to with him? Is Kaine going to give in entirely to his rage and hopelessness? There's nothing flashy, just basic, sold storytelling.


For as seemingly critical as Janine and Louise are to the two main characters, they don't get any internal monologue of their own. Even Louise's partner, Detective Jacob Raven, gets a lot of time devoted to his internal narration. That could be simply the story being told from the perspective of the survivors, but considering the two ladies' approaches to hope - one being afraid to, the other having simply abandoned the notion - and how they play off Ben and Kaine, it might have been nice to get some time with their thoughts. Even just as a contrast between what the guys are projecting onto them and whatever the reality may have been.