10 Comic Book Arcs That Went On Too Damn Long
The comics that made you want to ask for your money AND your time back.
As much as we all love it, collecting comic books can be a time-consuming and expensive hobby. If you get hooked on a series, it can be almost impossible to walk away. You just need to know what happens next, and there's nothing quite like getting to the satisfying ending to a story arc that you followed from the beginning.
Unfortunately, there are some occasions when it really feels like that satisfying ending is nowhere in sight. Whether it's due to poor storytelling, poor planning, or just a poor concept to begin with, there have been some storylines in even our most beloved comics that make us reconsider if we ever really loved them in the first place.
Some of these story arcs were designed to be seemingly epic, year-spanning tales. Others were clumsily extended at the last minute to squeeze a few extra bucks out of readers. Others still were just the victims of production delays and release schedule snafus that kept them around much longer than anyone wanted.
However, each of them have one thing in common: they all overstayed their welcome by a long shot.
10. The Clone Saga
The grandaddy of all over-bloated comic book arcs, there's not much we can say about the Clone Saga that hasn't been said in a million other comic book listicles on a million other pop culture websites. The saga is notoriously messy, managing to be somehow underdeveloped and overdone at the same time. Over the two years it was published, it caused more damage to Spider-Man's reputation than J. Jonah Jameson ever could.
The thing is, it could have been a truly great story arc, if not for corporate greed. When the Clone Saga began, it was one of the best-selling Spider-Man runs in a long time. Instead of finishing it as originally planned and securing it a respectable place in comic history, the Marvel editors demanded the writers made it last as long as possible.
One of the most controversial decisions of this story was to write the original Spider-Man, Peter Parker, out of the comics altogether. In a misguided attempt to give the long-suffering Pete a happy ending, he and his wife Mary Jane moved to Portland to start a family, while his clone, Ben Reilly, took over the superhero duties.
This resulted in a huge backlash from fans, who demanded to see the long-suffering Pete suffer even more. After two years of ongoing comics, spin-offs, one-shots, and ancillary issues, things were more-or-less restored to the status quo. At this stage however, the clones had become so ingrained in the mythos, that they are still showing up to this day.