10 Fascinating Comic Moments That Almost Happened
5. Spider-Man Almost Retired
One of Spider-Man's most nefarious enemies if the Jackal, a twisted scientist obsessed with cloning Peter Parker. The clone though, decided to follow in the original's heroic footsteps. Naming himself Ben Reilly, he fought crime as the Scarlet Spider.
However, during the abysmally long Clone Saga, it was revealed that Ben was actually the original Spider-Man and it was Peter who was the clone.
This plot twist was actually originally part of a plan to retire Peter Parker. At the time, Peter was married to Mary Jane Watson and they were expecting their first child. Marvel executives were worried though, that this would age Peter too much and younger readers would stop reading the comic. The planned solution (instead of something stupid like Spider-Man selling his marriage to the Devil) was for Ben to continue as the real Spider-Man with no romantic attachments while Peter retired to raise a family.
A major complaint of superhero comics is how their protagonists seem stuck in a constant cycle of arrested development and so having a major character like Spider-Man actually grow-up and move on with his life would have been a major game changer. Unfortunately, the higher ups got cold feet and Ben was revealed to have been a clone after all after he was killed by the Green Goblin.
Writer Tom DeFalco would sort of get his wish though when he wrote the alternate-reality series Spider-Girl about Peter and MJ's superhero daughter.