10 Most Tragic Deaths In The History Of Spider-Man

9. Ben Reilly

The Clone Saga tends to top lists of Spider-Man fans' worst storylines of all time. It gets mentioned with a couple of derisive snorts or spits. It's a shorthand for terrible, terrible plot twists and storytelling that nobody liked or thought was necessary. And, well, people are mostly correct for thinking and doing all of those things, because the Clone Saga was about 98% hot garbage. A quick recap: it turned out that the Spider-Man we'd been reading about for the past thirty years was actually a clone, and a guy called Ben Reilly was the original. He turned up and took over as resident webhead, but keeping his pseudonym and allowing the "cloned" Peter retain the life he made (although he was losing his powers). Then, after a while with Ben Reilly as Spider-Man and Peter off making babies with Mary Jane, it turned out that was a load of cobblers, Ben was the real clone, and the whole thing had been set up by a presumed dead Norman Osborn in order to mess with his arch enemy. Boy, the Green Goblin can be way harsh, you guys. Anyway, much like the Superior Spider-Man debacle, the Clone Saga remains similarly controversial but we managed to discover some diamonds and the rough. Like Ben Reilly, for example, whose life experiences - and blonde hair dye - gave us a bit of a different spin on the usual Spidey antics. Which again, only made things all the more poignant when he got stabbed by a goblin glider and collapsed into a pile of sand. Because we guess that's what clones are made out of? Clones are those things kids make with buckets on the beach, right? Even worse was that, despite the situation, Peter and Ben had become pretty close friends during all this lunacy. Seeing the closest Spidey ever got to an honest-to-goodness brother pass away tugged at our heartstrings a little, we'll admit it.