After 10 years, we are winding down the show. Back in 2010, Zach guest appeared on the 104th episode of Michael Bailey’s Views From the Longbox to discuss the Clone Saga. Zach always wanted to bring him onto the show, but never felt that it was the right way to do so. However, after going through the list of appearances of Ben Reilly, there was one story that he had never covered: Marvel Vs. DC. In what would be the first trade paperback he would ever own, Zach knew there were three people that he wanted to bring forward: Michael, the co-founder of the show, Joshua Lapin-Bertone, who interestingly now works for DC Comics as a freelance writer on their website. I highly encourage you to read his articles! But then there was a guy whom Zach felt was needed to have more fun: Shagg Matthews, owner and producer of his own podcast network. Together, they go through the artwork, discuss the Cards that came with the series, discuss what it was like to work in the retail establishments at the time, discuss the artwork and why it’s kinda problematic, and more.
Shagg discusses the event with the trading cards, and gave me a great resource for them, here! Below is a gallery of the trading cards, and you’ll notice some names like Steven Butler (Web of Spider-Man’s regular artist at the beginning of the saga), Ron Lim (Unlimited and Maximum Cloneage Alpha), Darick Robertson (Dead Man’s Hand, Final Adventure) and current Chief Creative Officer of Marvel Joe Quesada.
These were unique and told a story that wasn’t all told on the page. It’s highly fascinating to see. Definitely check out the card series. (the blue-backed cards were produced by DC, with the red-backed cards produced by Marvel. DC used Peter Parker for reference while Marvel used Clark Kent for theirs.) DC then used their characters interacting with the Marvel Universe, like Batman here with the US Agents costume (See him in the upcoming Disney+ series Falcon and Winter Soldier) in the batcave! Marvel just did standard poses with their characters, which Shagg found Boring.
Podcast (clone-saga-chronicles): Play in new window | Download
