A live-action series titled Clone Saga is in development around Ben Reilly and Kaine Parker, with Kelvin Yu as head writer, intended for MGM+ then Prime Video. As of October 2, 2026, there is no date, no casting, and no season order publicly announced: everything else is rumor. On the print side, though, the landmarks are clear. Peter Parker's clone is born in Amazing Spider-Man #147 to #149 (August to October 1975). He becomes Ben Reilly in 1994: the saga opens in Web of Spider-Man #117 (October 1994), the name appears in Spider-Man #51, the Scarlet Spider costume in Web of Spider-Man #118 (November 1994). Kaine, for his part, has a single first appearance: Web of Spider-Man #119 (December 1994).
There are two ways to read a TV series announcement when you collect. The first is to immediately buy the issues where the characters involved appear, betting on the wave of curiosity that will follow the broadcast. The second is to first check what is actually confirmed about the project, then look at whether the issues in question are rare, abundant, or simply misidentified on the secondhand market. In the case of Ben Reilly and Kaine Parker, the second reading is particularly useful, because most disagreements between buyers and sellers are not about price but about a much simpler question: which issue contains what.
This article therefore separates what is established from what is assumed about the Clone Saga series, then reconstructs the publishing chronology of the two clones, from 1975 to 2025, naming for each step the exact issue, its cover date and what it contains. No prices, no amounts: as of October 2, 2026, no consultable source publishes a dated price record on these issues, and announcing a figure would be inventing it.
The Clone Saga series: what is confirmed, and what is not
Let's start with the exact scope of the information available as of October 2, 2026. A live-action series project titled Clone Saga is in development. Its announced center of gravity is the duo of Ben Reilly and Kaine Parker, that is, the two clones born of Miles Warren's work, and not Peter Parker himself. Kelvin Yu is its head writer. The planned distribution route goes through MGM+, then Prime Video.
That is the facts. Now the longer list of what is not established: no shooting date, no broadcast date, even approximate, no performer's name, no episode count, no indication of the period in which the story would be set, and no confirmation that the project will get past the development stage. A development is not an order, and an order is not a broadcast. That distinction seems academic until you have paid for it.
A calendar point deserves stating: a major convention takes place October 8 to 11, 2026, with panels scheduled. Announcements are expected there, but nothing has been said as of this writing. If you soon read that an element of the series was "announced at the convention," check the publication date before drawing a buying conclusion from it.
The 2026 precedent, on the same platforms
It happens that another live-action Spider-Man series followed exactly this distribution path this year, and its fate is instructive. Spider-Noir, eight episodes, developed by Oren Uziel with Steve Lightfoot as co-head writer, aired on MGM+ on May 25, 2026, then became available worldwide on Prime Video on May 27, 2026. The story was set in a 1930s New York, and the name of the character played by Nicolas Cage was precisely Ben Reilly, under the identity of the Spider. In September 2026, the series was ended after that single season.
Two lessons follow. The first is cautionary: a worldwide release on a major platform, with a headliner of that caliber, was not enough to guarantee a second season. A project still in development, with no date or casting, starts from much further back. Purchases made today on the strength of the announcement alone rest on a two-tier hypothesis: that the series exists, and that it finds its audience.
The second concerns the name itself. Ben Reilly served in 2026 to designate a character who was neither a clone nor a resident of the main universe. The name has become a standalone label, detachable from the Clone Saga, exactly as the Scarlet Spider costume was before it. A name appearing on screen therefore does not necessarily point to a specific issue.
Ben Reilly has three "first appearances," and that is the source of every misunderstanding
The character was built in two stages separated by nineteen years, and the making of his identity in 1994 was spread over three issues of different series published in two months. Result: four issues can legitimately be presented as important, and each can be misleadingly presented as "the" first appearance.
Amazing Spider-Man #147 to #149
This is where Peter Parker's clone is introduced, at the end of an arc running through Amazing Spider-Man #141 to #151 and including Giant-Size Spider-Man #5. The character bears no name of his own there and has no distinct costume: he is the clone, period. The denouement is in #149, dated October 1975. This issue is the true starting point of everything that follows, and it belongs to a production period far smaller than that of the 1990s.
Web of Spider-Man #117
This is the issue that officially launches the 1990s Clone Saga, in the Web of Spider-Man series, and not in the main series. The editorial project had been proposed by Terry Kavanagh. Many sale listings present it as Ben Reilly's first appearance, which is an approximation: the character reappears here, but neither his name nor his costume is settled yet.
Spider-Man #51
It is in this issue that the character receives the name he has been known by since, Ben Reilly, formed from the first name of Peter Parker's uncle and the maiden name of his aunt. This detail is the reason two good-faith sellers can present two different issues as the character's entry point, a month apart.
Web of Spider-Man #118
This is where the Scarlet Spider costume first appears, drawn by Tom Lyle: the red sleeveless hoodie worn over the blue suit, with the web-shooters worn on the outside. This silhouette durably marked character design at the publisher, and it is the one the public recognizes, well before the face or the name.
Kaine Parker: a much simpler chronology
By contrast, Kaine poses no identification problem. He first appears in Web of Spider-Man #119, dated December 1994, created by Terry Kavanagh on script and Steven Butler on art. He is presented as an earlier, failed clone, whose cellular degeneration is both his curse and his dramatic engine. One issue, one date, one creator duo: on Kaine, there is no ambiguity to exploit, so less risk of paying for an issue as something it is not.
His later path is, however, bumpier than Ben Reilly's. Three stages matter.
The mutation into Tarantula. The Jackal pushes the character's transformation further, and he appears in this form starting with Amazing Spider-Man #637, dated September 2010. It is the most often forgotten issue of his chronology.
The return to the Scarlet Spider costume. It plays out around the Spider-Island arc, with a presentation in the collective issue Marvel Point One of November 2011, then a series of his own: Scarlet Spider volume 2, from January 2012 to December 2013, twenty-six issues, written by Christopher Yost and drawn by Ryan Stegman, set in Houston. The first issue passes fifty thousand copies sold, then the series settles around twenty-two thousand by mid-2013. These two figures say the essential: the series was never a phenomenon, and its issues were therefore printed in modest quantities for the era.
Joining a team. Kaine joins the New Warriors in the first issue of volume 5, dated February 2014, then takes part in the decade's big Spider-crossovers. His screen appearance has in fact already happened quietly: the character appears in the animated feature film released in 2023.
The pivotal issues of the 1990s saga
Between the 1994 opening and the 1996 conclusion, the saga stretches over more than two years and four monthly series that answer one another. It was supposed to last a few months. Sustained sales pushed the publisher to prolong it, which explains its reputation as an interminable arc and, incidentally, the considerable volume of issues printed over the period. Four moments structure the whole.
Spectacular Spider-Man #226, July 1995
Conclusion of the Peter Parker trial arc, and the central reversal of the whole saga: the character learns he himself might be the clone, and Ben Reilly the original. This revelation will be reversed later, but it is what makes the Clone Saga something other than a replacement soap opera.
Amazing Spider-Man #400, April 1995
One of the period's rare self-contained stories, and the heaviest emotionally: the death of Aunt May. It will later be revealed as faked in the main continuity, but it remains effective in a parallel continuity of the publisher. It is the issue of the period that non-collector readers cite most often.
Maximum Clonage, then Sensational Spider-Man #0, January 1996
The Maximum Clonage crossover, framed by two special issues, was supposed to close the saga and did not. It is Sensational Spider-Man #0 that marks the real shift: Ben Reilly finds a new costume, takes over as the title Spider-Man and leads an independent life. For nearly a year, the main character of the series is no longer Peter Parker.
Spider-Man #75, December 1996
Conclusion of the Revelations arc and of the entire saga, with the revelation of Norman Osborn as instigator and the death of Ben Reilly. The return to the initial state is complete. It is the closing issue, and it is at least as important as the opening one, which key-issue lists regularly forget.
A material remark applies to this whole period: many of these issues carry metallic, prismatic, lenticular or double-fold covers, and these processes age badly. Before considering grading, read our guide on CGC grading: on these covers, the difference between two neighboring grades comes down to defects invisible at arm's length.
The two returns: 2016 and the following decade
Ben Reilly stayed dead for twenty years, which is a considerable length for a character of this importance. His return happened in three movements, and each produced issues the TV series could put back into circulation.
The 2016 and 2017 crossover. In The Clone Conspiracy #3, dated December 2016, the character reappears under the identity of the Jackal. The mechanism is brutal: he was killed and resurrected repeatedly during the fine-tuning of the cloning process, and came out of it different. It is a way of bringing back a dead man without undoing his death.
His own series. Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider, written by Peter David, runs twenty-five issues, from April 2017 to October 2018. For a character absent for twenty years, a two-year series is a solid result, and the best available indicator of his reader base.
The Beyond era and the Chasm identity. This is the most important sequence for understanding the character as he exists today. Ben Reilly takes the Spider-Man role in Amazing Spider-Man volume 5, from its issue 74 dated November 2021 to its issue 86 dated March 2022. His memory is altered by his handlers. At the end of the arc, in issue 93 dated March 2022, he tips over and becomes the character of Chasm. The Dark Web crossover, in winter 2022 and 2023, takes him to the Limbo dimension alongside Madelyne Pryor, with an explicit goal: going after Peter Parker's soul.
Finally, a four-issue miniseries titled Chasm: Curse of Kaine puts the two clones face to face. Its collection, released in June 2025, comes with an issue of Web of Spider-Man dated 2024. It is the most recent point of the chronology shared by the two characters, and the least known: if an adaptation revives interest, this is the kind of recent, low-print-run issue you can no longer find on the shelf.
What to do with all this, concretely
Three principles, in order of importance.
Buy the issue you have identified, not the one the listing describes. On these two characters, the confusion between Web of Spider-Man #117, Spider-Man #51 and Web of Spider-Man #118 is the first cause of regretted purchases. Check the number, the series and the cover date. All three together, never just one of the three.
Account for the print run of the time. The 1994 to 1996 issues were printed during a period of overproduction, then kept en masse by buyers who thought they were precisely making an investment. Copies therefore exist in large numbers, including in fine condition. By contrast, the 1975 #149, the issues of the 2012 series and the 2024 miniseries come from much narrower production contexts. Relative scarcity does not follow the order of narrative importance, and that is where mistakes are made.
Take inventory before buying. On an arc spread over four monthly series, nobody remembers from memory what they own. Issue-by-issue tracking and a list of missing issues turn an approximate hunt into a short race, and our free estimate quickly says what the existing stock is worth.
For the rest, the rule that applies to all adaptations fits in one sentence: what durably gains value is not the announcement, it is what survives the broadcast. This year's case, on these same platforms, has just reminded us. To place these two clones in the full picture, our pages on Spider-Man, on the character's history in comics and on the Clone Saga key issues take over.