Warning, this article contains spoilers for Miles Morales: Spider-Man #18.
Miles Morales may share the Spider-Man name with Peter Parker, but he’s more than grown into the role, with his own allies, adventures, and enemies. Sadly for Miles, the web-slinger legacy means that sooner or later, every Spider-Man has to deal with their own Clone Saga. Spider-Man has often been envied and imitated by his many villains. The web-slinger was even cloned before; Ben Reilly was created to be a clone of Peter Parker before claiming his own identity as Scarlet Spider. The clone was created by evil scientist Miles Warren, better known as the supervillain Jackal. Ben Reilly was Jackal’s first successful attempt at a perfect clone of Peter Parker. The evil scientist failed in his cloning experiments before, creating Kaine Parker, a clone with extreme resentment for Peter and Ben.
Ben Reilly was such a perfect clone that he even possessed all of Peter’s memories and believed he was Peter. After an identity crisis, Ben forged his own identity as Ben Reilly, the Scarlet Spider. The Scarlet Spider became his own type of web-slinger and donned a new outfit, even supporting his own comic-book stories. With Miles being confronted by his own clone, it’s possible he’ll need to deal with a Ben Reilly-style duplicate of his own.
In Miles Morales: Spider-Man #18 by Saladin Ahmed, Javier Garron, Carmen Carnero, Miles battles what appears to be a clone of himself. Miles is ambushed by someone wearing a Spider-Man costume that is identical to his own. The impostor shares his ability to adhere to walls, as well as his enhanced agility. An epic battle ensues. The two wall-crawlers attack each other blow for blow, with Miles only displaying a slight edge. The battle ends with an awesome explosion after both Miles and the doppelganger use Miles’ signature venom blast against each other.
With abilities like cloaking and his venom strikes, a cloned Miles would be a terrifying villain, especially if – like Ben and Kane before him – he retains the memories of the original. There’s even a possibility that a cloned Miles would be a risk to the identities of his friends in the Avengers and wider superhero community. If so, Miles’ clone needs to be stopped fast, but it’s possible that, as with Ben Reilly, readers may be witnessing the birth of Spider-Man’s newest ally.
