This is "How Can I Explain?", which is a feature spotlighting inexplicable comic book plots.

Today, based on a suggestion from reader Stephen D., we look at the strange circumstances behind Ben Reilly's survival during the original Clone Saga.

While he was obviously not called Ben Reilly at the time or was anything other than just "the Spider-Man Clone," the character debuted in the middle of Amazing Spider-Man #149 (by Gerry Conway, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito), the climax of the original Clone Saga. Professor Miles Warren, the villainous Jackal, had the two Spider-Man fight each other while a bomb is about to kill Ned Leeds...

Luckily for Ned Leeds, Miles Warren got into the whole cloning business because he was obsessed with Gwen Stacy. Thus, the clone of Gwen Stacy was able to get to Warren by guilting him over how evil he has gotten, which leads to Warren (who had been blaming all of his evil deeds on his secret "Jackal" personality) sacrificing himself to save Ned Leeds before the explosion goes off...

Now, you might say, "Gee, Brian, shouldn't the two Spider-Men have figured the problem out sooner and just saved the innocent Ned Leeds themselves?" Well...yeah, probably.

Anyhow, in the aftermath of the explosion the Spider-Man clone is killed. However, now the surviving Spider-Man has to wonder, "Am I seriously the real Spider-Man?"

Okay, here's where it starts to get kind of weird. So the clone is seemingly dead here, right? So Spidey obviously gets the body out of the way, gets Ned Leeds to safety and then we get the first epilogue, where he goes to visit Gwen Stacy's grave alongside the clone of Gwen Stacy. They part ways, with Peter realizing that he is now fully over Gwen and totally into Mary Jane Watson.

We now get a SECOND epilogue, where Peter returns home to find MJ waiting for him and they likely celebrate their love in a way that couples often do behind closed doors....

So now we have to be talking hours at this point, right? We have to be? And all through this, the seemingly dead Spider-Man clone continues to seem, well, you know, dead!

Now we get AN ENTIRE OTHER ISSUE!

Gerry Conway has left the series, but fill-in writer Archie Goodwin takes over for a single issue in Amazing Spider-Man #150 (art by Gil Kane, Mike Esposito and Frank Giacoia) where Spider-Man visits Dr. Curt Connors to get the lowdown on whether Spider-Man is the real Spidey or not...

As you can see, the tests looked pretty darn exhaustive, right? Not only that, but then Connors tells Spidey that it will be several hours until the results are ready. Spidey then gets into a fight with Alistair Smythe (because how can you have an "anniversary" issue without Smythe involved?).

When Spider-Man finally defeats Smythe and returns to Connors, hours have passed and Connors is asleep with the results of the tests ready (Spidey could have saved a lot of trouble by reading the results, but alas, he just wasted Connors time for nothing)...

So we're talking pretty much that the night is almost over. It is almost morning. The clone has been seemingly dead since the afternoon (note that it was still daylight when Spider-Man visits the grave of the real Gwen with the Gwen clone) and he still remains seemingly dead.

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='And now a smokestack!']

The next issue starts Len Wein's run on Amazing Spider-Man (Ross Andru and Mike Esposito remain on art duty) and the first thing Spider-Man does is dispose of the seemingly dead Spider-Man clone. So now we're talking at LEAST 15 hours since the clone seemingly died (maybe more). By the way, Spidey notes that he is only getting rid of the body now that he knows that he isn't the clone. So if he WAS the clone, he'd what? Tell everyone?

Okay, so he throws the body of the seemingly dead clone into a smokestack furnace...

Of course, we now know that Ben WASN'T dead. As seen in Spider-Man: The Lost Years #0 (by J.M. DeMatteis, Liam Sharp and Robin Riggs), the clone survived...

And this is where it all just falls apart a bit. Spider-Man somehow misses that the clone is still alive after over 15 hours? No stirring? No nothing? He throws a living guy into a smokestack? A furnace that is at least 50 feet in the air? So a guy so wounded that Spider-Man somehow can't tell that he isn't dead despite 15 hours passing and he falls into a furnace while unconscious and THAT doesn't kill him? How does any of this make any sense? Was Peter Parker just that much unawares that he couldn't tell that the clone was still alive? For serious?

It really doesn't all track. Now, future writers WOULD try to come up with a (super-stretching the realm of believability) reason later on (and I'll feature that in a bit in the future), but for the most part, it really doesn't make any sense.

Thanks to Stephen for suggesting this one! If anyone else can think of a good inexplicable comic book plot, write me at brianc@cbr.com!