Back from the Edge. This arc really shows how badly damaged Marvel characters were by the grim-and-gritty '90s. We already saw a deeply annoying grim-and-dark "Spider" in the previous volume. Here he's joined by dark Puma, dark Vulture, dark Owl, and dark Daredevil. Fortunately, the arc has a few saving graces: the writing of J.M. DeMatteis; a good subplot concerning MJ; and the fact that the point of the arc is to pull some of these characters out of grim and gritty [5+/10]. 
 Web of Life. And now we swap to a Scarlet arc. Unfortunately, this battle between Kaine, Ben, and Grim Hunter suggests that Ben got the short end of the writing stick. In short: it's dull. The protagonists spend the first two issues pussy-footing around and the last two fighting. There's very little else, and those elements are way too decompressed [4/10]. 
 Web of Death. Back to Peter. A shockingly good story, as we get an interesting side of Otto Octavius, the end of Peter's dark-and-gritty sulk, and the return of MJ. This is all helped along by great writing from DeMatteis and terrific art by Mark Bagley on the one hand and Bill Sinkiewicz on the other. Mind you, the arc isn't perfect: Tom DeFalco isn't up to DeMatteis' writing standards, the two (great) art styles clash, and we get the first hints of the major troubles of the Clone cycle, when we see the first hints that Peter is a clone ... but it's still one of the best stories in the books so far [7+/10]. 
 Funeral for an Octopus. With a Sinister Four, two Spider-Men, and an opportunity to eulogize Otto, this mini-series should have been a strong comic. Instead it's just a waste of time, presumably because it couldn't actually do anything notable while the main comics continued on. So, we get a Kaine who fails to actually hurt anyone; and two Spider-Men who don't actually meet up. There's also the head-shaking stupidity of Peter wearing the Octopus arms and then being surprised while they go out of control. Overall, not worth reading [3/10]. 
 Behind the Terror. (Spider-Man Unlimited #8.) Not a bad bit of Die-Hard-like suspense. It reads quickly and is exciting. Mind you, it's got no depth, the continuity is slightly off the other Spider books, and there continues to be an annoying refusal against the two Spider-Men meeting up [5/10]. 
 Smoke & Mirrors. And finally Ben & Peter *do* come together. The last story is two-thirds by DeMatteis, and by chance it ends up being two-thirds good. It's pretty great (finally) getting Spider, Scarlet, the Jackal, and Gwen all together, to try and give some closure to this Clone Saga. But instead we get more questions and *no* closure. Though this story's not bad, it's probably right where the Clone Saga starts to go wrong, because it should have been coming to a close instead [6+/10]. 
 Overall, this is a wildly erratic volume, so I'll call it overall average/mediocre.