Spider-Man series, but slowly grew out of control. The sales department requested extensions to the storyline, buoyed up by very strong sales on the book at a time when most other comics were experiencing a noticeable decline. With this extension, the storyline outlived several key creative staff and many decisions on the eventual direction of the storyline were changed. With Amazing Spider-Man #400, in a controversial decision, the writers ended the life of Spider-Man's aunt May Parker, a major supporting character since 1962. The "Mark of Kaine" arc added still more clones of Spider-Man. With this arc, the sales of the Spider-Man comics skyrocketed, and therefore, the writers were encouraged to keep the saga going even longer. Establishing Ben Reilly as Spider-Man At the conclusion of the story arc "The Trial of Peter Parker" in Spectacular Spider-Man #226, Peter is revealed by Dr. Seward Trainer as the clone of Ben. Peter retired as Spider-Man based on this premise and moved to Portland to live with Mary Jane, allowing Ben to take over as Spider-Man. This resulted in a major backlash by fans that wrote letters to Marvel with various complaints. Goletz said that the next chapter in the saga was to "begin the new era of Spider-Man. Peter and Mary Jane would be written out of the books, and sent off to live in peace with their soon-to-be-born child. Ben would get the chance to establish himself as Spider-Man and move forward. Going into the planning stages for what would turn out to be 'Maximum Clonage', the intent was indeed to finish up the clone story line once and for all and quickly get Ben started as Spider-Man." Also, the Gwen Stacy clone who had started the whole Clone Saga in the 1970s was to be killed to provide a fitting end. But impressed by the Age of Apocalypse crossover of sister Marvel Comics title X-Men, in which huge sales were achieved by long, spread-out story lines, Bob Budiansky ordered to duplicate this recipe for the Maximum Clonage project. Instead of tying up loose ends, the story was changed in such a way that practically every issue brought up new clones. Instead of being killed, the Gwen Stacy clone was allowed to slip away unnoticed. Following the end of "Maximum Clonage", the creative staff launched revamps of established villains (a new female Doctor Octopus, a new Vulture, and the Grim