Greeting once again fellow comic fans and other perusers of the internet! This week I decided to cover an upcoming new series from Marvel that appears to have the makings of a hit, the forth coming THE SCARLET SPIDER. You may remember seeing a teaser and a mention of The Scarlet Spider in a previous post about what is coming up for Marvel in 2012, but after considering the series' chosen protagonist and some confusion many people might have about him I though it would be a good idea to offer a little bit up back story to the uninitiated. So for your entertainment and edification, let me introduce you to the man behind the new mask... Kaine.
*WARNING: THE FOLLOWING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS INVOLVING SPIDER-MAN. READ AT YOUR DISCRETION*
Kaine first came into being at the hands of The Jackal, a mad biochemist named Dr. Miles Warren obsessed with Spider-Man and all things cloning. If you read much of Spider-Man in the early-to-mid Nineties, you may be aware of some of Kaine and The Jackal's exploits, as it was during this time that the now fairly infamous Clone Saga occurred in Spider-Man's corner of the Marvel U that resulted in Kaine's 'birth'. During this time The Jackal was experimenting with creating a clone of Peter Parker (who he knew to be Spider-Man), the first successful attempt being Kaine. While Kaine was intended to be an exact clone of Parker the inherent flaws of the cloning process eventually disfigured Kaine to the point that The Jackal deemed him a failure, despite the fact that Kaine continued to become physically larger and more powerful than his progenitor Spider-Man. After The Jackal deemed Kaine a loss and decided to destroy him, Kaine fled from The Jackal and went into hiding until The Jackal later launched an assault on Spider-Man using the newly made successful clone that would go on to be the first Scarlet Spider Ben Reilly.
The events that spun (no pun intended) out of this clash of clones are what comprised the bulk of the Clone Saga, and while I would like to explain the entire saga that would take a small novel to adequately make sense of. So to give you the important bullet points:
1. Peter Parker and Ben Reilly, while at odds at first,eventually became close friends and considered each other brothers until Ben's death.
2. For a period of time, Peter thought he was the clone and Ben believed himself to be the original.
3. Kaine developed a love/hate relationship with Parker and Reilly, mostly due to the previously stated confusion, and often went out of his way to help Parker (who he thought to be a fellow clone) and harm Ben Reilly (who he believed to be the original of the three and partially to blame for his suffering).
Eventually all of the Clone Saga business was sorted out, but the result of all this clone confusion was a small period of time in which Ben Reilly adopted the identity of The Scarlet Spider while Peter took some time off to reassess his life as Spider-Man. During this time, Kaine continually stalks his 'brother', causing problems and chaos for him whenever possible until he finally strikes a tenuous peace with Ben shortly before his death.
At this point Kaine reveals that the cellular degeneration that caused his disfigurement is actually killing him, and briefly hands himself over to authorities for his actions against Ben and accepts his situation. After discovering that the events of the Clone Saga were in fact backed and indirectly caused by Spider-Man villain Norman Osborn (The first Green Goblin), Kaine decides to use an opportune mass escape from the super villain prison The Raft to disappear into the shadows of the Marvel U to exact revenge on Osborn.
For a while after his prison escape, Kaine did not appear in Spider-Man titles or any other Marvel series until his unexpected return in The Amazing Spider-Man #608. Kaine tells Spider-Man in a brief tussle that he has been tracking down a former associate of Ben Reilly named Damon Ryder, a.k.a Raptor, the last few months because he believes that he may hold the key to fixing Kaine's ever increasing cellular damage. While Kaine initially uses Raptor's hate of Ben Reilly by identifying Spider-Man as his clone, Raptor later confesses after he is defeated by Spider-Man that he never had the means to heal Kaine. Kaine does not take this well, and seemingly chokes Raptor to death.
Kaine is not seen again until the events of The Grim Hunt, in which the family of the deceased villain Kraven the Hunter attempts to hunt down all spider powered individuals to exact revenge on Spider-Man and resurrect Kraven himself. While Kaine avoids capture and tells Spider-Man that running from the hunters is the best option, Peter chastises him for his cowardice and his willingness to leave the other spider-powered heroes already captured in the hands of the hunters. In the end it is revealed that the hunters, who believed they had caught Spider-Man and sacrificed him in a ritual to bring back Kraven, had actually sacrificed Kaine in Peter's costume. Kaine had followed Peter to the home of the hunters and knocked him out, using the opportunity to selflessly switch places with him and seemingly die at the hands of the hunters.
Despite Kaine finding relief and a small amount of redemption in his sacrifice, the Marvel U fates seemed to have other plans. After Peter puts together a burial for Kaine and lays him to rest next to his 'brother' Ben, The Jackal again appears and uses his knowledge of Kaine's physiology to bring him back from the dead, mutate his cellular degeneration into further drastic physical changes, and force the advancement of his spider powers even farther than before. Kaine was then called Tarantula by The Jackal and appeared to be under his influence or control, and acted as his bodyguard up until the climax of the recent Spider-Island event .
It was during the climax of the Spider-Island event that Kaine came into contact with a large dose of the vaccine that was developed to cure the spider-virus The Jackal had been hired to make by The villainess The Queen. The vaccine not only returned Kaine to a human form, but also left him cured of his cellular degeneration and the disfigurement it had caused him throughout his life. After borrowing a suit from Spider-Man and helping him and the other Marvel heroes defeat the Queen, Kaine informed Peter that he planned to take advantage of what he saw as a second chance at a better life and leave New York to make a life for himself.
This journey to forge a better life is the story Marvel's new run The Scarlet Spider aims to tell, but if Kaine's life has taught him anything it's that nothing he does is ever easy. Between battling villains old and new Kaine will have to fight the murderous compulsions that have defined him most of his life, and attempt to become what he has never been before; his own man. The new trails and tribulations of Kaine as The Scarlet Spider begin in January 2012, and from the looks of things readers and Kaine are both in for one thriller of a ride.
That's all for now everyone! Until next time, keep reading!
Libellus Pagina Amitorious,
Matt
