Kaine
Kaine is a male comic clone character who features in Marvel Comics.
Contents |
Biography
Origin
Kaine was the name given to a clone of Peter Parker with this one being the first created by the Jackal. Initially a success, the clone began to suffer from clone degeneration causing him to suffer from mental instability along with him slowly dying. Miles Warren deemed Kaine a failed experiment and attempted to dispose of him but the clone managed to escape. The Jackal allowed Kaine to live as a test subject, to see how long the clone would survive; it ended up far exceeding his expectations. As a result, Kaine experienced a strong feeling of rejection like that which might arise between a father and son. Kaine left Professor Warren and realized that the partial degeneration had also caused a slight amplification of the powers he had genetically 'inherited' from Peter. His strength, speed, stamina, and agility were comparable to those of Peter, but he also gained precognitive powers as well, which shows him flashes of the future with this new ability being assumed to be an amplified version of Peter's spider-sense. He also possessed a corrosive touch that left an eaten-away hand-print on the faces of his victims with this being called the Mark of Kaine. (Spider-Man v1 #60)
He followed Reilly over the course of the next 3 years where Kaine came to travel around the world from San Francisco to Singapore to Bombay. In this time, he came to encounter a police officer named Louise Kennedy where the two had a mutual attraction to one another. He came to help fight off some armed men that had surrounded her with the two spending the night together. (Spider-Man: The Lost Years v1 #1) During their time together, Kaine felt a measure of happiness as he saw her as a light in his life that had only ever known suffering. It was then that he experienced an acceleration in is clone degeneration that left him nearly mad from the pain experienced by him. This saw him attacking Ben Reilly as he looked to pass his pain onto someone else. (Spider-Man: The Lost Years v1 #2) During this time, Reilly came to be captured by the local mob after his recent fight with Kaine. It was then that Kaine found out that Louise Kennedy was a crooked cop who was working for the mob. This broke Kaine who felt betrayed by Louise having surrendered to the darkness that he despised for so long. Later on, the enraged Kaine tracked down Reilly and attacked him as his fellow clone had looked to leave to start a life with Elizabeth Tyne. In this time, Louise had tracked Reilly and intended to eliminate him to ensure he did not expose her connections to the criminal underworld. Before she could fire her gun, she was attacked and killed by Kaine who branded her with the Mark of Kaine where he left her body behind. (Spider-Man: The Lost Years v1 #3)
Kaine was responsible for setting up his fellow clone Ben Reilly up for murder all in an effort to remove his existence from Peter Parker's life. (Spider-Man v1 #60)
Afterwards, he came to operate a famed assassin and hitman who was hired to eliminate certain targets. He was in Midtown where a prospective client wanted him to eliminate Papa Granite but whilst reading the newspaper he came to read about the appearance of a mysterious Scarlet Spider in the news. This led to Kaine killing his employer and leaving the scene as he had other matters to attend. (Web of Spider-Man v1 #119) He was later shown to be observing a battle between the Scarlet Spider and Venom where he was not surprised that the spider was holding his own against the alien creature. Kaine would note that on Spider-Man that the hero was always was the lucky one and that he always found life even under situations where one would normally die. He later left the scene after having seen Venom being beaten. (Spider-Man v1 #53)
Mark of Kaine
He waited outside of the Forest Hills hospital where May Parker lay in a coma, brooding over the visions he had been having. He knew that in the not distant future, Mary Jane would be murdered by an unknown assailant. This was unbearable to him, and he swore he would act to prevent it. (Web of Spider-Man v1 #120) Walking alone one night to be with his thoughts, Kaine was attacked by a group of thugs. He killed them quickly and continued his walk, brooding about the pain in his life. (Spider-Man v1 #54) He came across some punks harassing a homeless woman in a park and quickly killed them after they tried to steal a framed picture of the woman's daughter. She thanked him for helping her, and then he stepped on the glass picture, breaking it. He was soon watching the Scarlet Spider as he watched Peter Parker. Kaine confronted him, calling him 'Reilly' with the Scarlet Spider recognizing the costumed man and immediately went into a defensive fight. Kaine soon had him unconscious, after knocking him on the head with a slab of concrete. He was soon on the rooftop of Peter's apartment, confronting the Grim Hunter. (Web of Spider-Man v1 #121) As the two fought, Kaine pondered if the Hunter was the one he was looking for. He was dangerous and wanted to kill Spider-Man, which was all the reason he needed to kill him. The Grim Hunter escaped to resume his hunt against Spider-Man and Kaine eventually followed him. He had been having visions of Mary Jane's death and he feared that the Hunter would be her killer. He followed the Hunter to Central Park and the fight briefly resumed, until it was interrupted by the Scarlet Spider. The Spider and Kaine fell through the ice covering a pond and the Scarlet Spider left, thinking Kaine had escaped. He only doubled back to resume hunting the Hunter. Soon the Grim Hunter was dead, his neck broken. (Spider-Man v1 #55)
After Spider-Man was infected by a virus from the Vulture, he was stumbling around New York in a daze. Kaine kept an eye on him, but kept his distance. He observed as Spider-Man was examined and then left on a wet rooftop by Doctor Octopus. Ock and Stunner soon returned for Spider-Man and took the unconscious wall crawler to their lab. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #397) Kaine observed Stunner and Ock in their lab as they studied the illness that was afflicting Spider-Man. He regretted that someone as attractive as Stunner would associate with Octavius, but he knew that suffering and death were inevitable in his plan. He was soon stalking Mary Jane, also admiring her beauty and regretting her associations. He was aware that she was pregnant, and hoped that she would survive the coming ordeal. (Spectacular Spider-Man v1 #220) As Stunner was out for a workout in Central Park, Kaine shouted a warning to her from the cover of darkness to stay away from Doctor Octopus. Having warned her, he concluded that the choice was now hers. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #398)
During a battle with Spider-Man, Doctor Octopus came to surrender himself to the authorities where the supervillain expected to be freed mid-transit by his compatriot Stunner. However, Kaine came to knock her out and attacked the armored van where he dealt with the guards before attacking Otto Octavius himself. The villainous scientist fought back but despite his skill he was overpowered and killed by Kaine who branded him with his mark on his face. (Spectacular Spider-Man v1 #221)
He was involved in a fight with Stunner which was interrupted by Spider-Man. Their fight caused a building to collapse with Kaine looking to save Spider-Man only though the two found Stunner had mysteriously vanished. It was then that the Wall-Crawler wanted Kaine's help in proving Ben Reilly's innocence. Kaine though refused and stated that everything he had done was to protect the life Peter Parker had made for himself. He then revealed that he was the first clone of Spider-Man and that he had framed Ben Reilly under the belief that this would secure Peter Parker's future. However, Spider-Man could not allow an innocent to suffer such a fate but Kaine still refused to aid him. Parker then stated that he would reveal his secret identity in an effort to save Reilly thus forcing Kaine's hand who confessed for the murder at court. (Spider-Man v1 #60)
It was then that Kaine, Reilly and Parker were confronted by a mutated fourth clone who confronted them. Kaine had Parker an Mary Jane escape whilst he looked to eliminate the other clones with Reilly fighting as well. (Spectacular Spider-Man v1 #224)
Redemption
Kaine was later recovered and revived by James Johnsmeyer who was one of the sponsors of the Great Game. This was a city wide fighting competition fought against the world's strongest fighters with the wealthy placing wagers to amuse themselves on the winner of the fighting tournament. Johnsmeyer had placed Kaine as one of the contestants in the battles with the Rhino being sent to fight him. However, Kaine refused to take part in the Great Game and attempted to escape with the aid of Shannon Fitzpatrick but they were ambushed by Joystick and Polestar. This allowed Rhino to get the drop on him but their skirmish was interrupted by Spider-Man where Kaine came to use his formidable strength to knock out his attacker. He proved to be the victor and had first blood in the Great Game but he had no interest to continue where he along with Shannon escaped the scene. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #409)
He later came to escape where he began a manhunt for Norman Osborn after learning that he masterminded the events of the clone saga. This saw Kaine tracking down the Brotherhood of Scrier on the island of Euboea in the Aegean Sea. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #435)
Spider-Island
He was later captured by the Jackal who transformed him into a humanoid spider monster who helped serve the Queen in the attempt to take over the city. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #666) Referred to as the Tarantula, he could only obey the Jackal's commands and was dispatched to ambush Spider-Man at Horizon Labs. The Tarantula was able to easily enter Horizon by using his DNA to bypass the electronic locks to Peter Parker's lab. He was also tasked with eliminating the cure for the spider-flu during the Spider-Island epidemic. For this reason, he had a toxin designed to contaminant the cure and despite Spider-Man's resistance he was able to overpower his opponent. Tarantula was ready to throw both Spider-Man and the toxin into the cure when Parker's Spider-Sense activated allowing him to throw the spider-monster into the cure. This act returned Kaine to normal with it healing his former scars and leaving him with his base Spider-Man abilities. Now freed from the Jackal, he told Spider-Man that the true threat was the Queen and informed him on where to find their foe. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #671) Peter gave him his stealth-suit to allow him to aid in the battle with the Spider Queen and was informed by Madame Web of his role in her defeat as he helped kill her as this was a move Spider-Man was unwilling to do. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #672) During the clean-up operations, he used the stealth suit to go invisible and attempted to go into hiding when Madame Web met with him. She spoke to him of his future and told him to keep the suit as he would need it in the future. Kaine later went to see Aunt May leave town with her new husband but stayed in the shadows before meeting with Peter where he told him that he was leaving the city. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #673)
Scarlet Spider
With his degeneration halted, he departed to find a place to be left alone and passed through Houston only to decide to stay in the city with him operating as the Scarlet Spider. (Scarlet Spider v2 #2)
Upon hatching from the carcass, he was greeted by the Master Weaver Karn who had taken custodianship of watching over the Web of Life and Destiny. Karn informed Kaine that the Other was killed and its power over him was gone which meant that he began to suffer from cellular degeneration once again. The Master Weaver also showed Kaine of the danger on other worlds where clones transformed into Carrion where they spread a virus that turned others into similar such beings. Kaine decided to help the Master Weaver to find the source of this infection as he himself was infected and Karn was immortal which meant it could not spread further then them. In secret, Kaine travelled to these numerous worlds to collect genetic samples and find the origin point for the infection that had ravaged numerous alternate Earth's. During his investigations, he managed to determine that the common source of the disease was Parker Industries but he was not sure what triggered the epidemic. He was later assisted by the alternate Gwen Stacy after she discovered Kaine still being alive and wanting to help him. During further travels, he encountered a version of himself in an advanced Carrion state that died and dissected the remains. From the study of the corpse, he determined that he himself did not possess the traits that made the Carrion disease infectious thus meaning that he was harmless. However, he had hid the fact that he had learnt of the lifespan of the alternate Kaine which allowed him to determine his own date of death which was soon. He also determined that the source of the plague came as a result of Parker Industries alliance with New U Technologies leading to them to infiltrate the Jackal's operation by having the alternate Gwen Stacy to pose as the clone that had been made by Miles Warren.. (Amazing Spider-Man v4 #21)
Taking the guise of the Jackal, Kaine managed to trick New U Technologies scientist Rita Clarkson into revealing the fact that Ben Reilly was alive. He then went to track down the clone and found him attempting to start a new life in Las Vegas. (Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider v1 #1)
Overview
Personality and attributes
In appearance, Kaine originally resembled Peter Parker though with more deformed features as a result of him being the first clone. Originally, he was given the name Parker 3.0 by Miles Warren though he amusingly decided to call him Kaine as he used the Bible for inspiration. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #666) He later came to be accepted as a brother to Peter Parker and was named Kaine Parker. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #637) For a time, he was transformed into a giant man-spider by the Jackal who referred to him as Tarantula. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #637)
During a 3 year period, he came to wander the world alone where he believed that they had given him strength and self-confidence that he had not seen before. (Spider-Man: The Lost Years v1 #1)
Violence was no game to him and was the only life he had ever known. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #409) When eliminating a target, he stated that he had no malice or personal antagonism against them as they were simply an objective. (Spectacular Spider-Man v1 #221)
Kaine had said that he got a certain 'buzz' from pushing himself over the edge. (Spider-Man: The Lost Years v1 #1)
Later on, he came to refuse to be any man's pawn and acted to secure his own freedom. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #409)
For much of his life, he had only ever known suffering to the point that the concept of finding happiness was a terrifying thought to him. (Spider-Man: The Lost Years v1 #2) He had told Spider-Man that Peter Parker did now know what true suffering was and wanted to spare him such pain. (Spider-Man v1 #60) For a time, he came to see that only death would bring an end to the years of lunacy and torment. This changed when Ben Reilly looked to help him and Kaine came to seek to redeem his corrupted soul. (Spider-Man: Redemption v1 #4)
Kaine had been dedicated in using all his strength to protect the life Peter Parker had made for himself. This was to the point that he was willing to let others die so long as Peter was safe. He wanted the real Peter Parker to be a father and to create life with his wife. (Spider-Man v1 #60)
It was this goal that saw Kaine targeting Ben Reilly and made his life hell for years. In fact, he believed he was protecting Peter Parker by setting Reilly up for murder. (Spider-Man v1 #60) Initially, he wanted himself and Reilly to die but was convinced to spare Ben's life after seeing the love between him and Janine Godbe. He then asked Ben to kill him as Kaine wanted his pain to end but Reilly saved his life instead and reached out to him. This became the first time that Kaine came to see Ben as a brother and led to him ending his enmity with his fellow clone. (Spider-Man: Redemption v1 #4)
Kaine saw himself as being the son of Miles Warren who despite his nature was still the only father he had ever known. As a child, he used to crave his father's love and acceptance which he only received for a time. After he was deemed imperfect, Kaine was cast aside and he was deprived of love with him coming to see the world as a cruel place. (Spider-Man: Redemption v1 #4)
He came to find himself intensely attracted to a police officer named Louise Kennedy with this being mutually felt by her where the two keep to sleep together. (Spider-Man: The Lost Years v1 #1) Kaine came to lose himself in her as during their time together he came to experience some hope and find some measure of happiness. (Spider-Man: The Lost Years v1 #2) This was until he found out that she was a crooked cop working for the mob with a maddened Kaine believing she betrayed him. Later on, in a moment of rage and madness he came to accidentally kill her with his bare hands and came to regret his actions despite her causing him to feel much pan. (Spider-Man: The Lost Years v1 #3)
Powers and abilities
Kaine was deemed the first clone of Peter Parker that had been created by the Jackal. As a clone of Peter Parker, Kaine gained the abilities similar to that of Spider-Man but the experiment had twisted him. This included him actually being stronger than the original Spider-Man. (Spider-Man v1 #60)
Like Spider-Man, he had the power to stick to surfaces but Kaine exploited this ability differently such as using it to help him pull pieces of walls off their structure in order to throw them at enemies. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #409) He was known to use this to bring down ceilings on his enemies in an effort to eliminate them. (Spectacular Spider-Man v1 #224)
A result of the clone degeneration that it twisted his powers and made him stronger than either Parker or Reilly. However, it left him scarred and deformed where he was deemed a failure by his creator. (Spider-Man v1 #60) Kaine though had to live with flaws from the cloning process where he experienced spasms, burning in his gut and nerve-shredding pain throughout his entire body. Professor Warren had told him that a day would come when the cellular degeneration would accelerate where his skin would split and he would experience unbearable pain. (Spider-Man: The Lost Years v1 #2)
After contact with the Other, he embraced the nature of the entity that he let into his body. This caused him to be reborn after being fatally wounded but was consumed with predatory instinct that saw everyone as prey until he snapped out of it. The rebirth led to his body being healed from all injuries as he grew new skin which meant that even tattoos were gone. (Scarlet Spider v2 #14) Among his new powers included the ability to sense what spiders were capable of sensing. He was not able to communicate with them but was able to see what they saw allowing him to use them as spies. (Scarlet Spider v2 #17)
As a hitman, he was known to use equipment such as smoke grenades capable of rendering a person unconscious after inhaling the gas. (Spectacular Spider-Man v1 #221)
Notes
- Kaine was created by Terry Kavanagh and Steven Butler where he made his first appearance in Web of Spider-Man v1 #119 (December, 1994).
- Editor Glenn Greenburg in an interview noted that:
- ”And here's a few things you probably didn't know about Kaine. First, that weird costume of his was actually a life-support outfit that stabilized the debilitating effects of his cellular degeneration. Kaine lived in constant pain, and that would only get worse as time went on, but the outfit slowed down the degeneration and prolonged his life. That's why Kaine wore the costume in most of his modern-day appearances, and why he didn't have it in the LOST YEARS limited series, which took place years earlier.
- Second, all of Kaine's powers were enhanced versions of Peter's powers. It was well established in the stories that Kaine was physically stronger than Peter, and he was clearly much taller and more massive. But the infamous "mark of Kaine" burn that he left on the faces of his victims was just a greatly enhanced version of the "stick-to-walls" ability that Peter possesses in his hands and feet. And the "future visions" that Kaine experienced from time to time, including the relentless vision of Mary Jane's death, was simply a much stronger version of Peter's spider sense.”
Alternate Versions
- In Spider-Girl v1 #12 (1999), an alternate version of Kaine appeared in the Marvel Comics 2 reality designated as Earth-982 in the Multiverse.
In other media
Television
- In Ultimate Spider-Man, a character dressed in Kaine's Scarlet Spider costume appeared in the Ultimate Spider-Man vs. Sinister Six third season storyline. His identity was not mentioned but he shared many traits from Kaine such as stingers along with organic webbing. This version was an imperfect synthezoid Spider-Slayer created by Doctor Octopus using Spider-Man's DNA and Arnim Zola's technology who is highly resistant to damage, can reattach lost limbs, and absorb life energy from Spider-themed individuals or his own fellow synthezoids. He first emerges after Spider-Man and Spider-Woman find one of HYDRA's abandoned labs and they seemingly defeat him. However, Kaine re-emerges at the Triskelion as a deformed, mutated monster to absorb the other synthezoids and become the Ultimate Spider-Slayer, only to be defeated by Agent Venom.
Films
- In Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Kaine as the Scarlet Spider made a non-voiced cameo appearance in the setting of the animated film. He was shown as the Scarlet Spider and one of the Spider-Men that were recruited into Miguel O'Hara's Spider-Society.
Video games
- In Spider-Man Unlimited, though not named the Scarlet Spider version of Kaine appeared as a playable character in the iOS video game.
- In Spider-Man, Kaine's Scarlet Spider-Man costume appeared as a skin available in the 2018 video game as part of "The Heist" DLC.
Appearances
- Web of Spider-Man v1: (1994)
- Spectacular Spider-Man v1:
- Spider-Man v1:
- Spider-Man: The Lost Years v1:
- Spider-Man: Redemption v1:
- Scarlet Spider v2:
- New Warriors:
- Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider v1:
External Links
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