Scarlet Spider in the 2010s

If someone told me 10 years ago that there would be a new Scarlet Spider series that starred Kaine I would have thought you were crazy. The Clone Saga was such a negatively received storyline in the 90s that nobody could have seen a creative team try to bring them back. Yet, in the 2010s that is exactly what happened. I think that in the decade or so since the Clone Saga people kind of got over it. It was a failed experiment but that doesn’t mean that the story wasn’t rife with possible stories that could be mined and explored further. Certainly there was enough interest for the Brand New Day creative team to bring back Kaine for the Grim Hunt story arc and later, during Dan Slott’s run on Amazing Spider-Man where Kaine played a pivotal role in the Spider-Island storyline. In fact, Spider-Island was a back-door pilot for the new Scarlet Spider series.

In this title, Kaine — finally cured of his cellular degeneration — decides to go out into the world and begin a new life for himself. He relocates to Houston, Texas where he becomes a reluctant hero, ironically named after his long time foe, the original Scarlet Spider.

This series later adopted the tag line “All of the Power, None of the Responsibility”, which is exactly how this series is framed. We are following a somewhat amoral version of Peter Parker. A version of Peter Parker who spent his years with no value for his own life because he was always on death’s door. Even though he is now cured, he is basically a man without an identity. He’s is not shouldered with the guilt over the death of Uncle Ben. Although he shares Peter Parker’s face, Kaine is perpetually trying to create his own identity and his own way of doing things.

The series tries to tackle subject matter that is perhaps a little too mature for a more conventional Spider-Man title. In particular, this Scarlet Spider series takes a primary focus on the issue of human trafficking and one of Kaine’s supporting characters, Aracely Penalba, is a young woman who is a victim of this heinous crime. This was also parlayed into explaining something that has been absent from the Spider-Books following the end of J. Michael Strazynski’s run on the book. Namely, what happened to Spider-Man’s totemistic powers and all the mystical aspects that were introduced to the Spider-Man mythos during that run. This all gets downloaded to Kaine, allowing this long ignored plot thread to get some more breathing room. However, it wouldn’t come to fruition until later during the Spider-Verse event.

Like many titles of this era, Scarlet Spider suffers from a short run. While it lasted for two years the story is plotted out by Chris Yost keeps getting sidelined by various crossovers such as the Minimum Carnage and Sibling Rivalry story arcs. Ultimately, it makes the ending of the series appear to be somewhat rushed as Yost tries to quickly wrap things up in the last two issues. With the end of the Scarlet Spider series, Yost tries to pick up some of the threads during his run on New Warriors, which also featured Kaine on the team. However, any Scarlet Spider plot threads end up on the sidelines and ultimately discarded, particularly when it comes to Aracely’s story.

Yosh has been building on Aracely the entire story, delving into some of the mysteries of her past. He also introduces use to Mister Motezuma and a group of Mexican super-humans who are, apparently, reincarnated Aztec gods or something to that effect. However, this plot is left open following issue #15 of the series and, as I write this in November 2020, has yet to be resolved.

Following the end of this series, Kaine remains an active character in the Spider-Man family of books. While he was a major player in the first Spider-Verse event, subsequent outings are ones of diminishing returns. While he was a primary antagonist in Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider, the character has since been another spider-character in a sea of similar characters in subsequent Spider-Verse style events.

As for Aracely, she appeared in the 5th volume of New Warriors, but none of the stories featured in that series provide any further answers regarding her past or that Motezuma is planning to do with her. Kaine eventually abandons her by the time he starts appearing in Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider. She still pops up in the Marvel Universe any time they need internationally themed characters to populate a large mass of heroes to face a global threat. However, the full potential of her story, as I said above, has yet to be explored any further. The same can be said about the rest of the Scarlet Spider supporting case. Like many other Marvel books of this era time is spent investing and developing new supporting cast members for their books only for them to be abandoned once a title is cancelled, rebooted, or has a change in creative teams. Since Marvel seldom publishes stories that take place in locations other than New York City, I wouldn’t hold my breath on a regular series like this taking place in Texas, let alone a return of the Scarlet Spider’s supporting cast.

Personally, I think that’s a huge waste as there were plenty of story telling avenues for these characters, particularly with Aracely that were squandered in Marvel’s race to keep pushing forward with relaunch after relaunch. While legacy titles like Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and the Avengers enjoy being able to draw on decades worth of characters and take the time to develop supporting casts that matter, I feel that short run series like Scarlet Spider really suffer when they are populated by new characters because, more often than not, they’re not seen again when that series comes to an end.

The other gripe I have about this series was the constant whining from Kaine about being a monster. This entire series was supposed to be about redeeming himself and starting a new life but regardless of any positive progress he makes, he still can’t let go of his past. It gets to the point where it starts sounding like a broken record. He constantly ping-pongs his feelings through this entire run. On page one he’ll be accepting the positive changes in his new life, but by page 20 or so he’s back to thinking he’s a monster. The series also ends on a down note. As I said before, the supporting cast is kind of dropped an in the final issue they literally abandon him after he saves their lives. The series ends with Kaine on a beach in Mexico convincing himself that this was all for nothing and that he is a monster after all. It’s just kind of grating to see a story that was trying to emphasize on personal growth and change to just back pedal and double down on these characters being immutable. Sure, a lot of this is denial on Kaine’s part to accept the fact that he is becoming a better person, but after listening to him drone on for 25 issues is annoying.

At any rate, the Scarlet Spider was an interesting experiment. While it presented an interesting angle on the spider-mythos that many other Marvel books in the mid-2010s it suffered from a short run requiring writers to try and quickly resolve as many plot threads as quickly as possible.