The Mark

A Japanese woman is locked in a bedroom and pleads for someone to save him. A man enters the room and reminds her that she is his property and that his recent escape attempt means that her family is going to have to pay. After threatening to kill her parents and brother the woman begs for their safety, saying she will do anything to protect them. The man concurs, saying that she needs to send out a message and reaches for her face with a glowing hand.

The following morning, Kaine is out on patrol as the Scarlet Spider in Houston. When people call him by name, he finds that he isn’t cringing as much when he is called the Scarlet Spider. This gets him to think how he didn’t plan on taking on the life of a hero in Houston, as his original plan was to relocate to Mexico and live a life of luxury and anonymity.[1] He is answering the call from Wally Layton, a friend with the Houston Police Department. When Kaine arrives at the Japanese Gardens in Hermann Park, Wally and his partner — who is reluctant to work with a super hero — show him a dead woman whose body has been dumped there.[2] There is a burn on her face in the shape of a human hand. This reminds Kaine of the “Mark of Kaine” he used to give his victims back in his days as a a killer. When he snaps back to reality, the Scarlet Spider asks them who this woman was. They don’t know, but they are certain that she is a victim of human trafficking and was likely brought to this country and forced to work like a slave to pay off her debts.

The Scarlet Spider is told how most trafficking operations usually operate out of massage parlors and that when the police shut one down, another opens up immediately the next day. Learning that the victim was 14 years old angers Kaine enough to come crashing in on one of the operations. He asks the working girls who runs the establishment when suddenly he is attacked by a man weilding two knives. Kaine is much faster and manages to get ahold of one of the knives and uses it to chop off the tip of his attacker’s nose. Kaine is about to torture the guy further but he notices a burned hand print on his chest and realizes that someone else got to him first. He tries to convince the girls to run, but they are too afraid of whoever has forced them into the sex trade.

When Kaine returns to his hotel room he finds both Annabelle Adams and Aracely fast asleep. He once again is doubting his role as a hero because he keeps thinking about his checkered past. He remarks how his plans to go to Mexico were sidelined when he saved Aracely’s life, as she too was a victim of human trafficking.[3] He thinks about how he stuck around because he wanted to make sure the girl had a second chance of having a good life and wonders how many people will have to die for him to make that happen.

Over the next four evenings, Kaine begins hitting local gangs hard, taking a focus on tearing down human trafficking operations until he can find out who was responsible for the murder of the 14-year-old girl. His work eventually leads him to a man named Mark Tomanaga, aka the Mark. When he finds Tomanaga in a restaurant, he casually invites the Scarlet Spider to sit down and eat with him even though he was responsible for killing a teenaged girl. Kaine has no interest in doing so and is even less happy when the Mark suggests that they are brothers because they are both men of power and violence. When Kaine informs the Mark that he is shutting him down, Tomanaga signals his body guards, ninjas from the Hand to attack him.

The Scarlet Spider realizes that he is in big trouble if he doesn’t deal with this threat quickly. To his surprise, he manages to take down the team of ninjas. This prompts the Mark to attack him, putting Kaine on the defensive. He is too busy evaiding Tomanaga’s burning touch that he is knocked off his feet. That’s when the Kingpin’s Arranger arrives with a mercenary called the Bruiser. Back on his feet, the Scarlet Spider tries to punch the Bruiser as hard as he can and almost breaks his hand for his troubles. The Arranger explains that he has arrived on behalf of the Kingpin to inform the Spider that he is taking over Hand operations in Houston. With that, the Bruiser snaps Mark’s neck. Leaving, the Arranger tells Kaine that he won’t have any more trouble from the Hand as long as he stays out of their business. Kaine refuses to do any such thing, but the Arranger is certain that the Scarlet Spider will be far too busy anyway. As they leave, the Bruiser howls like a wolf, making Kaine wonder what they mean.

Kaine visits the grave of the Mark’s last victim. He thinks about Peter Parker’s motto, with great power comes great responsibility. He dismisses it as the mantra of a dead man he never actually knew.[4] Kaine instead intends to use his great power to rain down hell on those who prey on the weak.

At that moment, along the border between the United States and Mexico, two wolves cross the boarder to the American side. They approach a two armed men standing in front of a car and suddenly turn into a man and a woman. The male werewolf orderes his men to take them into Houston.[5]

Recurring Characters

Scarlet Spider, The Hand (Arranger), Bruiser, Lobo Cartel (Carlos Lobo, Esme Lobo), Wally Layton, Annabelle Adams, Aracely Penalba

Continuity Notes

1. The reason why the Scarlet Spider moniker used to bother Kaine is because it was the name used by Ben Reilly, another clone of Peter Parker that Kaine spent a good part of his life tormenting. For more on the original Scarlet Spider see Web of Spider-Man #117 to Spider-Man #75. Ironically, Kaine was dubbed by the Scarlet Spider by the media much in the same way that Ben Reilly was. See Spider-Man #52 and Scarlet Spider (vol. 2) #6.

2. Wally and his co-worker mention a case involving someone named Clutch. Clutch is mentioned again in Scarlet Spider (vol. 2) #16. However, this is a plot thread that is dropped after the series ended after 25 issues. As I write this in November 2020, this plot thread has not been explored further.

3. Kaine goes over quite a bit of personal history here:

   • He states that he wanted to get to Mexico in order to get away from New York, super-heroes, Jackals and Queens. This is reference to his assistance during the Spider-Island crisis where he saved New York from the spider-plague unleashed upon it by the Jackal (Kaine’s creator) and the Queen. See Amazing Spider-Man #666-673.

   • He also recounts how he saved Aracely and has stayed in Houston ever since. See Scarlet Spider (vol. 2) #1-2.

4. “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility” is the mantra that has been attributed to Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben. It was actually the lesson Peter learned when he failed to stop a crook that later murdered his Uncle. I shouldn’t have to tell you this was all in Amazing Fantasy #15.

5. Although unidentified here, these two werewolves are Carlos and Eseme Lobo, leaders of the Lobo Cartel as we’ll learn next issue.

Topical References

• The hotel Kaine is staying in is identified as the Four Seasons Hotel in Houston, Texas. This should be considered a topical reference because the Four Seasons is a real world company.