The comic book story behind Kraven’s wildest Spider-Man connection

Sony’s Spider-Man Universe – as far as being a place where a series of films of questionably varying quality starring Spider-Man-adjacent characters are never allowed to acknowledge that they’re actually adjacent to Spider-Man – is dead . Long live Sony’s Spider-Man universe? The cinematic demi-universe formerly known as SPUMC breathes its misguided final breath with the release of Kraven the Hunter this week as the studio looks to re-focus on the webslinger rather than anyone loosely related to him they can get their hands on. But it didn’t stop The collar from throwing down some hooks for a potential future… all wrapped around an infamous architect in Spidey comic history.

It seems that Sony never really got over its attempts to set the stage for some kind of Sinister Six movie. Seam The collar tumbles into its third act, it is revealed that Rhino (Alessandro Nivola) got his excruciating enhancements from a mysterious doctor in New York, and that Kraven’s younger half-brother Dimitri (Fred Hechinger) has eventually gone to the same mysterious figure to give him the transforming powers that made him the chameleon in the comics. While that doctor walks in unseen The collarRhino names him when he tries to pitch Dimitri to go down the same path he did: Miles Warren.

Who is Miles Warren?

Miles Warren, also known as the Jackal, was a famous biochemist who taught at Empire State University. Obsessed with the idea of ​​human cloning, Warren put his obsession into action over someone else’s cause: his romantic interest in one of his students, Gwen Stacy. When Gwen was killed by the Green Goblin, Warren blamed Spider-Man for not saving her, going down a rabbit hole using genetic samples taken from both her and another of his students, Peter Parker, to try to create human clones. Discovering that Peter was actually Spider-Man in the process, Miles created his first two clones: his first of Gwen became known as Abby-L, a grotesque figure whose touch caused living beings to rapidly degenerate themselves. Warren intended to kill Abby, horrified by his perceived failure, but Abby begged him to let her live, in exchange for abandoning her cloning attempts to avoid anyone else like her being made. Warren immediately ignored it, moving on to her second attempt when she left him: a clone of Peter who suffered from cellular degeneration but escaped Miles’ attempts to get rid of him and took the name… Kaine Parker .

Yes, as you might guess at this point, Miles Warren is the villainous figure that rises behind one of the most infamous Spider-Man stories ever written: the Clone Saga. After assuming the identity of the Jackal—a green, furry goblin-like creature—after killing his lab partner in a mad frenzy, Miles escaped and spent months trying to perfect the art of cloning, all the while preparing for his perceived revenge on Peter Parker. After a series of failed attempts at revenge, Miles set his greatest plan in motion. Using a clone of himself to fake his death, Miles developed his latest clone of Peter, who would assume the identity of Ben Reilly, in an attempt to convince the actual Peter that he had been living a lie as a clone of the “real” Spider-Man. The event dragged on over the course of three years, eventually culminating in Ben’s apparent death.

While Miles would go on to have a few more plotlines after the Clone Saga — most notably “Spider-Island” in 2011 — he recently played a major factor in Ben Reilly’s return during the events of the 2016 event “Clone Conspiracy.” Miles successfully revives Ben through a procedure that gave him all of his past memories up until his death decades prior during the Clone Saga, only for Ben to usurp his power and even his identity as the Jackal and set his sights on Peter by to use Miles’ cloning technology to resurrect the dead, almost creating a dark apocalyptic future in the process. Both Ben and Miles survived the events of Clone Conspiracy, going their separate ways, leaving Miles to emerge as the main villain in the first arc of this year’s Spectacular Spider-Man series where he kills his brother Raymond Warren and takes his place in hopes of trying to continue his cloning research.

What did Miles Warren mean to the Sonys Spider-Man Film?

Well, now? Nothing. We will probably never see anyone picking up the threads The collar laid out unless they get recycled somewhere down the line as an excuse to give us two Toms Hollands in a straight Spidey movie. Miles, like Rhino and Chameleon, will likely join the significantly more than six potential candidates from Sony’s forever-in-limbo Sinister Six movie plans. But setting the stage for Miles to be the architect of all this doesn’t just establish a path to the Sinister Six, of course: The Jackal is both a major villain in his own right and sets the stage for a spin on one of the most infamous Spider-Man comic book sagas ever. Hell, he even gives us more Spider-Men in the form of Kaine Parker and Ben Reilly, really letting Sony have its Spider-Cake and eat it if it wanted to make Spider-Man movies that weren’t necessarily wrapped in the current MCU iteration of Peter Parker.

But all that is off the table once again now that the studio is retooling its Spidey slate around, well, Spider-Man. Time will tell The collarthe legacy will be in setting the stage for Miles to move on in the MCU at some point, or more likely, simply providing a final sour note to this particularly uneven era of Sony’s superhero movies.

Want more io9 news? See when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.