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Kindred’s plans for Spider-Man and Norman Osborn included some game-changing revelations that relied on two major other villains.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Amazing Spider-Man #73, now on sale
Kindred — aka Harry Osborn — has been proving to be one of the most insidious and secretly long-running threats to Spider-Man and his loved ones. His plans have resulted in chaos and bloodshed, and now the full extent of his machinations is coming light — and revealing just how connected previous events were tied to his plans.
Part of Harry Osborn’s plans to torment Peter Parker and Norman Osborn — as revealed in Amazing Spider-Man #73 by Nick Spencer, Ze Carlos, Carlos Gomez, Marcelo Ferreira, Alex Sinclair, and VC’s Joe Caramagna — involved utilizing the skills of two other notable Spider-Man villains: Mendel Stromm and Mysterio.
As Kindred, Harry Osborn has been targeting Spider-Man and his loved ones for some time. But the machinations of the corrupted Harry Osborn extend far beyond the obvious plans the villain has deployed against his former friend. In fact, the events os Sins Past have been revealed to have been conducted by Harry himself. The infamous story-arc by J. Michael Straczynski and Mike Deodato ran from Amazing Spider-Man #509 through #514, and introduced Sarah and Gabriel, the grown children of Gwen Stacy. Initially believed to be the children of Peter Parker (with his irritated DNA being to blame for their accelerated aging), everyone was later shocked to discover that Gwen had an affair with Norman Osborn, resulting in her pregnancy — and that Mary-Jane Watson had been aware of this but kept it a secret.
But now, it appears that none of this was strictly true. Instead, as Kindred reveals to Mary-Jane and the AI Harry Osborn explains to Norman, it was all a long con by Harry. It turns out that by allying himself with Mendell Stromm, Harry was able to arrange for a cloning process that resulted in the children, Sarah and Gabriel. Through trial and error, they ended up with a powerful body that, using Chameleon technology, could disguise themselves. Then, Stromm’s inversions were used to hypnotize and mislead Norman Osborn, hypnotizing him and implanting false memories of a fake affair with Gwen Stacy. This mental assault was amplified by Mysterio’s technology and illusions — which also allowed him to get close to Mary-Jane as a therapist and implant the false memories of Gwen’s confession to her.
This means that one of the single most controversial retcons in the history of Spider-Man (the affair between Gwen and Norman) has effectively been retconned. Indeed, Sarah and Gabriel were nothing but pawns to be crafted and created and used against Peter and Norman, to cause them pain. For Stromm, it’s a beautiful little piece of revenge — especially considering Norman’s deal with Mephisto years earlier that doomed Harry had also involved the public collapse of Stromm’s career. Even if isn’t around anymore to witness this long-simmering victory finally take shape — as Kindred killed him earlier in the Nick Spencer run on Amazing Spider-Man after he ceased to be useful — it’s still a win for the now deceased villain.
It’s also a major moment of betrayal for Mysterio. The illusionist villain had developed a surprisingly sweet friendship with Mary-Jane during their time filming a movie together, casually setting up the possible redemption of the villain. But he’s also been cagey about the full extent of his actions against Spider-Man and his loved ones, and it appears that it was because he’d targeted Mary-Jane years earlier as part of Harry’s plans — making their current friendship all the more complicated. It’ll be interesting to see how Mary-Jane responds to Mysterio if — and when — she sees him again.
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