Kindred Speculation

[Inversed]

If you are right I wonder how this would be rectified? Kindred is a victim in this situation as much as a villain.

That may just help him be more compelling, now he's not just a conniving schemer seeking revenge, but a lost piece of soul crying out for help. Maybe he would get defeated by having them fused back into one, and that's how he gets his pre-OMD memories back? Also that brings up another question, if Kindred is someone else, would they know about Peter's deal and how this resulted in reality being changed? I would imagine if they were in hell the whole time they probably wouldn't be effected, or would hear about it from "the big man".

Also, connecting back to Kindred creating himself to be a "nightmare" for Peter, I did notice there's a running theme of nightmares, dreams, illusions, and memories that have occurred fairly frequently throughout the run. There's Peter's dream (or could even be seen as a nightmare in a different context) of the Fraction Annual in the first issue, Mysterio's own Kindred-induced nightmare in the same issue, Jonah's trip down memory lane in Lifetime Achievement, Felicia haunted by her old memories in the Hunted prelude, Peter's visions of MJ's death in Hunted, Peter taunted by Kindred in his dreams, and in this past issue, about how Peter's memories of his friends have turned into nightmares for him over the years. Which makes me think thematically of what else Kindred would want and why exactly it's him rather than just who.

[RyanParkerMan]

2 additional points on Kindred being OMD Peter Parker.

1. Spencer put Peter and MJ back together in his first issue and dropped the hint that "Something is missing" with a close up of MJ's ring finger. Last issue, he's ready to propose. Guys and gals. Do we remember how big OMD was/ is? Spencer plans to address it. How meta would it be if the evil Peter has to defeat is a horrible decision he himself made. How Spider-Man is that? He does the wrong thing and has to pay for it. In his own way, Kindred/ Peter fights his way back to rectify the mistake he made.

2. Help me with this... towards the end of the issue, when Kindred is talking to Norman Osborn's true psychy i guess (since he's killing Peter in a carnage symbiote), it says, "That's what make you so much more terrifying than all the others (another hint, all the other bad guys Peter's faced). The end of innocence made flesh. Each time he sees you. All I can remember is how he thought he'd have a good life. "

[Celgress]

I see one problem with the Kindred is Pre-OMD Peter idea. If Kindred is Pre-OMD Peter wouldn't he want Peter and MJ back together, to have the happiness he can't?

[bob.schoonover]

I see one problem with the Kindred is Pre-OMD Peter idea. If Kindred is Pre-OMD Peter wouldn't he want Peter and MJ back together, to have the happiness he can't?

I doubt Kindred is OMD Peter, but to engage with the question, maybe he knows the Peter who'd throw away his marriage is a Peter that can't keep MJ safe? That inevitably, Peter will have more lives to save and MJ won't stack up against the preponderance of calamity in front of him?

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I don't quite understand the mechanics of the OMD Peter theory, personally (I know, it's a comic book, they can make stuff up). Are we saying that when Mephisto pulled off his time turner heist, he rent Peter's soul on or about Annual #21? That soul-piece*, despite doing nothing wrong**, was then condemned to Hell and worked it's way up to becoming a reasonably powerful evil(ish?) demon over the course of many years, finally resulting in its ability to resurrect Mysterio and start this whole plot? Look, it's not more ridiculous than futurists, super-intellects, and sorcerors being unable to cure a bullet wound, but it's a bit of an iffy theory to me

*Let's not go crazy here or anything, because one can always win themselves a No Prize, but hasn't Dr Strange had to look into Peter pretty deeply since the wedding was called off? Maybe it was a small piece, like the soul equivalent of an appendix

*Here, I'm concerned with both the direction the split soul went, as well as its reaction to ending up in Hell.

[WebSlingWonder]

UPDATED OP: to reflect the newest issue's contents! Hoo boy, there's a lot there!

Kindred being modeled after the Green Goblin doesn't surprise me. The facial features look similar to the Goblin's, and the hood looks like his hat or the Hobgoblin's hood. His crack about Gwen was savage, and something that seemed poignant. I don't think it's Gwen based off of that though; I don't think she'd end up in Hell (no matter who she supported in her life). But it also just shows how far Peter has come in his entire life. He's lost so many people. Two of the four highlighted people are currently dead by the same man, one died also because of that man. This issue not only cements Kindred as being an identity of either of the three, but it cements Norman Osborn's rightful place as the true archenemy of Peter Parker/Spider-Man.

Methinks that Spencer is wise in tying Kindred with Osborn. Because that archenemy status really means it could be anyone. Remember, we don't know who this is. We don't know what Osborn did to them. He clearly knew Peter in his early days (which narrows the list), knew Gwen, Harry, Flash, MJ, Norman...and that's the best part of it. I'm getting serious Flash Season 3 vibes, where everyone was looking at the past to determine the present. But in reality...the real person was right under their noses all along.

[Spidey5640]

Reconsidering my pick of Kindred being Harry....as someone noted in this thread Kindred's conversation with Norman definitely made it seem like Kindred was older and has an obvious deep connection to Stormin' Norman, a definite gut-hate of him. Based on Kindred saying about him being the end of innocence, Kindred was really, really close to him and witnessed alot of stuff...maybe was on the receiving end of that bad stuff...

With the gender neutral outfit making it possible Kindred is female, that make me think it may be .......Emily Osborn, Norman's estranged wife....who would hate him more?

Plus she, like Norman, could think Pete (and MJ) are responsible for Harry's problems as much as Norman...

I know there's alot of questions unanswered, but she would definitely be an out-of-the-box choice whose unrevealed backstory of covertly watching from afar for years be made made to fit anyway Spencer wants....

[SuperiorIronman]

Reconsidering my pick of Kindred being Harry....as someone noted in this thread Kindred's conversation with Norman definitely made it seem like Kindred was older and has an obvious deep connection to Stormin' Norman, a definite gut-hate of him. Based on Kindred saying about him being the end of innocence, Kindred was really, really close to him and witnessed alot of stuff...maybe was on the receiving end of that bad stuff...

With the gender neutral outfit making it possible Kindred is female, that make me think it may be .......Emily Osborn, Norman's estranged wife....who would hate him more?

Plus she, like Norman, could think Pete (and MJ) are responsible for Harry's problems as much as Norman...

I know there's alot of questions unanswered, but she would definitely be an out-of-the-box choice whose unrevealed backstory of covertly watching from afar for years be made made to fit anyway Spencer wants....

Didn't Emily come back in Go Down Swinging? I still have no idea why she's around but if she's been alive this whole time, how was she in Hell? And how could she be there from the beginning? The Osborn family shows up a bit late into Peter's early adventures.

[Spidey_62]

Didn't Emily come back in Go Down Swinging? I still have no idea why she's around but if she's been alive this whole time, how was she in Hell? And how could she be there from the beginning? The Osborn family shows up a bit late into Peter's early adventures.

Her coming back in that story was such an out of the left field thing. Like the story had all these components working along and then that just felt like "here I am! I've always been alive!... bye!"

[Chubistian]

As someone who liked Go Down Swinging, I agree that that twist was unnecessary and didn't amount to anything. So I thought about Emily being Kindred in today's issue as a way of doing something with that twist, but Kindred has too much of a proximity to Peter to be Emily, so I discarded her as a possibility. I think Kindred's monologue to Osborn shortens the list of suspects. Kindred is someone that is close to Peter and was afraid of Norman in the past, so Ezekiel can't be Kindred either. Now that we know that Kindred knows Norman Osborn, he killing Stromm in such a horrendous way could gain a new meaning

EDIT: Oh, and this issue's flashback taking place in a story published after George Stacy's death makes me doubt that he's Kindred

[Spidey5640]

Didn't Emily come back in Go Down Swinging? I still have no idea why she's around but if she's been alive this whole time, how was she in Hell? And how could she be there from the beginning? The Osborn family shows up a bit late into Peter's early adventures.

Like I said, if it's her there's a ton of unanswered questions, but with her backstory basically a blank, Spencer could tailor it to fit all the clues he's dropped. Why bring her back at all if not to utilize her in some way?

[SuperiorIronman]

Like I said, if it's her there's a ton of unanswered questions, but with her backstory basically a blank, Spencer could tailor it to fit all the clues he's dropped. Why bring her back at all if not to utilize her in some way?

I would like that as a usage of that weird little wrinkle, though I have the feeling Emily was only brought back to make Norman looks so much worse by comparison.

[Lukmendes]

I've seen some OMD Peter theories that use the explanation that in the new form of reality created by Mephisto, the part of Peter's soul was removed and became Kindred during the would-be wedding (as seen in OMIT), so that would fit in with the timeline of him starting out in hell at that point, and rising the ranks to become a demon by the time of Mysterio's arrival.

Honestly, I don't think it's a coincidence that the first arc of Spencer's run is Peter and Spider-Man being split into two separate beings. I think that could be a direct clue to Kindred being in fact, an already previous split form of Peter that's gone completely crazy, just like we see the "Spider-Man" side of him get increasingly nutter in Back To Basics.

If this theory turns out to be right, I get the feeling we'll get something dumb like "Spider-Man Reborn".

If it was Gwen, her mocking Peter for his guilt and the baggage he unloads on MJ about it, does make sense.

Pre-Death Gwen would. She had a nasty streak.

I read Romita's ASM up until Gwen's death and it feels like you're talking about a really different character everytime you say something like those posts, she was a bitch under Ditko and bland under Romita, but neither version is this malicious even if you combine their worst traits.

I see one problem with the Kindred is Pre-OMD Peter idea. If Kindred is Pre-OMD Peter wouldn't he want Peter and MJ back together, to have the happiness he can't?

He does say that he's not going to hurt her, just that MJ is going to die eventualy because of Peter, and if pre-OMD Peter is being made into a villain, then it'd make sense in a way why he'd want that, MJ dying may mean he can get her, and perhaps he'd get satisfaction from MJ not having to suffer because of Spider-Man, of course, if they do something like that, we have the inconsistency on why the hell he'd be okay for her to be with Peter to be killed "because" of him to begin with if he loves her to the point he doesn't want her to suffer, which would be horse **** writing by making Peter a complete moron, on top of the dumbness of making him such a sadistic villain.

Reconsidering my pick of Kindred being Harry....as someone noted in this thread Kindred's conversation with Norman definitely made it seem like Kindred was older and has an obvious deep connection to Stormin' Norman, a definite gut-hate of him. Based on Kindred saying about him being the end of innocence, Kindred was really, really close to him and witnessed alot of stuff...maybe was on the receiving end of that bad stuff...

With the gender neutral outfit making it possible Kindred is female, that make me think it may be .......Emily Osborn, Norman's estranged wife....who would hate him more?

Plus she, like Norman, could think Pete (and MJ) are responsible for Harry's problems as much as Norman...

I know there's alot of questions unanswered, but she would definitely be an out-of-the-box choice whose unrevealed backstory of covertly watching from afar for years be made made to fit anyway Spencer wants....

That theory would work a lot better if she didn't suddenly return in Go Down Swinging, although even without that it'd still be weird, since it'd mean that she died when Harry was born or so, and her being more obssessed with Peter than her currently alive son would be questionable, plus, there's no way she'd have suffered because of Green Goblin, she would be dead by that point, and even with the GDS retcon of her being alive, she'd still probably not have suffered under Green Goblin since she was hiding.

[Chubistian]

I doubt that Kindred is Pre-OMD Peter (or part of his soul or whatever), but if he is, I want my evil doppelgangers team up of Evil Peter and Evil Steve Rogers. Talking seriously, I don't know if it would be convenient for Nick Spencer to make yet another evil version of the protagonist of a main title, even if the scenario is different

[Snoop Dogg]

Based Kindred can #FreeHydraCap and prove that Spencer consistently co-creates the best 21st century comics villains.

[Lukmendes]

I doubt that Kindred is Pre-OMD Peter (or part of his soul or whatever), but if he is, I want my evil doppelgangers team up of Evil Peter and Evil Steve Rogers. Talking seriously, I don't know if it would be convenient for Nick Spencer to make yet another evil version of the protagonist of a main title, even if the scenario is different

Evil Peter will start the "One More Secret Empire" story arc once he frees Stevil