"Fresh Start"
Following Osborn's latest defeat, Peter's life was plagued with problems on both sides. As Spider-Man, now-Mayor Wilson Fisk decided to be publicly accepting of him while condemning all other vigilantes, in order to isolate him from his superhero peers. As Peter Parker, his academic credentials were revoked after being accused of plagiarizing his doctoral dissertion from Octavius (and unable to defend himself without revealing his secret identity), resulting in his firing from the Daily Bugle. On the other hand, Peter became romantically involved again with Mary Jane, and was given an opportunity to re-apply for his doctoral thesis on the recommendation of Dr. Connors.[96] For a brief time, Peter Parker and Spider-Man were split into separate beings due to an accident involving the reverse-engineered Isotope Genome Accelerator. However, the separation split Peter down the middle, so both individuals didn't share Peter's sense of responsibility, resulting in a reckless and vain Spider-Man. Peter eventually managed to reverse the process, and merge his two halves back together before the side-effects could worsen and result in their death.[97]
More recently, Spider-Man has been plagued by visions of a mysterious villain named Kindred who has seemingly been working with Mysterio.[98] As this happened, villains Black Ant and Taskmaster captured animal-themed supervillains for Kraven the Hunter as part of a plan to destroy unworthy hunters. In the process, Dr. Connors' child Billy was kidnapped alongside Black Cat and were forced to fight for their survival in New York's Central Park which was, at that time, surrounded by an energy field.[99] Meanwhile, the Vulture brainwashed a group of fellow supervillains and led an attack against the unworthy hunters. Spider-Man was tasked with finding Kraven the Hunter whose ultimate goal through the hunt was to anger Spider-Man and lead him to killing Kraven, ending his curse. After Spider-Man refused and Dr. Connors saved his child, Kraven lifted the force field from Central Park, allowing Spider-Man, Connors and Billy, and Black Cat to escape while the Avengers rounded up all loose criminals. The 'Hunted' arc ended with Kraven donning a Spider-Man disguise, effectively becoming the Spider, and allowing his cloned son to kill him.[100] |