Why isn`t Kaine a popular character?

[Tien Long]

From what I recall of Chris Yost's take on Kaine, whereas Peter tries to get along with the people he runs into and works with, with his jokes being a method of getting them to feel at ease with him, Kaine instead tries to drive them away from him by acting like a gruff, foul-mouthed jerk . . . not that that works very well. It's those damned Parker genes, I tell you! A popular meme that might sum it up well enough, though: "Kaine wants to be hardcore, but Houston [or Aracely] won't let him." And despite himself and his efforts to seem aloof, gruff, and uncaring, it's extremely obvious after a point that he does care and genuinely wants to be a better person, in honor of his clone brother Ben (before Clone Conspiracy mucked that up) and Peter.

Yo bro, thanks for the explanation. I like that premise, that underneath the anger and loneliness, Kaine is a softee, that he wants to be loved and redeemed.

I've long thought Kaine would be better served by having his original powerset returned: his hyper-spider powers were always fascinating to me and really sets him apart from other Spider-People, even more than The Other powers do.

-Pav, who hopes we see him again soon...

I could get behind that, but only if we can get past the degeneration issue. He can still be a tragic figure in the sense of trying to overcome the bad things he did in his life, and possibly failing, while not have the specter of degeneration constantly hanging over him.

There's got to be that little bit extra which distinguishes Kaine from Pete. He's the Spider-Man that doesn't have a Spider-Sense. Could he get his original power set? Yes, but he can't be too op'd right? Still, moments like these were cool:


Me, I liked it when Kaine had the powers of "The Other." Those bone spurs were pretty cool.

[Mister Mets]

Origins ultimately have no effect on a character. Your average reader today may know of the clone saga but you only need to understand the cliff notes of the saga in order to figure out what's going on. You don't need to have read the clone saga in order to know what Kaine's deal is. The average reader also has no need to understand what Kaine was doing at Peter Parker's trial or what the deal with Judas Traveller was. Venom at that has origins within Secret Wars but most overlook that since it's just not relevant to knowing what Venom's deal is. No one needs to know and most readers today have not the slightest care to the specifics of how Venom showed up as much as how he's doing things currently.

All you needed to know about Kaine was that he was a reformed Spider-man villain who had similar powers because he's a clone of Spider-man. You don't need to read his whole wikipedia page. And since most modern readers will not have been there nor can be expected to have owned the omnibuses you can expect that the basic description from earlier is Oriabout as much as they need to know. They'd know him as Scarlet Spider and not an assassin in a purple cape.

One thing that is adjacent to origins that is important is some kind of accessible entry point.

With Wolverine, it doesn't matter that his first appearance wasn't exactly the best Hulk story ever. But soon enough, someone who likes Wolverine has a few stories to check out: his battle with the Hellfire Club, his last stand in Days of Future Past, the Frank Miller illustrated mini-series.

It mattered for Venom's success that the Alien Costume saga TPB and collection of the first appearances were pretty good.

It matters for Punisher that his first appearance was pretty good, and that he pops up in Frank Miller's Daredevil and gets a decent mini-series by Steven Grant and Mike Zeck.

Things are messier for Kaine. He's in some hit stories (Spider-Island, Spider-Verse). The Scarlet Spider run was pretty solid. But he remains more of a cult character. His backstory is complicated. It's not even all that unique. There are more prominent people with Spider-Man's powers, and there's even a more prominent clone.

Due to recent stories, it's hard to depict him as a straightforward villain but he's a bit neutered as a typical hero.

There are still potential ways to go forward. What might be interesting is a story where Kaine is going further than Spider-Man would like, which leads to some existential questions about whether Kaine is doing things that Peter would be capable of, if he had the same kind of experiences.

[Huntsman Spider]

Yo bro, thanks for the explanation. I like that premise, that underneath the anger and loneliness, Kaine is a softee, that he wants to be loved and redeemed.





There's got to be that little bit extra which distinguishes Kaine from Pete. He's the Spider-Man that doesn't have a Spider-Sense. Could he get his original power set? Yes, but he can't be too op'd right? Still, moments like these were cool:


Me, I liked it when Kaine had the powers of "The Other." Those bone spurs were pretty cool.

You're welcome, and yeah, I can agree those retractable bone stingers in his wrists were cool. I'd also like to see him get back his precognitive ability, albeit maybe toned down to where it's more like Rose Wilson over at DC being able to "see" seconds into her imminent future and reacting accordingly.

One thing that is adjacent to origins that is important is some kind of accessible entry point.

With Wolverine, it doesn't matter that his first appearance wasn't exactly the best Hulk story ever. But soon enough, someone who likes Wolverine has a few stories to check out: his battle with the Hellfire Club, his last stand in Days of Future Past, the Frank Miller illustrated mini-series.

It mattered for Venom's success that the Alien Costume saga TPB and collection of the first appearances were pretty good.

It matters for Punisher that his first appearance was pretty good, and that he pops up in Frank Miller's Daredevil and gets a decent mini-series by Steven Grant and Mike Zeck.

Things are messier for Kaine. He's in some hit stories (Spider-Island, Spider-Verse). The Scarlet Spider run was pretty solid. But he remains more of a cult character. His backstory is complicated. It's not even all that unique. There are more prominent people with Spider-Man's powers, and there's even a more prominent clone.

Due to recent stories, it's hard to depict him as a straightforward villain but he's a bit neutered as a typical hero.

There are still potential ways to go forward. What might be interesting is a story where Kaine is going further than Spider-Man would like, which leads to some existential questions about whether Kaine is doing things that Peter would be capable of, if he had the same kind of experiences.

That would be a very good idea, in terms of Kaine representing Peter's shadow, in Jungian terms, what he could or would have become under similar, if not identical, circumstances. After all, there have been plenty of Spider-Man stories with Peter pushed to the edge, but not quite going over it . . . so to have Kaine as (a version of) Peter that did go over that edge could be dramatically compelling.