End Dust

Can YOU

Name This Marvel Villain??

I'm almost sorry to bring this villain to light, since he can only remind us of the cloning debacle which took place in the life of Spider-Man--beginning with our old friend, the Jackal, whose identity out of costume was that of Professor Miles Warren. The Jackal, of course, got this ball rolling by creating the clone of Gwen Stacy which gave Peter so much consternation, followed up by a clone of Peter himself. But where there's one clone, there's probably another in a tube somewhere, and Warren wasn't through yet. As a precaution against things going wrong (no, Professor, I think your ship had already sailed on that one), Warren created a clone of himself; but, with Warren later killed as the Jackal and the capsule left unattended, the clone came to life in a state of decay. Thus was born Carrion, who, like Warren, blamed Spider-Man for Gwen's death, but now also blamed him for Warren's.

And since Warren's technique apparently enabled him to transfer memories to his clones, that means that Peter Parker is also Carrion's target:

Peter soon learns that Carrion is one foe you want to keep your distance from:

Carrion's "nature" also allows him to repel matter--in essence, giving him levitation abilities as well as a form of telekinesis; and in his pouch, he carries a crimson dust of "red death" that acts either as a knock-out drug or as a highly corrosive acid on whatever it comes into contact with. Just don't ask me how he possesses powers of intangibility, telepathy, or teleportation--at this point his powers seem like they're being pulled out of a hat.

At the climax of their battle, Carrion created a "spider-amoeba" creature by cloned cells from Peter, as a means of prolonging Peter's suffering before his death. But Spider-Man is able to turn the tables on Carrion, who is engulfed by both the amoeba and a fire that's started in the lab. That would seem to put an end to the threat of Carrion, at least as far as being Warren's clone. But you can't keep a good corpse down, and Carrion would one day return to bedevil Spider-Man once again.