While Ben Reilly seems set to take over as Spider-Man in the Marvel Universe, Peter Parker's clone has deep history that spread throughout the wall-crawler's world in the '90s. But shortly after he started fading from prominence, his heroic spirit lived on in the form of Darkdevil.
Darkdevil hails from Earth-982, the MC2 Universe. In this reality, the classic Marvel heroes eventually grew old and either retired from active heroics (like Spider-Man) or died in the line of duty -- leaving the stage open for a new generation of heroes like Spider-Girl, Wild Thing, J2, and American Dream to take over in their stead.
One of the most bizarre of these heroes was easily Darkdevil, who effectively replaced the deceased Matt Murdock as a street-level protector of New York City. But the full story behind Darkdevil makes him one of the most unique figures in his universe -- with connections to multiple major heroes.
Darkdevil was introduced in 1998's Spider-Girl #2 by Tom DeFalco and Pat Olliffe, with much of his origins revealed in the later Darkdevil miniseries by DeFalco and Ron Frenz. Coming to be known as Reilly Tyne, the young man is the son of Spider-Man's clone Ben Reilly and his one-time girlfriend Elizabeth, Reilly never knew his father -- who sacrificed his life to protect Peter during a battle with the Green Goblin. He manifested his own variant of Peter Parker's Spider-Powers in adolescence, but due to his nature as a clone, the same cellular degeneration that befalls most Spider-Clones began to affect Reilly as well. He was taken in by another Spider-Clone, Kaine, who sought to prevent the degeneration and save him. Kaine placed the young man in suspended animation as he searched for cures and worked for Kingpin.
Witnessing the fatal wounding of Daredevil, a furious and heartbroken Kaine did his best to revive him -- even summoning the demon Zarathos, who is typically associated with Ghost Rider, to try and restore the hero to life. Seeing potential in Reilly, Zarathos instead possessed him and gave him a demonic appearance -- only for the soul of Daredevil to come to his aid. Possessing the body of Reilley, Daredevil was able to force Zarathos out -- leaving the demonic visage and aspects of his mystical powers, such as teleportation and the power to create flaming magical weapons. The awakened Reilly learned how to hide his appearance -- and was bolstered on by the spirit of Matt Murdock still living on within him, which pushed him to pursue a career in law, as well as imbuing him with years of combat training and experience.
Darkdevil became one of the more consistent heroes to appear in MC2, often fighting alongside Spider-Girl. Due to their familiar connection, Darkdevil is secretly the cousin of May Parker, the daughter of Peter Parker and his wife Mary-Jane. Darkdevil kept this a secret for some time, aiding in battles against her rogue's gallery as an overt ally. Darkdevil eventually grew to accept Kaine as his "uncle" and even joined the New Warriors. At one point, he even revealed his identity to Mayday -- who would come to openly refer to him as her cousin in a sign of connectedness. However, he still had to wrestle with the influence of Zarathos within him -- always hinting at a possible dark turn for the young man.
Darkdevil may be one of the most '90s characters possible, even though his introduction came towards the end of the decade. His connection to both the Spider-Clone Saga and the mythology of Ghost Rider makes him a uniquely confusing character and the sheer amount of skills and powers at his disposal makes him a uniquely dangerous figure. But Darkdevil also served a great purpose as an expansion of the MC2 Universe and a way to better tie the street-level crime and supernatural corners of the MC2 world directly to Spider-Girl via an unlikely family connection.