WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Amazing Spider-Man #73, available now from Marvel.

As one of Marvel's flagship characters, Spider-Man has been through plenty of hardships and unexpected twists over the years. This has often come at the hands of a few manipulative villains, vying to install chaos in the lives of the wall-crawler and his loved ones. But sometimes, one villain's schemes can turn out to just be cogs in a much larger machine, as was just revealed regarding one of Spider-Man's most controversial events and its connection Kindred.

"One More Day," the sotyr where Peter Parker sold his soul, has been referenced frequently during the events of Kindred's reveals in Amazing Spider-Man, but the villain's ultimate plans also involved the infamous "Sins Past" storyline, where Norman Osborn was revealed to have had children with Gwen Stacy. However, that story has essentially been rewritten by the events of Amazing Spider-Man #73 by Nick Spencer, Ze Carlos, Carlos Gomez, Marcelo Ferreira, Alex Sinclair, and VC's Joe Caramagna.

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Amazing Spider-Man Sins Past Retcon 1

"Sins Past" focused largely on Sarah and Gabriel, the secret children of Gwen Stacy. Born years earlier during a brief visit to Europe Gwen went on shortly before her death, the children were supposedly the product of an affair Norman Osborn had with Gwen during the depths of Harry's drug addiction. Aging at an accelerated rate, the children were conditioned by Norman to believe his lies about their parentage and to foster a hatred for their "father" Peter Parker, which resulted in them hunting Peter down at Gwen's grave in Amazing Spider-Man #509 by J. Michael Staycizki and Mike Deodato. Although Peter was able to get through to Sarah and even went through with a blood transfusion to seemingly save her, Gabriel embraced his apparent legacy and became the Grey Goblin before being defeated.

The storyline has remained highly controversial since its release, largely due to the heavy retcons it introduces to the final years of Gwen's death and transforming the exact reason Gwen was targeted by Norman. Sarah largely disappeared -- last seen seemingly joining Interpol. Meanwhile, Gabriel briefly appeared in Amazing Spider-Man Presents: American Son by Brian Reed, Phillipe Briones, Chad Hardin, and Stephen Segovia as a "true" heir to Norman's legacy.

The retcons have largely been ignored since they were revealed, but now they've been exhumed by Kindred -- and revealed to have been a part of his schemes all along. It turns out that Norman had never actually had that affair with Gwen, and was only led to believe so thanks to the inventions of Mendel Stromm and Mysterio.

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Amazing Spider-Man Sins Past Retcon 2

These false memories clouded his (famously unpredictable) judgement and led Norman to embrace the lie all too willingly. Meanwhile, Harry recruited Stromm to use his intellect to develop a genetic testing process to create Gabriel and Sarah as pawns in his plan to torment both Peter and Norman for their "sins" against him over the years. There were multiple iterations of the twins, each dying to the innate degradation that exists within their clone's bodies. But after years of experiments, Kindred's efforts were successful, resulting in his current form within the "empty vessel" that is Sarah Stacy.

It's a devious plan from Kindred, one that has prayed on the memories of their loved ones and used them as weapons against his friends. He even recruited Mysterio to help sell the lie by having him disguise himself as Mary-Jane's therapist and implanting her own memories of Gwen's confessions about her children. It's a terrifying reveal in part to the dark intent of the scheme, as well as a reminder of just how long Harry's plans have been in motion that are only now coming to fruition. But it's also a tidy explanation for why "Sins Past" happened as it did, and allows the storyline and the impact it would have on both Gwen and Norman as characters to be quietly erased as a by-product of Harry's actions.

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