WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Amazing Spider-Man #50 by Nick Spencer, Patrick Gleason, Edgar Delgado & VC's Joe Caramagna, on sale now.
With The Amazing Spider-Man #50 finally revealing its hellish centipede-wearing mystery foe Kindred to be a version of Harry Osborn, it won't be long before he and Spider-Man confront each other at last. Whatever that confrontation brings, lead writer Nick Spencer is teasing something that will cement Kindred as one of the webhead's most unsettling modern villains.
In an interview with CBR, Spencer hinted at what Kindred has in store for Peter Parker and, more importantly, how the character inspires terror beyond his ghastly appearance.
"This is certainly the most overtly horror part of the story, yes. You'll see Kindred do some really gruesome, gory things. But that's not the kind of horror I usually respond to," Spencer explained. "I think Kindred's voice scratching at the back of Peter’s head is what's unsettling. More than that, this feeling Pete has, that something is not quite right or recognizable about his life, that it's somehow all a dream and he's being swept along, trapped in a kind of hopeless cycle, that's what's truly terrifying."
Beyond watching over Peter and his loved ones from the shadows, taunting him in dreams, and even reviving deceased enemies, Kindred has regularly blamed Peter for some unspecified past sin and orchestrated much of the past 50 issues to remind him of that particular failure. As Spencer described this feeling, "Something is in the house. Pete can't see it, but he can feel it. Things happened that he doesn't remember, or doesn't want to remember, and now there's a ghost haunting him."
While Kindred's identity was kept a mystery for most of Spencer's two-year Amazing Spider-Man run, more visible proof of him possibly being Harry was established during the "Absolute Carnage" storyline. There, Kindred briefly interacted with an institutionalized Norman Osborn -- then host to the Carnage symbiote -- who gave a half-mocking message of being "so proud of you."
This personal connection was confirmed after Osborn was "purged" of his sins and powers by the revived Sin Eater, whom Kindred then double-crossed by unleashing all the sins his asset harvested against him. After being located by Doctor Kafka and the authorities, Osborn insisted that the creature be found, revealing Kindred to be his son.
Currently, it's unknown what specific connection this Harry has to Peter or even the current 616 Harry Osborn. One notable fan theory suggests that he's a remnant of the pre-One More Day Marvel universe, seeking revenge on Peter for the despised deal with Mephisto that, beyond sacrificing his marriage with Mary-Jane Watson, led to an alternate Harry being revived from the dead in his place.