Let me state my ‘thesis’ up front. It’s my belief that, within his own twisted mind, Miles Warren believes himself as not dissimilar to a creator God.
This hinges upon his cloning and genetic experiments.
In publication order Miles Warren was driven mad when Gwen Stacy died. He had obsessively ‘loved’ her from a distance and displayed a degree of passive aggression towards Peter out of jealousy. As I touched upon in my last article, he was devastated by her death to the point where he sought to ‘resurrect her’ through cloning.
During the flashback to the moment he cloned Gwen, his dialogue reveals three interesting facts.
He promised to punish those who ‘harmed her’. Not her original ‘host’. Not her predecessor. Not her metaphorical ‘sister’ or her ‘mother’. Just ‘her’. He clearly views the clone Gwen as actually being Gwen restored to life.
This is further corroborated by the second point of interest. Namely, his referring to cloning Gwen as ‘re-creating’ her.
Finally, his dialogue also arguably touches upon the idea of Adam and Eve. Gwen emerges naked and ‘innocent’ her mind is blank and unsullied. As originally intended perhaps that’s a bit of a stretch. But the idea is leant far more weight in the Spider-Man: The Osborn Journal #1, where Warren stated it was ‘positively Biblical’ that the first successful clone was a man, consequently name-dropping Adam and the Garden of Eden fame.
This clone was of course of Peter Parker.
Between the Gwen and Peter clones it would make a lot of sense for Warren’s ego to have gone waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of control.
In his own eyes his genius had not only functionally restored a dead person to life, but also gone a step further and outright duplicated someone still alive. As we know from later stories (such as the original ‘Carrion’ storyline) Warren in fact cloned himself. Wouldn’t that have been the ultimately proof of his mastery of life itself?
In addition to the above he can even exist in more than one place. Or if you will, exist as multiple entities at once. This was further confirmed in Web of Spider-Man #125 and Spectacular Spider-Man #225. In these issues we learn that Warren had set up a clone of himself as the husband of the original Gwen clone.
When the intervention of Peter and (the Phil Urich) Green Goblin ruined their suburban tranquility, Warren was furious that his ‘innocent little fantasy’ had been spoiled.
At least on some level Warren clearly viewed his clone as himself. One entity as many entities? That’s such an impossibility for normal human beings it’d be more than likely to inflate your sense of ego, possibly all the way to Godlike proportions.
And, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that somewhat similar to the Holy Trinity in the Christian faith? Three aspects of the same divine entity? One being in more than one part?
Warren’s cloning experiments went further though. In Spec #31 Carrion (who possessed all of Warren’s genius) used Peter’s DNA to genetically engineer a Spider-Amoeba creature.
Furthermore, in Spec #222 we see Warren unleash a horde of creatures from his ‘genetic soup’.
And of course, there was Spidercide. In the Spider-Man: The Jackal Files #1 Warren tells Spidercide (yet another clone of Peter’s) that he gave him the ability to control his body on a molecular level.
Perhaps the most extensive example of this power was displayed in ASM #404, part of the ‘Maximum Clonage’ story arc. When battling Ben Reilly Spidercide transformed his entire body into liquid, then solidified himself entapping Ben. After Ben broke free Spidercide is reduced to a mere head. However, he was able to easily reconstitute his body ala the T-1000 from ‘Terminator 2: Judgement Day’.
As bizarre (and lame) as this was, in terms of their superhuman abilities, Spidercide was by all accounts more powerful than Peter or any of the other clones. Warren didn’t just copy Peter yet again. In his own eyes he improved upon him.
All these examples demonstrate how Warren had the ability o play with the building blocks of human life, and contort it into unnatural forms of his own design.
This would naturally have inflated his ego yet further and helps explain his scheme in ‘Maximum Clonage’.* His plan was to mass murder humankind and replace it with clones. From a sane and rationale point of view this goal is nonsensical.
But that was rather the point, Warren wasn’t sane or rationale.
In his eyes life was merely worth the time, effort and resources it’d take for him to clone someone.** From his own twisted point of he was a God, a master of death, a creator of life. He could replicate, resurrect and improve upon nature itself. So, why not start over with a clean slate? Isn’t that what God did with that flood once upon a time?
Additionally let’s consider that, however bad they were, other stories have touched upon the idea of the Jackal as a kind of godlike figure.
In Scarlet Spider Unlimited #1 he was affiliated with the High Evolutionary, who arguably also views himself as a kind of God due to his own genetic experiments. In that same story we discovered that there was a cult among the High Evolutionary’s Ani-men that worshipped Warren as a sacred savior.
In ‘Clone Conspiracy’ we see that Warren designed himself a new mask evoking Anubis, one of the Egyptian Gods of death. Whilst it was Ben Reilly who actually wore this costume, the fact that Warren himself made it lends credence to my thesis’.
In conclusion, though much of his history is dogged by shoddy (to say the least) stories, there is nevertheless psychological substance to be found within the mad mind of Miles Warren.
*I’m not trying to defend that storyline.
In my opinion it is one of the absolute nadirs of Spider-History, especially the final Omega issue. Among its other sins, it was an objectively terrible idea to take a character that began as a humble college professor with grounded ambitions and upscale him into a potentially global threat.
It’s as creatively short sighted as having Superman end nuclear war ala Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Or having Batman control crime by having one of his agents unite all the gangs; see the ‘War Games’ storyline.
Like those stories, whilst it might be theoretically possible for the characters to want and be capable of doing those things, they shouldn’t.
**Which is probably why he was nonplussed by a room full of Gwen Stacy clones degenerating in front of him in Spider-Man #61. He knew there were more where that came from.
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