First, we learn that it's Morlun's brother, Karn, that we've seen hunting the Spider-Men for the last few issues, not Morlun. I wasn't 100 percent clear on that in the main story; I thought Karn might just be another name that Morlun used. But, the back-up story makes it clearer. Moreover, Gage reveals that Karn has numerous siblings, including more obvious vampire ones that we meet here, named Bora and Brix. In fact, he's from a whole family of people that hunt the Spider-Men, or, as they call them, Spider-Totems. This revelation shakes up Otto, since he realizes that they have to wipe out the entire family before the Spider-Men are going to be safe. He also realizes that Assassin Spider-Man and Spider-Girl will help him commit the genocide that he needs to commit to be free. Gage also wisely reminds us why Otto is so invested, that he can't return to his time lest he lead Karn straight to Anna Maria.
Perhaps most importantly, we learn in the back-up story that Karn is seeking atonement for his sin, namely his lack of the love of killing. Centuries ago, this "failing" resulted in him hesitating in killing the Master Weaver, as he was apparently destined to do, and his mother dies in his place in trying to do so. (We don't learn why he was destined to kill the Weaver. We just know that his brother, Daemos, fails in his attempt and that the Weaver calls Karn the "Chose One.") Although his "sin" is clear (if you buy it), I can't say that his "atonement" makes much sense. For reasons that seem a stretch, Karn is thrown into the Multiverse to kill Spider-Men. The helmet placed on his head to keep his family from seeing his face is somehow attached to the Master Weaver and his ability to sense Spider-Men; each time Karn kills a Spider-Totem, it opens a portal that could send him home. I seriously don't know what I should think about this part. On one hand, it's nice to get this sort of insight into Karn's motive. We're not going to have to wait until the last issue for some big (and ultimately unsatisfying) reveal explaining it, as we had to do with "Original Sin." But, it just seems so...clichéd. It's essentially Hermey the Elf from "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" meets Scott Bakula from "Quantum Leap." Plus, the mechanics don't make much sense to me. Why the random portals? Why not tell him that he has to kill x number of Spider-Totems and be done with it?
Along a similar line, the mechanics of Otto's activities in this issue also don't make much sense. Otto creates a device to reverse-engineer Karn's ability to drain the Spider-Men's powers, intending to drain him of the stolen power instead. The only small catch is that it doesn't work. Otto manages to shake off the loss, and he suddenly announces that a few adjustments will result in it hiding the Spider-Men's signal from Karn. Really? I'm not really convinced, from an engineering perspective, that a device meant to reverse the flow of a certain type of energy could easily be turned into one that would preclude that type of energy from being tracked. But, I guess I'm supposed to go with it. It's not too hard to do so, to be honest, since Gage almost immediately calls into question how effective it is -- even if it does work -- by revealing that the congregation of Spider-Men make them easily trackable to Karn and his family.
In other words, we get a lot thrown at us in this issue. In the end, it feels like too much, like Gage was under the gun to hit as many marks as he could. Moreover, despite the information dump, it still isn't clear to me what the plot of "Spider-Verse" is going to be. Is it really just Karn killing enough Spider-Men to make it home? That feels a little...formulaic. I'm giving this issue a three, since some of it -- mostly Camuncoli's great battle scenes -- felt like a four and some of it -- especially Karn's unbelievable motives -- felt like a two.
*** (three of five stars)
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