Warning! Spoilers ahead for Amazing Spider-Man #51.LR
While Spider-Man is one of Marvel Comics' greatest superheroes ever, he's really causing some major issues in the present 616 timeline. Thanks to some pretty hard (and perhaps wrong) decisions Peter Parker has recently had to make, New York City has been in absolute chaos. The latest issue of Amazing Spider-Man provides fans with a pretty solid scope of all the layers of bad things going on, which can all be traced back to Spider-Man himself. While he's obviously doing the best he can with his powers and trying to stay true to the hero he's always been, Spider-Man is definitely responsible for all the current mayhem going on.
Spider-Man's new foe Kindred (Harry Osborn) can share in the blame to some degree. If it weren't for him pushing Spider-Man into corners and forcing him to make hard choices and making mistakes, Spidey wouldn't be in the mess he's currently in. It began several issues ago when Kindred resurrected the Sin-Eater, who began a crusade against New York's criminals, using his powers to "cleanse" them of their sins and bad natures, gaining a mass of followers as he went. When Sin-Eater set his sights on Norman Osborn, the new director of the Ravencroft Institute and former Green Goblin, Spider-Man had a choice to make about whether or not he should save his arch-foe, who would no doubt in the future become the Goblin once more to harm and kill again.
While Spider-Man did save Norman from Sin-Eater's initial attack, spending enough time with the malicious Goblin changed Peter's mind, fearing that he would kill another one of his loved ones. As a result, Spider-Man uncharacteristically left Norman to his fate to be "cleansed". While Norman did lose his evil tendencies and is now displaying a repentant soul, Sin-Eater gained enough evil power for Kindred to take and absorb it all. He then used this power to turn Peter's Spider allies into demon-possessed versions of themselves, setting them loose upon New York in Amazing Spider-Man #51.LR from writers Nick Spencer and Matthew Rosenberg with art by Federico Vicentini.
Now, not only have Spider-Man's friends and allies become demons in Kindred's control and set loose after the destruction of Ravencroft, but Spider-Man himself has gone into the astral plane to track down Kindred alone after stealing the Hand of Vishanti from Dr. Strange (who had his reasons for not wanting Peter to use it in the first place). Furthermore, Mary Jane has just returned to the city, having been away to film a movie. However, she barely gets any time to breathe before her car is attacked by Spider-Demons, finding herself saved by a seemingly reformed Norman Osborn. Even after that, it gets worse: Sin-Eater isn't done with his crusade by a long shot, gathering his followers to find and steal the powers of the one supervillain who's perfectly suited to hunt down Spiders: Morlun.
Marvel Comics' New York is in big trouble facing threats and dangers from all sides, and Spider-Man is sadly the common denominator. While he's trying to fix things by finding the villain, his desperation to save his friends from Green Goblin first and now Kindred has led to some pretty bad moves on his part. This has lead to some intense consequences which will only get worse if Spider-Man isn't able to set things right fast. Here's hoping Spider-Man can handle Kindred, but it certainly looks like things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get any better.