Warning - The rest of this article contains spoilers for Kraven the Hunter.
Kraven the Hunter has finally arrived, and the new Sony Pictures film teases the future introduction of a mysterious doctor who has deep ties to Spider-Man: Miles Warren.
The character is never seen in the film but is mentioned at two different points.
Alessandro Nivola’s Rhino is the first to name-drop him, revealing that Miles Warren is the man who experimented on him to give him indestructible skin.
The doctor’s name reappears at the film's end when Fred Hechinger’s Chameleon admits to Kraven that he saw a doctor in New York who helped change him. In his case, that means he’s now a comic-accurate-looking Chameleon with the power to change his looks to anyone else in the world.
Who Is Miles Warren in Kraven the Hunter?
Miles Warren was first introduced in Amazing Spider-Man #31 in September 1965.
Warren was a professor of biochemistry at Empire State University, but on top of that, the character even worked under the High Evolutionary (the villain of last year's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3).
Interestingly, Warren was expelled from the High Evolutionary's council due to his controversial cloning experiments, which is the key reason he's involved in Spider-Man's world.
Miles Warren's first big foray into Spider-Man's world was when he fell in love with one of his students, Gwen Stacy. After she died in the tragic yet iconic moment in comic book history, Warren blamed Spider-Man for her death.
His response was to try to create a clone of her, which resulted in Abby-L, a disfigured clone of Gwen Stacy who had the powers to degenerate anything she touched.
Miles Warren Is Also Known As The Jackal
Miles Warren's experiments kept diving further and further into cloning, which eventually drove Miles insane after killing his assistant, turning him into The Jackal (who first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #129 in October 1973).
The Jackal's list of crimes is long and includes pitting bit villains and anti-heroes against Spider-Man, including Scorpion, Tarantula, and the Punisher.
The biggest achievement that the Jackal pulled off was the highly controversial storyline called the Clone Saga, which resulted in multiple clones of Peter Parker. One of them went on to become a beloved fan-favorite character named Ben Reily, who took on the name of Scarlet Spider (and has one of the coolest Spidey costumes).
Jackal was also behind the big comic event called Spider-Island, where he set thousands of bugs infected with the Spider-Virus, which had the potential to give anyone who bit the powers of Spider-Man himself.
It is worth noting that despite what Kraven the Hunter establishes, Warren Miles/The Jackal has absolutely nothing to do with the creation of Rhino and Chameleon.
Will Those Miles Warren Teases Ever Come to Fruition?
Sadly, or not so sadly, fans shouldn’t expect to see these teases for Miles Warren take form any time soon.
Kraven the Hunter is already expected to bomb hard at the box office. The film is projected to make $85 million in North America (compared with its $110 million budget) and is on track for a measly $15 million opening weekend box office.
To make matters worse, a report from The Wrap confirmed that Sony Pictures is ending its Spider-Man-adjacent film universe, making Kraven the last for the foreseeable future.
Ironically, the introduction of Miles Warren to these films could have been the key to unlocking the whole connected universe. All they had to do was have Warren clone Spider-Man, which is known for in the comics, and then Sony Pictures could have its own Spider-Man to use whenever it wanted.
At the very least, fans still have Spider-Man 4 to look forward to, even if they will be waiting until 2026 to see it come to fruition.
Kraven the Hunter is now playing in theaters.
