NEW: Guide to Kraven the Hunter

Happy New Year, comic fans! I’m kicking off the year with a new Marvel Comics reading order for Patrons of CK. Sometimes I make a reading order because I love a character. Other times I launch a guide because a character has so many series and appearances. And, occasionally, I make a guide just because a character will be starring in a movie with a hunky actor, not realizing that film will be one of the biggest super-flops of all time! Of course, that means today I am sharing a Guide to Kraven the Hunter!

Guide to Kraven the Hunter

I knew virtually nothing about Kraven The Hunter before working on this guide. I mean, yeah, I knew had a penchant for animal prints, but that also describes Michelle Visage. I was often puzzled by his appearances in the past six years of Spider-Man comics, where he was himself, but also undead, but also his own son, but also a clone?

Well, now I finally get it, and so can you.

Kraven began his life as one of Spider-Man’s signature villains in Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #14. However, the thing I quickly realized about the original Sergei Kravinoff and all of the subsequent Kravens is they really aren’t typical Marvel villains, except for some recreational poaching and coming from a family of Russian oligarchs.

No. Kraven would have been perfectly content to continue his endless safari in the plains of Serengeti if it wasn’t for the emergence of American superheroes – especially animal-themed heroes. After all, Kraven is a hunter, and what is more dangerous game than man with a superhero costume themed after a beast?

That’s what drew Kraven to hunt Spider-Man initially. It’s also what made him the odd man out in the original Sinister Six and what made him the least-used of the six of them. There is only so many ways to spin Kraven hunting Spider-Man, and even when you spin him off to hunt Man-Wolf, Ka-Zar, and Tigra, all of the stories start to feel exactly the same. Even the insertion of a new hallucinatory edge to Kraven’s hunts wasn’t really enough to keep the character fresh.

Perhaps that’s why Marvel took the unusual step of retiring him in 1987 in the iconic story by J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck. It was unusual to give any character to a permanent death, and especially to do it for a villain with such panache – in a six part crossover across all three Spider-Man ongoing titles!

Not only that, but Kraven actually stayed dead! He was a much more interesting Spider-Man character as a death that haunted Peter Parker than as someone brought back to life.

Except, Marvel didn’t want to give up on the idea of Kraven hunting Spider-Man. Thus, after a decade of death we were introduced to his son Alyosha, less a villain and more of an anti-hero with a dark sense of humor. And, after a decade of Alysoha’s less-than-villainous ways, we got Ana, an even more murderous iteration of Kraven in a tiny teenage girl package.

But, that wasn’t enough – Marvel had to tinker with one of their most signature character deaths, and so “The Grim Hunt” brought back Sergei – although, it did so with a real devotion to the tone and stakes of the original story.

Unsurprisingly, once Marvel had Sergei back to life they had no idea what to do with him. He still wasn’t much of a villain – just a hunter who hated Spider-Man. He briefly joins Ana in hunting Kaine, the Scarlet Spider. Then, in Marvel Now, he is a humorous ally for Squirrel Girl (in a role that would have fit much better on Alyosha). He hunts Venom, Old Man Logan, and Captain America. But, it was inevitable that he’d die again, because now that was what his character was about – even moreso than hunting.

The dying happened in the dully titled “Hunted” from Nick Spencer in Amazing Spider-Man (2018). Despite the story dragging on far too long and inserting an absurd twist to continue the Kraven brand, it left us with a perfectly marketable outcome: Kraven got to be dead but also reborn as the most ruthless, villainous version of him we’ve seen to date.

Want instant access to new Guide to Kraven the Hunter and every future guide to Marvel, DC, Indie Comics, and more? Become a Patron of CK for as little as $2 a month or $20.40 a year to gain access to this exclusive guide and over 70 other guides months before the general public gains access to them. Plus, in the past year I’ve also updated over 150 of my 200+ guides for both patrons and the general public.

Exclusives for Crushing Cadets ($1/month): 52 Guides!

DC Guides (7): Batman – Index of Ongoing Titles, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Birds of Prey, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: Hal Jordan, Green Lantern: Kyle Rayner, Omega Men