Kraven’s Last Hunt: How A Dark Spider-Man Story Actually Worked

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1987 was a somewhat transitional year for comic book storytelling, as
the popularity of DC Comics’ Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and
Watchmen showed that superhero comics didn’t have to be bright and
cheery in order to be successful – and enormously successful, at that.
Subsequently, one of Marvel Comics’ first attempts to turn down the
lights on one of its own characters met with great success of its own,
in the form of J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck’s “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” the
classic six-issue arc that ran through Web of Spider-Man, Amazing
Spider-Man, and Spectacular Spider-Man.

While outwardly seen as Marvel’s attempt to copy DC’s success, the
story idea had actually been based on one that DeMatteis reportedly had
developed years earlier. With the unprecedented attention given to Dark
Knight and Watchmen, the wake of these acclaimed stories seemed to be
the perfect time to bring DeMatteis’ own to fruition, and its continued
popularity over the past three decades has proven that it was one that
deserved telling.

Why A Dark Spider-Man Story Shouldn’t Have Worked

The telling of such a dark Spider-Man story, though, was a bold move
for a character typically known for his jovial wit and wisecracks.
There was outright skepticism at the time of the story’s publication by
many who saw DeMatteis and Zeck’s arc as little more than an execution
of Marvel’s attempt to cash in on its competitor’s success. The
already-grim Batman, after all, lent himself to being darkened a little
further, but the happy-go-lucky Spider-Man meant that Marvel had a
tougher sell to its readership and a larger gap to bridge regarding a
darker story featuring its flagship character than DC did with its own.

There are even those who accused DeMatteis of unabashed plagiarism for
his usage of William Blake’s classic poem The Tyger, referencing the
same “fearful symmetry” verse within his story that Alan Moore had
quoted in Watchmen. The dual usage, of course, was coincidental – the
final issue of Watchmen saw publication the same month as the first
installment of “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” and the only real similarities
between Moore and DeMatteis’ stories are the themes involving the idea
of symmetry, with both drawing from the same inspiration: Blake’s
poetry.

Why A Dark Spider-Man Story DID Work

Spidey’s journey to the dark side was ironically made a little easier
by way of another controversial element in the web-slinger’s mythos:
his newer black costume, which still had yet to win over much of
Spider-Man’s fanbase. The perpetually dark atmosphere of DeMatteis and
Zeck’s story – whether it was the stormy, nighttime skies or the dark
sewers beneath the streets – served as the perfect environment for
Spidey to don his modern outfit. “Kraven’s Last Hunt” was arguably the
best-suited, pun intended, storyline to showcase Spider-Man’s oft-
maligned new uniform, and perhaps unintentionally, helped win over the
undecided and perhaps ensure that the costume would remain entrenched
in Spidey’s world, even if the overall look ended up belonging to
Venom, who was introduced a few months later.

The nature of DeMatteis’ story also helped ease Spider-Man into a
darker world, as poor Spidey was merely a victim of Kraven’s
machinations – he didn’t become the darkness, he merely responded to
it. After all, even the happiest and most care-free among us would
react badly to being buried alive for two weeks and having our good
name sullied in the meantime. Any other time, an abrupt change-of-tone
or mood swing from the previous storyline would have seemed contrived
and opportunistic. Changing tastes, though, made the readership at
large ready for such a move, and DeMatteis’ story provided the device
to make such a move seem plausible. Spidey having an outfit in the
closet that was perfect for such an occasion only helped make “Kraven’s
Last Hunt” a well-timed and welcome breath of fresh air.

Why A Dark Spider-Man Story Became A Classic

It was a time when fans were ready for such a story, and DeMatteis and
Zeck delivered. Evoking the same kind of surprise that Walt Simonson
did when he had first taken over Thor a few years earlier, “Kraven’s
Last Hunt” was the Spider-Man story that no one knew they wanted. In
fact, some didn’t realize it wasn’t really a Spider-Man story as much
as it was a Kraven The Hunter story – so all-encompassing and
engrossing was DeMatteis and Zeck’s story that readers were transported
into the mind of Kraven himself. It was a treatment that the villain
had rarely, if ever, received, and one that made this story one of the
most worthwhile sendoffs of a character in comics history – an
especially meaningful sendoff in the days when the death of such a
character in a comic book story was believed to be permanent.

While seen as an atypical storyline 30 years ago, its influence on
today’s comic storytelling has ironically given the story a kind of
modern feel that allows it to stand up well in modern times, and
certainly better than many of the more typical comic stories of the
era. The story’s biggest fault might be one that’s really the fault of
publishing practices of the day – written at a time where comic books
were almost exclusively consumed an issue at a time, the issue-over-
issue repetitiveness of DeMatteis’ script makes the story at times a
little overly repetitious in collected form. Conversely, though, the
collected volume gives the story a cohesiveness that only came with
rereading previous chapters in the past – an often necessary activity
back in the pre-trade paperback days in order to best enjoy multi-issue
arcs.

In 1987, “Kraven’s Last Hunt” hit that sweet spot between the advent of
darker superhero stories and the arrival of the so-called “grim ‘n
gritty” era of the ’90s. Creators for both mainstream and alternative
publishers ultimately killed that darkly-golden goose, with characters
who relied on lots of scowling, over-the-top posturing, and grisly
displays of violence in an attempt to replicate and one-up the truly
innovative work of writers like Frank Miller, Moore, and DeMatteis.
Remaining one of the most-remembered and fondly recalled arcs in over
five decades of Spider-Man stories, “Kraven’s Last Hunt” clearly was
the darker Spidey story fans wanted – even if they didn’t realize it at
the time.

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