So Amazing Spider-Man has been running a sort of overall-metaplot called “The Gauntlet” all year, where the heirs of Kraven basically beef up every one of Spidey’s villains and then send them after him (or manipulate them into doing so). Originally, the implication was that the Kraven family was trying to knock Spidey down enough to then take him on themselves, a la Bane’s plan for Batman in “Knightfall.” This didn’t entirely work in terms of the stories that were being told, mostly because the rotating-writer-and-weekly format of ASM doesn’t lead itself to the sort of cohesive storytelling you want for this sort of plot, so at the same time as Spidey was fighting villain after villain, he was also engaging in all his other running subplots, which meant that the “beat him down into exhaustion” idea didn’t really work.
This became obvious early on, so the ASM writers collectively shifted gears (or maybe they intended it all along, but I don’t really think it reads that way) and shifted the Kraven family’s focus so that they weren’t so much interested in defeating Spider-Man as they were in changing his nature to become a more primal nature-warrior (the “Spyder”, a nice callback to “Kraven’s Last Hunt”) that they could then defeat. This worked much better with the nature of the comics model they were using, and some of the various rogues’ gallery stories that came about as a result are just instant classics. The Lizard four-parter has already been hailed in other quarters, and deservedly so, but the Rhino and Sandman stories were only a step behind, and the Electro and Mysterio ones quite decent as well; the only failure was the Vulture one, and that wasn’t bad so much as it was just kind of there.1
And then, in the dramatic conclusion of this year-long metaplot, it turned out the entire reason for all of it was… to bring Kraven back from the dead.2 This earns a “wait, what?” for two reasons.
Firstly, there really isn’t any reason to bring Kraven back from the dead. His death story is a classic, so it’s not like bringing him back avenges a sin against comics. (Whatever that is.) Kraven, more than most villains, is a really dated concept to boot.3 His heirs fulfill the functional purpose for his existence; you don’t need Kraven when Kraven’s Son or Kraven’s Wife or Kraven’s Daughter can do everything he can do anyway. And Kraven isn’t someone who should come back, frankly, even considering that comics characters do it all the time, because let’s not forget the reason he’s dead is that he committed suicide. The Chameleon points out in the story itself that resurrecting a character who killed himself is kind of a stupid idea, and as always, when characters in the story are pointing out that the premise of the story is stupid, you’re not in a great place.
Secondly, if you’re going to resurrect somebody with magic, you shouldn’t be doing it in Amazing Spider-Man, because Spider-Man’s world isn’t one where people magically come back to life (stupid deals with the devil aside); he’s not that sort of high adventure superhero comic. Spidey is street-level superheroics, even when he gets a little mystical. Spider-Man’s world is one where when you die, you’re dead: see Captain Stacy, Gwen Stacy, Jean DeWolff, the Tarantula, et cetera. If somebody gets killed in a Spider-Man comic and you want to bring them back, you need to establish that they were never really killed in the first place: see Norman Osborn, Aunt May or MJ, all of whom were thought dead at one point or another, but who were after-the-fact revealed to be not dead and Spidey just tricked.
However, there’s no way to use that method to bring back Kraven, since there is no way to write it so that Kraven didn’t really blow his head off. So instead, there’s another boring story about magic in a comic where it doesn’t really belong, and the resolution is that Kraven goes to the Savage Land until some other writer thinks of something to do with him, which – why would you go to all the trouble of resurrecting somebody like this if you don’t have a plan to do something with him? It’s a shame because most everything leading up to the reveal was really good, but the denouement was just unfortunate across-the-board.
- Why do all the other classic villains get a revamp or a pump-up, and Adrian Toomes gets pushed off to the side for a newer, freakier Vulture? The Rhino story was good because the newer, meaner Rhino got absolutely destroyed by the old one, making it clear that the original was the badass. Why no love for the original Vulture? [↩]
- I know there are some people who are all offended about Kaine and Mattie Franklin and Madame Web being killed off, but honestly, who the hell cares about them? [↩]
- Remember: he’s a big game hunter turned baddie. A big game hunter. Do they even exist any more? [↩]
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I have no problem with Kaine and Madam Web dying, but I was one of the few people who cared about Maddie Franklin, and her getting killed aggravated the hel out of me – although if they undid the best Kraven story ever written just to have him go Not Do Anything … this just reinforces my decision to avoid the Spider-Man titles for the forseeable future.
Speaking of Kaine – I loved the page after the Stan Lee/Marcos Martin bit. When I think about what’s actually ON the page, I’m underwhelmed; but I wasn’t expecting it to exist and therefore found it to be an honest to goodness surprise.
Kinda like the after-the-credits teasers in movies, only the surprise hasn’t been spoiled by the fact you knew going in you were going to have to sit and wait to see it.
I wish you’d waited a little longer to post this. I get Amazing Spider-Man through an old-fashioned mail-order subscription (Yes! They still exist!), and they’ve been running really late since this story started. I’ve only received part one so far (and I’m starting to worry, as they haven’t sent any in over two weeks now– I’ve had this subscription ever since they went thrice-monthly and while this isn’t the first time they’ve slipped behind schedule, it seems to be worse than usual. Apparantly, subscribers are their lowest priority nowadays, and the big events often seem to run the farthest behind schedule– the Obama issue never arrived at all– I had to send an e-mail complaining. [And when it did finally show up many weeks late, it had the Romita cover, naturally, but I wasn’t upset about that])
So I’ve only read the very beginning of this story. I thought about not reading this post at all, but then I cautiously glanced over the first couple of paragraphs, and it looked safe enough. In truth, you didn’t reveal too much, but I wish you’d left out the deaths, of which I’ve only seen one.
It’s too soon for me to really judge the story itself, but I thought you were completely right about the pointlessness of resurrecting Kraven. I was against the idea myself, as soon as I realised that’s what they were planning to do.
The thing a lot of people seem to have forgotten is that Kraven was never that great of a villain to begin with. It was only that final story that really worked. Unfortunately, that final story was so memorable that it’s inflated Kraven’s importance in many people’s minds. It’s given him the MAJOR VILLAIN status that he never deserved.
I did really like most of the Gauntlet stories that led up to this, though. I really loved the Rhino stories, though I so wish they hadn’t gone for the obvious tragedy that they did. Why couldn’t he have found happiness? And like you, I never cared for the new Vulture, and I can’t understand why they couldn’t use the old one, who unlike Kraven really is a great villain. (But they’ve been trying to replace or alter [read de-age] the Vulture since the time of Stan Lee. I don’t understand this compulsion to get rid of Adrian Toombs. Is it just prejudice against his age?)
But there was one Gauntlet story I really detested, and I was truly shocked to read what you said here– ‘The Lizard four-parter has already been hailed in other quarters, and deservedly so’. Really?!? People actually like that story? I thought it was the worst story of the past year, maybe the worst since the Brand New Day began. I guess I am really out of step with other readers’ tastes.
Oh, one more thing. Thank you for finally writing about Spider-Man on here.
I always thought it would be fun to do a revamped Kraven less in the mold of exotic aristocrat on safari, and more like a star of “Crocodile Hunter”/”Deadliest Catch” A big reality TV celeb who comes to New York to hunt down the Lizard, and runs up against Spidey.
@Simon,
If my memory still serves me, that’s basically Ultimate Kraven’s story. He later showed up genetically altered to become a sort of werewolf in Ultimate Six. I’ve since stoped reading Ultimate Marvel comics, so I have no ideia if he showed up again.
I don’t get it.
Why do all the planned series that happen in comics lately (whether longer runs over multiple titles or shorter runs in one title) all have the similar problem of strong lead-ups and weak conclusions?
Is this a writing problem? An editing problem? A creativity (or lack thereof) problem? A head honcho / creative oversight problem?
“who the hell cares about [Mattie Franklin]?”
I do, and I don’t think I am the only one. I mean, I am not that attached to the character, but I am still upset to learn that Mattie died in service of such an utterly unnecessary plot twist.
“I always thought it would be fun to do a revamped Kraven less in the mold of exotic aristocrat on safari, and more like a star of “Crocodile Hunter”/”Deadliest Catch” A big reality TV celeb who comes to New York to hunt down the Lizard, and runs up against Spidey.”
Which is exactly what Bendis did with Ultimate Universe Kraven
*I* cared about Mattie Franklin!
YOU HEARTLESS MONSTER.
Also, yeah, i never got the love for Kraven either. He always seemed like kind of a loser to me. I always felt it kinda forced when they showed him as “dangerous” to Spidey.
Other than that, while i do think the Rhino deserved his happy ending, the stories were great nonetheless.
So yeah, boo to the killing of Mattie.
I’ve never read anything from the Ultimate line. Is the Kraven story worthwhile?
I would say yes, with a caveat: I always saw the Ultimate Kraven story as really more a Doctor Octopus story. It’s collected in Ultimate Spider-Man volume 3, “Double Trouble.”
“Spidey is street-level superheroics, even when he gets a little mystical. Spider-Man’s world is one where when you die, you’re dead: see Captain Stacy, Gwen Stacy, Jean DeWolff, the Tarantula, et cetera. If somebody gets killed in a Spider-Man comic and you want to bring them back, you need to establish that they were never really killed in the first place: see Norman Osborn, Aunt May or MJ, all of whom were thought dead at one point or another, but who were after-the-fact revealed to be not dead and Spidey just tricked.”
Doctor Octopus was killed by Kaine, remember? The Rose (Jacob Conover) hired the Hand to resurrect him, I think, so that he could have some super powered muscle to take on the Black Tarantula.
That’s maybe the ONE exception to your rule, though. Plus you could say it was street-level sorcery at work…or something? 🙂
I’m amused by the backups about Kaine (who was created by DeMatteis) written by Dematteis, while they undo some of the best Spider-man work ever (written by…yep, DeMatteis). Hmmm
@Carlos – nope, Ultimate Six was the end for him – too many villains to Ultimatize I guess.
It might just be me, but this really feels like Grant Morrison bringing back Ras Al Ghul and then Dini immediately putting him in Arkham (and no one using him until Red Robin launched)
Was the page after Kraven came back to life a close-in on his face as he comes to the slow realization of what happened, followed by a look over at whomever did it, followed by a “sons of bitches!” and an angry lunge?
Well as problematic as “The Grim Hunt” storyline may have been, I don’t think it will be anywhere near as problematic or rage-inducing as “One Moment in Time” (which I plan on skipping) will be.
Gnosis–
I only have a vague idea as to what One Moment In Time is about, and I’m not expecting it to be very good. But as long as it fixes One More Day, even just slightly, and answers a few of the questions in some reasonable way, I’ll be satisfied. Whenever you have a really bad story that affects continuity so greatly, you usually need to correct it somehow, and that’s usually not possible without another bad story. As long as the final result is an improvement and not another enormous mess, it’s worthwhile.
Mary-
I see what you’re saying, but I don’t get the sense Marvel has any intention of fixing One More Day. I’ve generally found that the Brand New Day stories and beyond work fine for me so long as I completely block out what brought them about. Therefore calling attention to it (as OMIT seems like it will) seems like a bad idea to me.
Oh and Burke? To answer your question: sorta. It wasn’t right after they brought him back, but Kraven wasn’t exactly thrilled about being back amongst the living.
“since there is no way to write it so that Kraven didn’t really blow his head off.”
Mysterio. There, done.
Not that I want him back, mind you. There’s really only so many times you can retell “The Deadliest Game” with superheroes. I find his brother, ex-girlfriend (Calypso*, not his wife), and surviving son** to be FAR more interesting than Sergi and the last one could easily fill in for him in any story that requires his father (and often does).
*She’s ALSO a pretty easy way to bring the original Kraven back within the context of the Spider-Man Universe…though it would raise the question of why she didn’t do it sooner.
**Heck, Kraven Jr was even more interesting when Zimmerman wrote him. How great is it that a Kraven actually acts like a spoiled aristocrat? I just wish such a drastic departure from “Al’s” previous characterization had been treated as a new character instead of overwriting his existing personality. Of course, ever since then writers seem to be playing up that he’s just that crazy. He’s Doc Ock levels of unstable. You don’t know what he’s going to do (or which side he’ll be on) from one day to the next.
Also, i just noticed that the guy they brought back by killing Mattie Franklin died again at the end of the arc.
GENIUS.
Allegretto, you’re right about Kraven being a loser. He WAS a loser in the Spider-Man comics up until the Kraven’s Last Hunt story. That was the whole point of the story, for god’s sake. He was so tired of being beaten and humiliated, again and again and again, by that punk-ass Spider-Man that he finally cracked and went totally overboard.
The problem with the story was that it was TOO GOOD, and now that’s all people think of when they think of the character. They forget how much of a joke he was before that story.
So what are they going to do with him now? Make him back into the joke he was before Kraven’s Last Hunt?
I have nothing constructive to add to this post beyond also caring about Maddie Franklin. 🙂
Beacon, Mysterio can work for a lot of things, but there was no way he could be used as an excuse for Kraven’s suicide. His suicide was a private moment with his gun. What would be the point of faking that, with no one around to witness it? Or even moreso, since his suicide was a private moment, why even involve Mysterio if you’re just going to say he never really killed himself?
Anyway, I wasn’t pissed off by how things ended. Kraven’s family just wanted to revitalize their clan and take out the spider clan, and they wanted the father to spear-head that. That’s fine, but they assumed that Kraven would follow that agenda to a T, and would also be grateful for being brought back, which he wasn’t. That was a nice (if a bit predictable) turn, I thought. After an initial failed battle with Spider-Man, what else COULD he do than just go back to the jungle to think things through? I guess what I’m saying here is that I had no problem with Kraven having no greater plans when he still has soil behind his ears.
Really, the story just looked like an everything-old-is-new-again deck clearing exercise (bring back Kraven, get rid of tertiary characters), and I’m just surprised it’s as good as it is.
I just keep repeating the same question to myself: “Seriously, why would anyone want to bring Kraven back?” I can’t think of anyone who was clamoring for a Kraven revival.
It’s like comics collectively went, “Fuck it, we brought Bucky and Barry Allen back, we might as well resurrect Kraven too!”
I didn’t say it was a GOOD explanation. I’m just saying that it works in the kind of hand-waving “try not-to-think-about-it-too-hard” way that a lot of Marvel’s explanations for various Spider-issues do.
I’m not particularly fond of the idea of Aunt May or Harry* being alive either (since those two had even better DeMatteis-penned deaths ruined in the process) but that seems to be the way they’re heading.
*Or Norman … but that’s mostly because Norman steals panel time from more interesting villains than it is about me having any real appreciation for his “death” scene.
Then again, I LOVED the “final” Doc Ock story from the Clone Saga but was still happy to see him resurrected by the Hand right after it ended so maybe I don’t have a clue what I really want
“It’s like comics collectively went, “Fuck it, we brought Bucky and Barry Allen back, we might as well resurrect Kraven too!””
Why IS Barry back? Enough time had passed that there aren’t legions of Barry fans demanding his return (unlike his horrible buddy Hal), he made the kind of heroic sacrifice that should stand (as opposed to a Ted Kord bitch death), and the only creative reasoning I’ve heard is the half-assed “the series could be like CSI … but with superheroes” explanation (did DC forget they already publish Batman?)
Also, as long as we’re killing off Spider-Women, could we whack Jessica Drew and Arana next? Please?
Please, No!!! I love Arana!! I also love Julia Carpenter (if something bad happened to her in this story, don’t tell me).
As for Jessica Drew, Bendis would never let anyone kill her off.
Beacon: Sadly, Barry Allen’s back simply because Dan Didio wanted him back. He explicitly said so in one of those DC Nation pages at the back of DC issues. When I read that, part of me died inside.
Comics professionals can be so damn childish sometimes (see also: Joe Quesada forcing writers to put “genies back into bottles”).
So… Is this the story that made Mark Waid decide to stop collecting comics?
Funny, that “nobody cared about Kraven until his death scene made him awesome” is exactly what I’ve been saying about Barry Allen.
“Barry Allen is back simply because Dan Didio wanted him back”
Just Didio? You sure of that?
Because sure, maybe Didio wanted him back too, but to me, it stinks of Johns re-making the DCU in his wet dreams image, as he usually does. After all, he’s the only one who is writing Barry Sue Allen and his wacky adventures with Hal “Super-Playboy” Jordan.
Its fucking disgusting.
Secondly, if you’re going to resurrect somebody with magic, you shouldn’t be doing it in Amazing Spider-Man, because Spider-Man’s world isn’t one where people magically come back to life.
While I agree with this in principal, I really don’t know that I agree. It entirely depends on who’s writing the story. JMS’s run of Spiderman was chock full of magic (although no one was ressurected), and at the same time, Peter David’s FNSM had a number of magically oriented plots. A magical plot directly *involving* Madame Web, Mattie Franklin, and Norman Osborn, was how Mattie got her powers to begin with!
But maybe, you want ressurections. Well, Doc Ock, who had been killed during the Clone Saga (and I argue that the plot that killed him was a worthwhile one, but YMMV) was brought back magically by the woman that held the title of Doctor Octopus, Trainer (A scientist using magic? This is madness!). Calypso, Kraven’s *wife*, brought back frigging Lizard a number of years back during an Annual!
Were all of these good stories? Arguable. But I think there’s precedent that really, whether or not magic is in ASM, and wether it works well, is entirely determined by the writer at the time. Myself, I’m plenty satisfied that my decision to drop Spidey after OMD was the right one.
“Why IS Barry back? Enough time had passed that there aren’t legions of Barry fans demanding his return (unlike his horrible buddy Hal), he made the kind of heroic sacrifice that should stand (as opposed to a Ted Kord bitch death), and the only creative reasoning I’ve heard is the half-assed “the series could be like CSI … but with superheroes” explanation (did DC forget they already publish Batman?)”
Barry Allen is probably my favorite super-hero, and I still don’t like that he’s back. Wally West–unlike Connor Hawke or Kyle–had been a super-speedster almost as long as Barry, he’d been the Flash almost as long as Bary, he’d earned the job.
Kraven, was at least as much “white jungle god” as big game hunter (a more civilized Ka-Zar in a sense) when he started out and I think the old Lee/Ditko stories with him worked very well. That being said, I agree there’s no particular need to bring him back.
The most outdated premise that comes to mind (turning to comics in general) was John Byrne’s post-Crisis origin for the Prankster——that kind of Saturday morning kids’ show hasn’t been seen in at least 20 years. But unlike Kraven, it doesn’t really affect his criminal MO.
Seem like a rehash of Spider-man Soul of the Hunter.
I kinda got the feeling that Kraven knew exactly what would happen once he realized it was Kaine that got killed in the attempt to bring him back. He knew Spider-Man was trouble even under normal circumstances and his family just went and royally ticked him off.
Chameleon was likely right about Kraven not wanting to be back and the black costume and a the note left with it was an attempt at suicide by Spidey.
Allegretto: Didio said was the one who brought both Hal Jordan and Barry Allen back, but he felt that they needed to be written by Johns; he even said that Barry would have been brought back sooner, but he wanted to wait until Johns had enough free time to write him.
Wait, Johns has free time? He’s writing Green Lantern, Flash, Brightest Day, Flashpoint, random other crap AND is acting as the company’s creative director.
And Barry came back in the middle of the gigantic clusterfuck crossover that was Sinestro Corps/Blackest Night.
“2.I know there are some people who are all offended about Kaine and Mattie Franklin and Madame Web being killed off, but honestly, who the hell cares about them? ”
the people who got offended?
Greg: JMS brought in a bunch of mystical stuff, yes. And outside the stupidass Sins Past, the mystical stuff is also the least like stuff of his run. Fucking stupidass Spider-Totem. (and I think PAD did mystical stuff on his run because of THE OTHER, and all the dumb shit that entailed. God knows no one else followed it up, including JMS, whose brainchild it was)
As someone who didn’t read the whole story and cherrypicked scans online: do the Lizard eating his own kid and Spidey’s “Give Me Your Face” moment work better in the context of the story than they did just seeing them independent of anything?
Lizard eating Billy: yes.
Spider-Man tearing off Sasha’s face: no.
Okay yes Spider Man doesn’t kill, but has there been any explanation yet of why he lets this bunch of people who murdered various people, and engineered the murder of others, basically just sort of scamper away with a “don’t let me catch you kids pullin’ this again!”?
Just want to chime in that I liked Maddie.
I finally got to read the whole story. (Of course, now there will be nobody here to read what I say.)
I still think bringing back Kraven was kind of pointless, but the story was not nearly as bad as I feared. It’s actually kind of good, if you ignore the part with Spider-Man acting out of character and getting excessively vicious. And considering how convoluted the plot actually is, it’s amazing Joe Kelly was able to keep it as coherent as he did.
It was still a bad idea, though.
I hated to see Madame Web go, and I hate the change in Julia Carpenter. How is Rachel going to handle it when Mommy comes home blind and acting like a completely different person?
So when did Spidey learn Arana’s real name? I’ve never seen anything to indicate he knew much about her at all.
I had no idea Kraven and the Chameleon were related.
@Mary, if you didn’t know about Kraven and Chameleon, then you don’t know Chameleon at all.
And I cared about Kaine.