written by Nick Spencer
art by Humberto Ramos and various
Thirty-two years ago, writer J.M. DeMatteis and artists Mike Zeck and Bob McLeod created a story pitting Spider-Man against one of the goofier villains in his rogue's gallery, the leopard-print-wearing Kraven the Hunter, whose weapons arsenal included a vest that shot electric blasts out of its nipples. Together, they accomplished the extraordinary; in six issues they turned Kraven from a chuckle-inducing, ballet-shoe wearing ball of camp into one of Spider-Man's most fearsome villains...and then they killed him. It was a harrowing story that has aged very, very well and stands out as one of the best Spider-Man stories ever to see print.
A little over twenty years later, though, a brain trust of writers working on The Amazing Spider-Man, shepherding the character through his post-supernatural divorce story arc called "Brand New Day" came up with the ill-advised idea of basically raising Kraven from the dead in a story called "Grim Hunt," and not only did they bring him back, but they then included an irritating "curse" that prevented him from ever going to his grave again unless "the Spider," meaning Spider-Man, killed him.
I could be wrong but when I read about stories like this I get the impression that one reason that characters rarely stay dead in Marvel, no matter how poignant and effective their "death" stories are, is that every few years after a major death, some writer or editor fueled by nostalgia and egomania pitches to Marvel the "best (insert-dead-character-here) story" and corporate Marvel, wanting to bring in the bucks regardless of artistic integrity, give it the go signal. Kraven's poorly conceived resurrection feels like just such a situation.
Anyway, fast forward another eleven years to find Nick Spencer, current writer of The Amazing Spider-Man, who attempts to do the impossible by putting things right with Kraven while at the same time leaving the door open for more Kraven stories for the next cocky egomaniac years down the line. The end result of this is "The Hunted," a meandering mess of a mega-arc spread over about a dozen or so issues.
The long and the short of it is that Sergei Kravinoff, aka Kraven the Hunter comes up with a grand scheme to trap all animal-themed supervillains in Central Park with a bunch of robotic drones made to look like Kraven himself, all of which are being controlled by affluent game hunters. The twist is that the game hunters, who control the drones from a hidden compound, aren't as safe from harm as they think. In the midst of all this, Spider-Man is captured, drugged and brought into the picture, for a grim purpose that is known only to Kraven and his games master, the villainous Arcade.
To be clear, I agree with Spencer that Kraven's death at the end of "Kraven's Last Hunt" definitely needed to be reinstated, and I applaud him for taking the initiative to do it (just as I hope he will one day undo the despicable retcon of Norman Osborn siring children by Gwen Stacy), but unfortunately, I just couldn't get into the story he wrote to do it.
For one thing, at over a dozen issues, the story is far too long and takes way too long to make its point. There's a continuing thread about how Kraven wants to punish weekend trophy hunters, who seem loosely based on the douchebags we see online posing with their safari kills. It's actually a worthwhile advocacy, one that could have been told without all of these hamhanded allusions to an older, and much better Spider-Man story. So Kraven's plan is basically to get Spider-Man to kill him, and in exchange he offers to spare all of the lives of people he holds in thrall. Now, why this took so many issues to tell is honestly beyond me, and the various subplots, such as Vulture assuming a leadership role of all the trapped villains, or the army of clones of Vermin, a crucial character from the original Kraven saga, don't really cut it. This arc was obviously intended as a big event in Spencer's tenure, but to my mind it falls far, far short of its intended impact, in no small part because it is much longer than it needs to be.
Another thing that unfortunately undercuts the story quite a bit is the lackluster art. I've already said many times how I feel about Humberto Ramos' art, and while he has his good days, apparently none of them were while he was drawing this story. When Nick Spencer came on board last year, I felt distinctly relieved that he was bringing in fresh blood in the form of Ryan Ottley, and groaned when he brought Humberto Ramos back after just five issues, and then had Ramos draw his single longest arc on this book yet, with an odd mishmash of other artists as well. Ottley shows up for the epilogue, but barely makes an impression. The original "Kraven's Last Hunt" worked as well as it did in no small part because of Mike Zeck's moody, wonderfully-rendered artwork, and Ramos and his gaggle of supporting artists don't even come close.
I didn't want to review the individual issues because I wanted to see where Spencer was taking this story, and considering how long he took to wrap things up and how much filler he jammed into it with all these ".HU" issues, I really feel that this could have, and SHOULD have been better given the story to which it was serving as a sequel. There is one individual issue that has genuine emotional resonance, and it's the death of Martin Blank, aka the Gibbon, but apart from that the rest of the story just feels so very hollow and a poor follow-up to the story to which it purports to pay homage.
That said, I like that Spencer finally seems ready to pay off the second thread he started with this new series, the one featuring the mystery villain with a penchant for centipedes. I quite enjoyed Spencer's first arc with Ottley, and even his issues with Ramos that featured Boomerang, so his goodwill isn't completely spent as far as I'm concerned, but it's definitely been diminished quite a bit, and I am hoping for a return to form.
5/10
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