One of the recurring themes in Marvel's Amazing Spider-Man comics is the idea that Peter Parker could be quite a formidable force if he weren't constrained by pesky notions like morality and basic human decency. Now that Peter has effectively become the new Green Goblin, we're seeing just how terrifying Spider-Man can be when he takes off the kid gloves.
Read on to find out why Spidey has become Kraven the Hunter's worst nightmare, but beware of spoilers for The Amazing Spider-Man #33 ahead!
Revisiting Kraven's Last Hunt
The current Amazing Spider-Man story arc is essentially a sequel to 1987's Spider-Man: Kraven's Last Hunt (which ranks high on our list of the 25 greatest Spider-Man graphic novels). The current Kraven the Hunter is determined to prove himself his father's superior by hunting and killing Spider-Man's greatest enemy, the Green Goblin. The problem, as we saw in issue #32, is that Norman Osborn is no longer the Green Goblin. His sins were purged by the Sin-Eater, leaving him powerless and reformed. Kraven attempted to remedy the situation by embuing a mystical spear with Osborn's sins and stabbing the former villain, but Spider-Man took the blow instead. Now Peter Parker has devolved from friendly neighborhood hero to megalomaniacal villain.
The tables have now turned in issue #33, with Spidey consumed by feelings of rage and vindictiveness and Kraven himself suddenly becoming the hunted rather than the hunter. Peter seethes over the fact that he's allowed the Kravinoff family to continue hounding him for so long and vows to end their rivalry once and for all. To mark his sudden personality change, Peter even reverts to his black costume, a suit he never seems quite able to leave behind.
Spider-Man stalks Kraven across the city, eventually cornering his prey and injecting him with a mysterious serum. Kraven flees into the sewers, not realizing he's headed exactly where his enemy wants him. Kraven encounters a group of Vermin (the same creature his father stalked in Kraven's Last Hunt), at which point he realizes he's been injected with pheromones to make the Vermin attack and devour him.
Spidey finally breaks up the scuffle, but only to drag the wounded Kraven to his final resting place. Literally. Peter places Kraven in a coffin and leaves him with a loaded rifle, offering his prey the choice of a quick death or slow suffocation. Kraven is infamous for once having buried Spider-Man alive, and now Peter is returning the favor.
How the Comic Connects to Insomniac's Spider-Man 2
The current ASM storyline features a number of parallels to Insomniac's Spider-Man 2. And given that that game is releasing soon, those parallels are surely no coincidence.
As in the game, Peter is going through a dark phase in his life, with the black costume serving as a symptom of the festering rage within. He may not be bonded to the Venom symbiote in this case, but this is still a darker, bleaker Spider-Man transformed by an external force.
Also like in the game, Spidey is pitted against Kraven, a villain motivated by a desire to stalk New York's most dangerous prey and prove himself the world's ultimate hunter. That being said, the roles are clearly reversed in this case. In the game, Kraven comes to New York with an army of mercenaries and a full armory of weapons. Here, Kraven is just one man, and someone rapidly discovering that he bit off more than he can chew by pushing Spider-Man too far. But who's to say the same won't happen in the game?
Will Spidey actually cross a line and kill Kraven? Probably not. The series has courted controversay quite a bit in recent months, whether it's driving another wedge between Peter and Mary Jane or killing off Ms. Marvel, but turning Peter Parker into a murderer is surely a step too far for Marvel. The remaining two issues of this arc will likely involve a race against time, as Osborn fights to save the man he now views as a son. Spidey had better hope Osborn succeeds before Kraven perishes, or else he'll have a whole new reason to feel soul-crushing guilt.
In other Spider-Man 2 news, the game spawned a new Internet meme after a social media post from PlayStation offered Spider-Man 2 fans "19 inches of Venom". Gross.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
