Kraven’s Last Hunt – Review

By J.M. DeMatteis (writer), Mike Zeck (pencils), Bob McLeod (inks), Mike Zeck and Ian Tetrault (colors), Rick Parker (letters)

The Review: Because of the recent “Grim Hunt” storyline in Amazing Spider-Man (and, frankly, to wash the taste of “OMIT” out of my brain), I thought this would be an excellent time to look back on what, in my mind, just might be the single greatest Spidey story ever told.

I really shouldn’t be as big a fan of this story as I am: I don’t care for overly dark or noirish stories, overwrought emotion irritates me, and Spidey himself has never been at the top of my ‘favorite heroes’ list. The way Spider-Man is often written comes off (to my ear) as too immature and naive. I’m sure these are some of the same character aspects that make him charming and endearing to so many, but it has never particularly worked for me. To top it off, I’m really not a fan of breaking up a cohesive story between multiple comic book titles. This isn’t an issue when reading the book collected in a trade like this, but it still irks me in general principle.

And yet, I can’t help but love this book. It stands as final proof to me that a serialized comic book can hold just as much literary merit and value as a novel, poem, or other written work of art. The story, characters and symbolism are absolutely epic, in the Homeric sense of the term. Kraven’s Last Hunt feels more like an ancient myth with a Spider-Man mask loosely draped over it than it does a comic book, and I mean that as the highest sort of complement. The combination of DeMatteis’ writing and Zeck’s pencils tap into something very deep and primal here, and create a book and a story that is far more than the sum of its parts.

The major key to what makes this work is the characterization and the writing. The dialog flows effortlessly and—against all odds, naturally—between Kraven’s lofty, self-assured poetry, Spider-Man’s blue collar, down to Earth shock and anger, and Vermin’s simple, animalistic expressions of craving. Not only are these characters beautifully and deftly crafted as individuals with wants, needs and goals of their own, they function as fully realized archetypes which fit in seamlessly to the grand, almost mythic tone that runs through the surface-level grit and realism of the story.