Kraven the Hunter

• 1. Introduction

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  Kraven the Hunter, born Sergei Nikolaevich Kravinoff, greeted Spider-Man with a borrowed phrase. In The Amazing Spider-Man issue 15, published in August 1964, he called the hero "the most dangerous game." The line comes from a short story of 1924. In that story, a Russian big-game hunter named General Zaroff hunts human beings for sport, and he was a primary inspiration for Kraven. Writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko created the character as an opponent for their young web-slinger. Sixty years later, Kraven is still counted among Spider-Man's most formidable foes. How does a hunter who keeps losing stay so dangerous? What does a man who lives for the chase do when the chase stops satisfying him? And who carries the name when he is gone?

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• 2. The Hunter's Methods

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  Boasting comes as naturally to Kraven as tracking. He is often overconfident and loves to talk about his own abilities. Yet he keeps a real sense of honor, and he treats his adversaries as equals until they prove otherwise. His goal in life is to beat Spider-Man and prove he is the greatest hunter in the world.

  He typically disdains guns and bows. Kraven prefers to take down large, dangerous animals with his bare hands, and he hunts his game fairly. This code is why he is sometimes drawn as an antihero. He has teamed up with Spider-Man himself, with the Avengers of 1959, and with Squirrel Girl in The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, published from 2015 to 2019. A later revelation placed him in Nick Fury's Avengers during the 1950s, beside Dominic Fortune, Dum Dum Dugan, Namora, Silver Sable, Sabretooth and Ulysses Bloodstone. That team tracked a stolen version of the Super-Soldier Serum, mixed with the Infinity Formula. Nazis who wanted their own Captain America had taken it.

  A potion is the secret of his strength. Kraven drinks it regularly, and it is brewed from various unnamed jungle herbs. It gives him superhuman strength, though less than Spider-Man possesses. His body also becomes tougher than a normal human's. He can fall from several stories, or take repeated blows from a superhumanly strong opponent, and walk away with little or no injury.

  The same potion has nearly stopped his aging. Kraven is over 70 years old, yet he has the appearance of a man in his 30s. It also sharpens his sight, hearing and smell far past human limits. He sees farther and more clearly, and he hears sounds that an ordinary person would miss. He can follow a scent the way some animals do, even after nature has weakened the trail.

  Strip the potion away and a formidable hunter remains. Kraven is an Olympic-level athlete, a gifted tactician and a skilled hand-to-hand fighter. He knows the pressure points of humans and of many animals, and he strikes those nerve clusters with pinpoint accuracy to disable stronger opponents. He is also familiar with many exotic poisons and tranquilizers. That knowledge shows up in his very first fight with Spider-Man, in the form of a dart.

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• 3. Exile and First Hunts

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  Nikolai Kravinoff, an aristocrat, fled to the United States with his family in 1917. Russian nobles were being executed after the February Revolution, and the reign of Tsar Nicholas II had collapsed. His son Sergei grew up to become the hunter the world calls Kraven.

  A mysterious man named Gregor did most of the work of training the young hunter. Gregor was a mercenary who had once battled Ka-Zar. At one point Kraven also became the lover of the voodoo priestess Calypso.

  Kraven's half-brother, the Chameleon, brought him into the fight against Spider-Man. Together they lured the hero to Central Park. The Chameleon disguised himself as Kraven to serve as a decoy, while the real Kraven prepared an ambush. A poisonous dart weakened Spider-Man, but he still prevailed. Spider-Man proved a frustrating quarry, because Kraven kept underestimating his resourcefulness.

  Doctor Octopus then offered Kraven a place on a team built to fight Spider-Man, and he became a founding member of the Sinister Six. The group captured Aunt May and Betty Brant. Kraven attacked Spider-Man in Central Park again, this time with three tigers. Spider-Man fought off the attackers and found the next clue to where the two women were held. After the rescue, the police arrested Kraven and the rest of the Sinister Six.

  In the Savage Land, Kraven stumbled upon a spaceship that held a being named Gog. Seeing how useful Gog could be, he planned to conquer the region. He kidnapped Gwen Stacy from a camp, and then he and Gog fought Ka-Zar and Spider-Man. Ka-Zar dealt with Kraven. Spider-Man lured Gog into a patch of quicksand, where the giant sank to the bottom. None of these defeats ended the obsession, and as Kraven's health faded, it grew into something darker.

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• 4. The Last Hunt

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  A Marvel Universe Handbook entry sparked the most famous Kraven story. Writer J. M. DeMatteis was preparing a new project when he noticed that the entry described Kraven as Russian. He says he does not know whether that detail was established in continuity or invented by the entry's author. As a self-described "total Dostoyevsky fanatic," he saw a chance to give Kraven the tortured soul of a Dostoyevsky character. DeMatteis admits he had never cared for Kraven and had thought of him as "one of the stupidest Spider-Man villains ever." The story that resulted had originally featured a completely different character in Kraven's role.

  The result was the 1987 storyline "Kraven's Last Hunt," by DeMatteis, artist Mike Zeck and inker Bob McLeod. Many consider it the definitive Kraven story. DeMatteis says no one on Marvel's editorial staff objected to killing off one of Spider-Man's longest-standing enemies.

  In the story, Kraven is aging, his health is failing, and he cannot defeat Spider-Man. He decides to end his life with one final hunt. After capturing his quarry, he shoots Spider-Man with a drug that induces a coma and buries him alive on his own estate. To prove himself the hero's superior, he then takes Spider-Man's place in a brutal vigilante campaign. He also captures Vermin, the one foe Spider-Man had never beaten alone. Spider-Man's last fight with Vermin had required help from Captain America.

  Spider-Man claws his way out of the grave two weeks later. Kraven explains himself to the hero and sets Vermin free, and Spider-Man goes after Vermin to stop him from killing again. Kraven leaves behind a final confession of his crimes against Spider-Man, and then he takes his own life. Because he died that way, his soul cannot find rest until Spider-Man confronts his risen corpse on his behalf.

  DeMatteis revisited the character twice. The graphic novel The Amazing Spider-Man: Soul of the Hunter, with Zeck and McLeod, brings Kraven back as a ghost. For The Sensational Spider-Man Annual '96, DeMatteis wrote "Kraven's First Hunt," a retelling of the debut issue. It added several retcons, including the idea that Kraven had been abusive toward the Chameleon.

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• 5. An Unwanted Return

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  Sasha Kravinoff, Kraven's ex-wife, brought him back from the grave. Across the storylines "The Gauntlet" and "Grim Hunt," she and their children used a dark magic ritual that required the blood of Spider-Man. Kraven did not thank them. He returned enraged and explosively psychopathic, cold toward his family, and he beat his son Vladimir and his daughter Ana. Ana stabbed him through the heart. He recovered, explaining that Sasha had restored him with corrupted blood, which he called "unlife." According to Kraven, he could now die only at Spider-Man's hand.

  The corpse hanging in the family's mantel was not what it seemed. When the Kravinoffs pulled off its mask, they found Kaine, a clone of Peter Parker, wearing Spider-Man's costume. His unnatural existence had muddied the ritual.

  Spider-Man, wearing his black costume, then confronted the Kravinoff family. Kraven eagerly and desperately tried to goad him into a killing blow. Spider-Man beat him brutally and took Kraven's spear in hand, ready to grant the wish. Julia Carpenter, who had inherited the powers of Madame Web after her death, reminded him that murder was not in his moral code. She also showed him the cost. Going through with it would send him down a path toward more brutal crime-fighting, including killing suspects, and toward his death in a standoff with police.

  The defeated family escaped to the Savage Land. There Kraven brutally killed Sasha, who had complained about being hunted to earn her place in the family. He also euthanized Vladimir. Alyosha fled in disgust, and Kraven and Ana discussed rebuilding the Kravinoff family.

  A doctor who had once treated Kraven after a hunt went wrong later sought him out. She asked him to track down one of her recent patients, who had been used as a test subject to duplicate another man's electrical abilities. She also wanted him to capture the Black Panther, who was acting as a local vigilante to regain his sense of self after the destruction of Wakanda's vibranium. In exchange, she promised help finding a way for him to die. With the aid of Storm, T'Challa stayed ahead of Kraven long enough to convince him that the doctor had lied. Kraven agreed to leave T'Challa alone and take the doctor's mutated animal subjects back into the wild.

  Kaine, as the Scarlet Spider, had the last word. Kraven dressed as the Scarlet Spider to torment him and, with Ana's help, kidnapped Kaine's friends to force a fight. Kaine struck a blow to Kraven's chest that paralyzed his heart. Then he used the same attack to bring Kraven back to life, which supposedly broke the curse. Kraven disappeared after the fight.

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• 6. Reform and Hunted

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  Empire State University became Kraven's next battlefield when he attacked Squirrel Girl, still claiming to be cursed. He had earned her anger by lashing out at the local squirrels, including Tippy-Toe. She got him to leave by telling him about sea monsters such as Giganto, challenging him to hunt worthier prey. He returned later to abduct Howard the Duck, and ended up trapped with Howard and Squirrel Girl in a manhunt as the hunted. Having survived, he vowed to "hunt the hunters."

  During the "Secret Empire" storyline, Baron Helmut Zemo recruited Kraven into the Army of Evil. A Darkforce dome had surrounded Manhattan, and Kraven used the chaos to raid the Daily Bugle for the identity of Spider-Man. He then attacked J. Jonah Jameson. Jennie Sheldon, the daughter of Phil Sheldon, had rushed to Jameson's house to warn him. She fired a signal flare into the sky, which drew Spider-Woman to the scene. Spider-Woman defeated Kraven, and Jennie photographed the fight.

  Squirrel Girl eventually helped Kraven reform. The two teamed up against other villains and even became friends. She helped him see that Spider-Man was nowhere near the most dangerous prey in the Marvel Universe.

  The reform did not last. In the 2019 storyline "Hunted," Kraven created 87 clones of himself and trained them as the Sons of Kraven. The clones were sent out to prove themselves by hunting each other. With help from Taskmaster, Black Ant and Arcade, Kraven also captured animal-themed villains. He trapped them in Central Park and sent Hunter-Bots to hunt them for sport.

  His real purpose was hidden. Kraven wanted to force Spider-Man into killing him again, so that he could escape his curse of immortality. He released the surviving targets and put on a copy of Spider-Man's black costume. The surviving clone, now called the Last Son of Kraven, mistook him for the hero and strangled him to death.

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• 7. The Kravinoff Heirs

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  Vladimir Kravinoff grew up in Russia on his father's wealth, while his illegitimate half-brother Alyosha was raised in shame in Africa. Sergei often neglected both sons while chasing quarries around the world. Gregor, the family servant, raised Vladimir as a surrogate father and taught him Sergei's techniques. As a boy, Vladimir faced a rite of passage in which Sergei hunted him while disguised as the fabled "Grim Hunter." Impressed, Sergei began training him personally. Vladimir took the name Grim Hunter himself. He briefly worked with the Hobgoblin, giving Jason Macendale his father's strength formula. Kaine later killed him, and he died in Gregor's arms. Sasha later sacrificed Mattie Franklin in a ritual that revived Vladimir as a humanoid lion, because Mattie was not a pure spider.

  Alyosha, a mutant, became the second Kraven. His mother is described only as an unnamed female mutant. After his father's suicide, he came to New York City dressed as Kraven and confronted his uncle Dmitri Smerdyakov, the Chameleon, who briefly took him for the returned Sergei. Calypso Ezili, back from the dead herself, also mistook him for Kraven. Later, riding a bull elephant across Manhattan's rooftops, Alyosha attacked Spider-Man with a hallucinogenic dart and then freed him. When Calypso set the Kravinoff estate on fire and forced the two men to fight, Alyosha killed her and her tribesmen.

  He then turned smooth and charming as "Al," and dated Timber Hughes, an aspiring actress. Al tried to become a director in Hollywood, but the powerful Rothstein brothers drove him out. His half-brother Ned Tannengarden, a third son who had tried to kill him, was murdered by the Chameleon. Alyosha kept his powers after M-Day and was recruited in the Beyond! miniseries. Later, experiments with his father's potions deranged him, and he began collecting a zoo of animal-themed superhumans. The Punisher, whom he called "Tiny Monkey," sabotaged it. His half-sister Ana eventually killed him in the Savage Land.

  Ana Kravinoff became the first woman to take the name Kraven the Hunter. She first appears tracking Spider-Man to his apartment, but mistakes Peter Parker's roommate Vin Gonzales for him and ruins his life. Her mother is Sasha Aleksandra Nikolaevich, who is also Vladimir's mother. Ana later guided the Inhumans Gorgon and Flint to the hidden city of Utolan in the Chimanimani Mountains. She revealed that she has Inhuman ancestry on her mother's side, which her father had tried to kill her for mentioning. The councilwoman Sanara had her sedated and took genetic material. Exposure to Terrigen Mist while hunting Sanara awakened Ana's Inhuman genes. In the "Sinister War" storyline, she is discussed as a recruit for the Sinister Syndicate.

  One offspring is stranger still. In a flashback from a 2009 X-Men and Spider-Man crossover, Kraven made a deal with Mister Sinister. Sinister later combined Kraven's DNA with the original X-Men's and a stripped Carnage symbiote sample. The result was Xraven, who has the powers of the X-Men plus retractable claws.

  The last heir was no ordinary child. The High Evolutionary cloned the Last Son of Kraven from Kraven's DNA. He proved himself by bringing his father the skulls of his fellow clones, and Kraven sent him to capture Spider-Man for the Great Hunt sponsored by Arcade Industries. After Kraven's death, the Last Son trashed the Kravinoff estate in frustration. Behind Kraven's rifle he found a letter. It told him he would inherit the legacy as the man himself, because he was cloned from Kraven's DNA. It called him "my spirit made flesh" and said "you are me, and I am you." The Last Son cut his hair, wiped off his tiger stripes, put on a copy of Kraven's costume, and took the names Sergei Kravinoff and Kraven.

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• 8. Many Faces

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  IGN ranked Kraven 53rd on its Top Comic Book Villains list. David Harth of Comic Book Resources called him a "cool villain," praised his design, and described him as "more than a match for Spider-Man."

  Alternate universes have reshaped him many times. In The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, he belongs to Regent's Sinister Six. In End of the Spider-Verse, a Kraven from Earth-31 called Hunter Spider gains spider-like abilities after a giant spider bites him. In Marvel Noir he is a former animal trainer killed by man-eating spiders. In Spider-Man: Life Story, Venom bonds with him before he can kill himself and eventually reduces him to a skeleton. The Ultimate Marvel version is a Russian Australian who hosts a reality series about hunting dangerous animals. The Ultimate Universe imprint makes him a billionaire oligarch whose family was exiled during the "Rasputin Purge." That version is also a lieutenant of Wilson Fisk who controls Staten Island on Fisk's behalf.

  Television introduced him early. Chris Wiggins voiced Kraven in the "Cliffs of Doom" episode of the Iron Man segment of The Marvel Super Heroes. Producers of Spider-Man (1967) wanted to use him but could not because of that appearance, so they created Harley Clivendon, also voiced by Wiggins. In Spider-Man: The Animated Series, Gregg Berger voices a Kraven who was a hunter wounded while saving his fiancee Mariah Crawford. The serum she gave him healed him but made him increasingly bestial and paranoid. In Ultimate Spider-Man, Diedrich Bader voices a Sinister Six member who killed Hector Ayala, the White Tiger, and earned the hatred of the White Tiger's daughter Ava Ayala. In The Spectacular Spider-Man, Eric Vesbit voices a hunter who asks Miles Warren to turn him into a leonine creature.

  Film came later. Marc Webb confirmed that Kraven's spear appears in the end credits of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, setting up future films that were never made. Ryan Coogler originally planned to include Kraven in Black Panther, and Jon Watts was interested in including him in Spider-Man: No Way Home. In Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, two displaced variants make non-speaking cameos as prisoners of the Spider-Society. The 2024 film Kraven the Hunter stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, with Levi Miller as the young adult version. In it a lion attacks him and Calypso saves him with a potion that grants the abilities of nature's greatest predators.

  Video games gave him many roles. In Spider-Man 2, voiced by Jim Pirri, he leads private mercenaries called the Hunters and is dying of terminal cancer. He wants a worthy opponent to kill him, and Harry Osborn as Venom overpowers and kills him. In Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Jim Cummings voices a Kraven who brings Spider-Man to a jungle temple and uses a fragment of the Tablet of Order and Chaos to enhance himself. He is a playable character in Lego Marvel Super Heroes, voiced by JB Blanc. He even inspired one of Mike Haggar's costumes in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. A 1966 Aurora plastic model kit gave fans a Kraven to build.

  The newest take is a web series. In the 2024 TeamFourStar series Kraven, Nick "Lanipator" Landis plays an unstable reality television star and conspiracy theorist. He comes to New York to hunt and kill Spider-Man while promoting a film about his early life and his new reality show Kamp Kraven.

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