It Walked Like A Spider!; Spider-Man as a Horror Character, Part One: Grim Hunt

I recently read a fantastic article by Chris Sims on Comics Alliance about how at its heart, Spider-Man is a horror story. He goes into detail about how Amazing Fantasy #15, without knowledge of Spider-Man’s future as a beloved icon, just as a single story, reads like your basic Marvel horror story at the time, with a weird incident happening because of science and tragedy through mans’s folly.

He also goes into how flat out disturbing Kraven’s Last Hunt is. With Kraven bathing in spiders and the implications of dressing as his foe. You can read that here. It’s absolutely fantastic.

That got me thinking about Spider-Man and his connection to horror, it’s still very much in play. The sequels to Last Hunt continue the feeling of the story with the added weight of the original hanging over them. Kraven’s First Hunt, while a story I was never particularly fond of, hits the right notes. It introduces a new character, a legacy villain which is an almost uniquely Spider-Man thing, having her be the daughter of Kraven has the impact of his death ripple not so subtly through the story. She wanted revenge for the death of her father and hunted everyone she thought responsible. She mistakenly thinks Peter’s roommate, Vince Gonzales, is Spider-Man and kidnaps him. When Peter finds out, in an effort to protect his secret identity borrows a costume from Daredevil and goes to find Vince. Vermin, a prominent character in Last Hunt returned and played largely the same role.  Spider-Man dressing as Daredevil, I thought, along with Ana mistaking Vince Gonzales for Spider-Man emulate the concept of identity and mirror Kraven “becoming the Spider” from Last Hunt.

Grim Hunt did the identity swap for the same symbolic reasons, but I felt it was much less effective in that story. Kaine died pretending to be Peter as part of a ritual sacrifice meant to kill the Spider-Totem and…get Kraven’s soul back? I’m not really up on the actual semantics of African resurrection spells, and it’s been a while since I read it. It did do something that neither of its predecessors had though. It scared me. I read this when I was 14 years old, and I have been reading comics since I was 7. While I wouldn’t recommend that other people let their kids do this, I had read Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing by age ten, so I was fairly desensitized.

The Kravinoffs had secretly kidnapped the extended Spider-Family (Mattie Franklin and Madame Web) and put Spider-Man through a Guantlet designed to drain him and make him darker. More ready to kill. They sacrifice Mattie to bring back Vladmir Kravinoff in the form of a half-man, half-lion beast, but they need to kill Spider-man to bring back the one, true Kraven.

After finding a severely wounded Kaine and the thought to be dead Ezekiel in his apartment, Peter, Ezekiel, and Julia Carpenter decide to locate Anya Corazon before the Kravinoffs get to her. They’re ambushed and Ezekiel turns out to be the Chameleon (Kraven’s half-brother) luring the Spiders into a trap. The Kravinoffs capture Anya and Julia and reveal their plan to use Peter’s blood to return Kraven to life.

Kaine interferes, but it looks as if they get Peter anyway. With the blood of Spider-Man, the preform the ritual and bring Kraven back to life. It seems to succeed until they realize Kraven is not whole and that Kaine had duped them by dying in Peter’s place. Kraven leaves the Kaine’s body for Peter to find, along with his black suit and a note; “Hunt Me”.

Spider-Man puts on the Black Suit and hunts down the Kravinoffs one by one, with vicious tenacity. Eventually he faces Kraven and as he considers killing him for what he’s done. Spider-Man, our noble hero shrouded in black, stands over the villain. Kraven is beaten and Peter Parker, the Marvel Universe’s everyman considers murdering a defeated man. It was chilling.

The Grim Hunt drastically changed he relationship between Spider-Man and Kraven. Kraven now feels that he must earn the right to hunt Spdier-Man again. He has since hunted Spider-Girl and Scarlet Spider. Kraven most recently showed up in Squirrel Girl #1-OUT NOW!!-which is adorable and you should all buy it.

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