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Kraven's Last Hunt, written by J.M. DeMatteis
with art by Mike Zeck is one of the most praised
Spider-Man stories ever told.
And since we're doing a month of videos
about spider-themed characters for webruary, get it?
I think this would be a great place to start
by analyzing the story, explaining the history
of how it got made and going into a bit of the psychology
behind Kraven's tortured mind.
Now if you haven't read the story, here's a quick recap.
Sergei Kravinoff, aka Kraven the Hunter
defeats Spider-Man and buries the body.
Kraven dons a copy of Spider-Man's black suit
and sets off on his quest.
You see, defeating Spider-Man doesn't just mean
besting him in combat.
Not to Kraven anyway.
He has to become Spider-Man, a better version of Spider-Man,
a superior spider, well okay that's a little confusing.
But you get my point.
He takes down some criminals pretty easily,
but any hero could do that.
Kraven needs a real test.
Serendipitously, a villain known as Vermin
is terrorizing New York.
Spider-Man fought him once before but needed the aid
of Captain America to take the Vermin down.
Kraven sees this as his golden opportunity.
If he can take down Vermin by himself,
then he would truly be the better Spider-Man.
And he does just that.
But soon after, Spider-Man rises from his grave.
Kraven didn't kill him but only shot him
with a tranquilizer and buried him alive.
Spidey goes to confront Kraven, but the hunter
doesn't put up a fight.
Instead he brings Peter to a captured Vermin
where he has the two of them fight.
Spider-Man does not fair well.
Just as Vermin is about to beat him,
Kraven stops the fight and let's Vermin leave.
Sergei Kravinoff has proved his point.
He really is the better Spider-Man.
Spidey chases after Vermin, swearing to return for Kraven
once he captures the creature.
In the sewers, Spider-Man proves to himself
that he can defeat Vermin on his own,
reestablishing that he is the true Spider-Man.
Meanwhile, Kraven, satisfied with his final hunt,
puts the barrel of a rifle in his mouth
and pulls the trigger.
During both Spider-Man and Kraven's funerals,
a modified excerpt from William Blake's poem, The Tyger,
is written out, with Tyger replaced with Spider.
"Spyder, Spyder burning bright
"in the forests of the night
"what immortal hand or eye dare frame thy fearful symmetry?"
The poem begins and ends with this line,
much how the story is bookended by two funerals,
which feature these words.
Fearful Symmetry was also what DeMatteis
called this story initially.
It was Jim Salicrup who came up with the title
Kraven's Last Hunt, the story of a hero being defeated
by a villain and then rising from the grave
with something DeMatteis had pitched frequently for years
both at Marvel and DC.
Initially, it was supposed to be a Wonder Man miniseries,
with Grim Reaper standing in for Kraven.
Later it was pitched again as a Batman story
where the joker finally kills The Dark Knight and,
without Batman to fight against, goes sane.
But during this time, DC already had a Batman Joker story
in the work, one story on which we've made
four separate videos, a story called The Killing Joke.
And since DeMatteis's story seemed to conflict
with Alan Moore's, DC dismissed the going sane story
but only temporarily.
About a decade later, DeMatteis was able to tell that story
in Batman, Legends of the Dark Knight number 65 through 68.
Kraven's Last Hunt was also pitched as a story
between Batman and Hugo Strange, where Strange would take on
the role of Batman but eventually, DeMatteis found himself
writing Spider-Man and thought this story
would be perfectly suited for the web slinger.
Without a specific villain in mind,
he set out to create a new one.
However, he was flipping through a Marvel Universe handbook
and came across a character named Kraven
who DeMatteis immediately knew what the perfect enemy
for the story.
Now this far into the video, you're probably wondering
why I'm wearing this jacket.
Well, you see the story of Kraven's Last Hunt
features a couple of themes about costumes and identity
and differing perceptions.
And costumes and clothing in general,
can have a significant impact on how people act.
Doesn't just affect how others see you
but also how you see yourself and how you behave.
This idea is called enclothed cognition,
and there was a pretty interesting social psychology study
about this from 2012.
In the first test, researchers challenged participants
with simple brain games.
They explained to one group of participants,
thank you so much for coming in and agreeing to participate
in this study.
We actually did have a group of people come in the other day
when the building was under construction.
And to protect their clothing, we had them wear these
white coats and we just want to keep the test consistent
between each go and eliminate as many variables as possible,
so would you mind just putting this on
when you do your tests?
Of course, this was a clever lie.
The other group did the test in the normal clothes
they walked in wearing.
You see, the researchers wanted to observe
how the participants performed while wearing
one of these snazzy white coats,
which is often associated with scientists or doctors.
What they found was that participants
wearing the white coats made half as many mistakes
as those who wore their everyday outfits.
This makes sense when we look at the world of superheroes.
When superheroes suit up in their costumes,
it's expected that the act differently
than their non-costumed counterpart,
especially if they have a secret identity.
Superman acts differently than Clark Kent,
Bruce Wayne then Batman, even Peter Parker and Spider-Man
have slightly different personalities.
The costume is transformative,
turning the wearer into the hero.
But the study went a little further.
In another test, the researchers aimed at studying
the impact clothing has depending on how
the wearer perceives it.
Participants were split into groups again to perform
more of these simple tests.
This time, everyone was wearing one of these coats.
However, one group was told they were wearing lab coats
while another group was told they were wearing
painter's smocks.
The group who was told they had the lab coats
still made fewer mistakes even though everyone was wearing
the same kind of coat.
This topic is still being studied,
so skepticism is warranted, but it's still interesting
to think how it relates back to Kraven's Last Hunt.
We see in the story that while Peter and Kraven
both wear the same Spider-Man costume,
they perceived the role very differently.
Kraven puts on the suit and is transformed
into the inhuman creature he believes Spider-Man to be.
Kraven focuses on the spider with its cold,
animalistic nature; but Peter focuses on the man,
a being who is compassionate, civilized
and just as human as anyone else.
In this way, the story does a great job at exploring
the duality of Spider-Man.
Kraven even addresses them separately throughout the story
as two distinct entities, spider and man.
This is why the character of Vermin is vital to the story.
DeMatteis explained that Vermin was, "The pivotal element,
"providing the contrast between Peter Parker's vision
"of Spider-Man and Kraven's distorted mirror image."
Vermin serves as the stand in, an analogy.
Kraven calls him, "The perfect fusion of man and animal."
Yet, while the Hunter, true to form,
only sees a beast in Vermin,
Peter sees the man buried underneath
the creature's outward appearance,
similar to how Peter himself is a man
underneath the mask of Spider-Man.
A being, he says, doesn't really exist.
He's, "A myth, a lie.
"Oh, sure, it'd be great if putting on a costume
"could miraculously change the man underneath,
"but it can't."
Except, maybe it can.
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My name is Scott, reminding you to read between the panels
and grow smarter through comics.
See ya.