Amazing Spider-Man #637

[cyberghostface]

So, quick recap. Kraven's family killed Spider-Man to resurrect Kraven. Turns out they killed Kaine instead, so now Kraven's stuck in a "living death"--unable to die unless at the hands of Spider-Man. So Kraven's pissed off at his family, needless to say.


Sasha Kravinoff slits Madame Web's throat. In her dying moments, Web transfers her psychic abilities to Arachne.




That's right. Spidey just tore off her face. Granted, it's not as if she didn't have it coming, but... Spidey just tore off her face.



So Arachne (is that what she's called?) shows how Spidey killing Kraven will essentially destroy him and turn him into a monster. Granted, I can imagine it being a slippery slope, but Kraven's essentially in a state of suffering and "living death" against his will, so would putting him out of his misery be that much off a horrible thing?



Somehow I think J. M. DeMatteis is saying the same exact thing as Kraven right now.



So later, the Spider crew visit Kaine's grave. Arachne's blind and the new Madam Web, and now Arana has taken her place (wearing her Arachne's costume). Only she still wants to be called Arana, saying that the name "Spider-Girl" is "corny and makes you want to puke".  Nice.

Kraven and his family escape to the Savage Land to rebuild his family. Sasha wants nothing to do with it, calling Kraven a coward. Kraven snaps her neck.  Alyosha flees. Kraven's daughter stays with him, and to prove herself she goes off to hunt and kill Alyosha. And thus the story ends.

EDIT: Turns out I was wrong. The very last page shows Kaine rising from his grave as some mutated Tarantula-man. Yeahbuhwhah?

And somewhere, J. M. DeMatteis is probably drinking himself into a stupor now.
 

Comments

[darkknightjrk]

Peter...tore off someone's face? That...that actually happened?

[milleniumrex]

Looks like just the very top layer of skin. When we saw her shortly after, she had a hand-print shaped red scar on her face, but her face overall looked like it was intact.

Also, it was weird. Arachne sure looked like she could see when she approached Peter right after getting her powers, but then suddenly she was blind afterwards.

[nezchan]

Why do I expect drinking yourself into a stupor is the best way to read this?

[hybrid2]

What the hell is a flashpots?

What a awfull storie.

[nezchan]

Stage magic, basically those things that shoot light and smoke to cover entrances and exits.

[thanekos]

and then Kaine had to go shopping for some pointy shoes.

[spockfran.livejournal.com]

Yep Kraven has been ruined for all time
Good job Marvel

[sherkahn]

That's the true blesssing of Death in Marvel 616. She keeps you safely out of lame stories.

I like to think that this pretender is like a Black Lantern. The body and memories and powers are there, but not the spirit. The true Kraven is still dead and loving it.

[punishermax]

Awesome thanks for that revive there guys. I'm so glad we just shit on a classic story so we could have this wonderful ending.

Awesome next we get to find out about why MJ and Peter broke up. I hope the hijnx there are just wacky enough for my taste.

~puts on spinning tie, rocks out to 'Power of Love'~

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

Oh, please. Drop the internet hyperbole for ten seconds and unclench.

They didn't do anything to "Kraven's Last Hunt." It's still there, waiting for you to read it. It loves you.

[shadowpsykie]

umm...

*looks around cautiously*

i kinda.... liked this story.... and this is coming from someone who hates the direction that spider-man has gone...

i think this story could have been even better, if lets say... Spider-man and MJ were still married, because then you know... his family (not just his spider family... which i kinda like it being called)..... vs Kraven's family.

that said... i still hate BND

[big_daddy_d]

What would make it more awesome is if we had a teenage Mayday here. Father, mother, and daughter spider-team versus Kraven clan. If Marvel can retcon Sins Past and make Gabriel Stacy Pete's kid, he can take on Alyosha. Someone for everyone.

[doc_destructo]

Call me old fashioned, but if you're not sure you won after the bad guys kill a handful of your friends and escape... it's because you didn't win. Not by a long shot.

[shadowpsykie]

well they didn't loose, the goal was to Kill spider-man and destroy the web, but peter survived and the web, though damaged, has been reformed.

call it a pyrrich victory

[protogarrett]

I liked this story (except for Madame Web dying AGAIN, and giving her powers to Arachne whose original powers depend on her seeing, but now she is blind and semi-psychic as well).

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

Phew. I've been worried about Julia.

[dorksidefiker]

No. Just... no. This is bullshit.

[thokstar]

You know, when I said last issue that the story line was timey wimey ball of symbolism, I was expecting them to keep the symbolism subtle and symbolic.

Somebody needs to drag all of Marvel's writers to a seminar on how to write endings. They're solid on build up, and horrible on pay-off.

[cyberghostface]

Also still nothing to suggest that Jonah knows or cares that his niece was killed in a ritual sacrifice. But given that he didn't care that she was missing for the latter part of the year I guess we're not going to see anything significant.

[skalja]

Yeah, that still really annoys the hell out of me.

[freezer]

Killing off minor characters for shock value, resurrecting a long dead character for the sake of one storyline, "heroes" invoking "Thou Shalt Not Kill", but taking no precautions against the bad guys simply running... This arc was a Wolverine cameo away from including everything I despise in Western comics.

[angelophile]

So much motto.

[angelophile]

The only possible way anything good could come from this repulsive storyline is if next time Kraven appears he has, indeed, become a superhero dentist.

[darkknightjrk]

I'd say a super-villain dentist, but there's one already.

[akodo_rokku]

So this was supposed to explain why Arana is powerless in Young Allies.

And totally didn't.

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

No, it was supposed to explain why she's wearing Julia's outfit in Young Allies, and totally did.

[thatnickguy]

Hey kids...COMICS!

[cyberghostface]

I'm hardly one to think that comics should be specifically tailored to children given that children probably don't read comics anymore, but seriously...Spider-Man is probably one of the few kid-friendly superheroes at the moment and here we have him tearing off someone's face.

And this is pretty tame compared to the Lizard eating his son and using rapey powers on New Yorkers.

[cyberghostface]

Also, what was the point of Kraven's family making the Lizard eat his son? How did that benefit them?

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

It pushed the Lizard into a new stage of development, making him more dangerous than he'd ever been before, and further harrowing Peter for the eventual showdown. Again: right there on the page.

[philippos42]

I'm taking bets on how long until Araña is happily calling herself Spider-Girl in the comix.

[skalja]

It's such a disservice to BOTH Spider-Girl and Araña - Spider-Girl because it makes her less accessible to new fans because of name confusion, and Araña because it erases her Hispanic identity. Apparently teen girl characters are interchangeable, though, which is why out of the three spider-powered ones, this story just killed one and grafted another's name onto the third, who also got an older female character's costume. WTF.

[fifthie]

I think it's kind of bold of Kelly to take this stupid story to its most obvious, stupid conclusion.

[zechs80]

What happened to Vlad?

[cyberghostface]

Kraven killed him at the end.

[hyperactivator]

I like it.

[ar_feiniel]

You know, if you're going to resurrect a character's whose death was a key piece of one of the most respected Spidey stories, do it because you have an interesting story to tell with him, not because you can't think of anything else to write about.

[jlbarnett]

Well, Kaine is a weird clone so who knows what could happen with him.

Not killing Kraven is as dumb as not offing a zombie.

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

It makes a lot more sense in context. Long story short: Peter would never forgive himself.

[tsunamiwombat]

Question. Is Peter wearing the symbiote right now?

[cyberghostface]

No, it's just a cloth version that Kraven left for him presumably so they could reenact the circumstances of the "Last Hunt" where Spidey also had the black costume.