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

[sherkahn]

More like a skin scrape actually. I've got a scar on my chin from when my face hit monkey bars and scared a lot of teacher's aides into puking right in front of me. Trust me, torn off faces continue to bleed, and at worst it looks like Sasha scraped her face in some sand.

Oh, more spoilers....... you missed something.


Kaine Parker of Earth. Rise.

[punishermax]

For fucks sakes.

Really ? Fucking really?

This is beyond fucking stupid. This spider totem bullshit was the worst fucking part of Romita's run and no one wanted a god damn encore. He got bit by a god damn radioactive spider, we don't need a god damn mythology up in it. Stop trying to make this shit deeper than it has to be.

I mean, are we going to have long story line where Black Cat becomes a werecat and starts stealing cream and laying on peoples keyboards? Jesus.

Look at this god damn writing. Look at it. Stop writing like this please. "Nothing truly dies on Earth. There is balance"/ Stop trying to be deep when you can't do it. This is Spider-Man for fucks sakes.

[shadowpsykie]

also... i liked the spider totem story.

whats wrong with searching for a deeper meaning.

i mean, if the radioactive spider had been anyone BUT Peter Parker, that person would not have the kind of moral upbringing that caused peter to choose to be a Hero.

why can't peter have been MEANT to be spider-man, it does not take away from the story, but adds to it.

[punishermax]

It's not that things can't be deep, and yeah my final line is kinda flippant, but Totem was always so fucking dumb to me. I like deep morality ideals and shit, but shoving in some weird spider mythology after decades of never even hinting at it then implying it's some ancient force behind all this shit annoys me.

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

The useful thing about the whole "Spider-Totem" bit is that it doesn't change anything about the origin. At worst, it retroactively explains a couple of weird things about Spidey over the years, like how he keeps getting into weird magical adventures.

Besides, all of this "spirit of the spider" stuff is pretty much straight out of "Last Hunt."

[darkknightjrk]

Exactly--it also helped that even after Peter had his adventure with Ezekiel and saw the temple, Peter didn't believe it still. To him, whether it was chance or fate, he is who he is.

[shadowpsykie]

i see where your comming from.

to me though i see it as someone who said... hmm look there are all these people with Spider-themed abilities, and most of them got thier powers by chance... what if there was something conencting them....

like i said, i liked it.

could it have been executed better? yeah, probably. but that aside... i enjoyed both stories (totem and grim hunt) well grim hun aside from the whol Bane-esque lead in to it (you know the Gauntlet thing... annoying... clever, but done in batman)

the only thing i didn't like about totem was the man-spider thing... that was... ugh... (despite the whole beauty and the beast thing)

again just my opinion

[skalja]

I thought it was fine until the Other; it was an alternate look at the origin, not a retcon.

But the Other was stupid, even though it had a bunch of good scenes in it, mostly entirely unrelated to the plot.

[bradhanon]

Actually, I think it takes a LOT away from the story. JMS likes writing stories about Destiny-With-A-Big-D, which is cool and all, but I don't like destiny stories. I don't like the idea that only certain special destined people can be heroes. I like stories where people become heroes through luck and smarts and doing the right thing.

Spider-Man's story is about a nebbishy teenager from Queens who, when he was 15, got one enormous stroke of luck, and made one enormous, irreversible mistake. His life has been defined by those two things ever since. That's what made him so compelling as a character in the first place, the relatability of his struggle to be a hero. He was the guy who had the ordinary life the readers did, the same self-doubt and fear, but he got that one break, and made that one terrible misjudgment. Could happen to any of us.

Only no, according to JMS, it couldn't happen to any of us. It could only happen to the perfect person selected in advance by the spider-gods. So Peter Parker is now Peter Parker, Perfect Person, and we have as much chance of being him as we have of being Tony Stark or Reed Richards or freakin' Kal-El. That's not an improvement, in my human, fallible opinion.

[shadowpsykie]

See, I don't see it that way. I don't see Destiny, automatically meaning anyone can't be a hero. It still comes down to choice. Why can't it be anyones's destiny to become a hero? Destiny doesn't necissarily mean anyone is bared from something. I mean the question of destiny vs choice vs happenstance is a debate that has been and probably will be debated till the end of time.

I think its open to interprectaion and even the reader can take that story and decide for themselves what to believe

[fifthie]

The spider-totem was cool up to that one arc right before Sins Past where it was an interesting way of looking at things that didn't really change the core mythology and fucking stupid in any usage after that where it became about a literal Spider God that made Peter eat himself or whatever the hell.

[foxhack]

I mean, are we going to have long story line where Black Cat becomes a werecat and starts stealing cream and laying on peoples keyboards? Jesus.

FUCK YEAH I WANT THIS TO HAPPEN LIKE RIGHT NOW.

[fifthie]

I'd buy that for a dollar.

[halloweenjack]

are we going to have long story line where Black Cat becomes a werecat and starts stealing cream and laying on peoples keyboards?

See, rants are more convincing when you don't throw in funny lines like that. I would straight-up buy Spider-Man if they did some of this Silver Age DC-type stuff once in a while.

[tsunamiwombat]

I would actually love a Black Cat storyline like that.

[punishermax]

"Peter what the hell is she doing in the sandbox!"

[shadowpsykie]

i also th ink he took her eyes....

[colonel_green]

No, you can see her eyes on the third panel of the second-last page.

[shadowpsykie]

ah... still, he pulled off part of her face... heh

[sir_mikael]

Ooookay what is with this story and switching characters names around?

[foxhack]

Also, "A Brother"?

Really? That's all they could think of for his gravestone?

[nezchan]

You'd prefer "A Funk Soul Brother"?

[foxhack]

Brotha from a clona-motha.

[big_daddy_d]

EW!! KILL IT!

[seriousfic]

This new character intrigues me. I wish to see a five-issue miniseries about him being offered acne cures and being confused with a Daredevil villain.