{"id":13426,"date":"2022-06-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-14T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=13426"},"modified":"2021-04-11T01:30:26","modified_gmt":"2021-04-11T05:30:26","slug":"soul-of-the-hunter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2022\/06\/14\/soul-of-the-hunter\/","title":{"rendered":"Soul of the Hunter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Surprise. It\u2019s a sequel to Kraven\u2019s Last Hunt. Fashionably late, this is. And, actually, it was published almost a year in the future, but it turns out it goes here. I wonder if this was inspired by McFarlane\u2019s illusory Kraven zombie in his first Spider-Man arc? At any rate, the gang\u2019s back together to continue the misery! Now joined by barely-credited colorist Steve Bucellato (The three name creators\u2019 names are on the cover, a title page and a credits page while Steve just gets that last one).I forget when I got this, but I don\u2019t recall reading it, ever. Surely I did. Unless I got it in the Great Ebay Hysteria of 2018, but I don\u2019t\u2026 remember. One can\u2019t know the provenance of thousands of individual comics, I guess. We open on a full page shot of Kraven\u2019s tombstone, which I guess is in the same cemetery as a funeral Peter & Mary Jane are attending which is right off the bat absurd. Does that mean he illegally buried Spider-Man in a regular graveyard and not just somewhere on his estate, as I assumed? Under Peter\u2019s fake deep internal monologue about death and how you can\u2019t really comfort people who experience it, we appear to be joining a service for the mother of Roger Hocheberg, Peter\u2019s one-time lab partner, tho his last name is not given. Also MJ is the first to talk to him, and I don\u2019t think they ever met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It is immediately apparent that Bob McCleod is putting more of a stamp on this collaboration than he did last time. Not that I mind. He\u2019s adding some depth and hard edges to Zeck\u2019s often very loose style, they still work very well together even if the dynamic is different. MJ finds Peter in another room, obviously freaked out, trying to pretend he\u2019s getting a cold to explain it, still seeing himself in the grave. She says he\u2019s been acting weird for weeks. Peter snaps at her and says he needs a little air, heading out as Spider-Man just as the service is about to start. A+ stuff, really enjoying it. Swinging around, Peter rightly beats himself up for being crappy to both his wife and his old friend he hasn\u2019t seen in a long time as his dueling inner monologue from Kraven\u2019s Last Hunt starts intruding again, reminding him about being buried alive. Yay. He tries to shake it off when his Spider Sense goes off, thinking he can go do some good and get it together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I wonder what I paid for this. I begin to think I got it at McKay\u2019s, took it out of the bag to put on a bookshelf, then later reconsidered and put it back with the single comics. I dunno. But I suddenly think I got it for under $2 at McKay\u2019s, and I sure hope so. Peter makes it back to the funeral in time to hear the last of the sermon for Esther Hochberg (Good to confirm who this is for the audience, eventually) and put a hand on Roger\u2019s shoulder to silently let him know he\u2019s there for him, but he\u2019s still shaken up, and MJ can tell. Later, at home, MJ is trying to tell her husband about something that happened at work, and he\u2019s not listening. She tries to get through to him, but he\u2019s obsessing over a metaphor the rabbi used at the funeral about death being like the shedding of an old coat. So then MJ helpfully tells him one time, when she was a kid, she was at a friend\u2019s house where he dad just keeled over dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Has JM randomly decided Peter is an atheist, all evidence to the contrary aside (Most of it written by no less than Stan himself)? Or is that not meant to be so literal? No idea. In a dream, Peter, in the black costume, mask off, wanders through a very dream-like, snowy cemetery, demanding Kraven show himself, saying he can\u2019t trick Peter into thinking he\u2019s dead, saying he\u2019ll find him and he hates him, over and over. As he reaches Kraven\u2019s grave and begins to pound on it, a hand shoot up out of it and grabs his throat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I assume ghost Kraven\u2019s face is not supposed to be funny there, but it is. Also, it must be said, head-blowed-off zombie Kraven in the McFarlane story was a far more arresting visual. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Our man decides he\u2019s been drugged, one of Kraven\u2019s signature moves. Ghost Kraven says his life was lies before looking very sad and saying \u201cPlease\u2026\u201d Peter asks what he wants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Peter asks the shape who it is, and it says it doesn\u2019t matter. He\u2019s still not sure if he can believe this is happening, but the shape helps him up off the ground and says he has to trust his feelings, because due to the bond he established with Kraven in life, only he can save Kraven\u2019s soul. I am so ready to check out on this nonsense. What bonds??????? Aside from Kraven\u2019s Last Hunt, when did Kraven ever MEAN anything to Spider-Man? He was, is, and always will be a Z-List loser. Anyway, the shape says Kraven is neither alive nor dead, gestures to the sky, and shows Peter a huge swirl of souls, and says they\u2019re all suicides. Oh, boy, so that\u2019s the angle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I imagine the look on my face reading this page is not unlike if someone just farted in my face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ugh. He tells her what\u2019s been going on, and she refuses to let him deflect as she tells him she knows exactly what this is. That he never really dealt with what happened to him, and it\u2019s festered inside him for months, and now it\u2019s bubbling to the surface. Which is all quite reasonable. MJ sure has to deal with a lot. She says this is his subconscious trying to make him deal with his pain and guilt, and he bristles at the idea of feeling guilty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

(At least until 2007) \u201cNo. Never\u201d \u201cYes. Always\u201d is a good exchange between them on this topic. Spidey returns to Kraven\u2019s grave, which is, in fact, on his private estate and not in the graveyard Esther Hochberg is in now, and finds it turned over like it was in his possibly hallucinated encounter with Kraven\u2019s ghost and the other ghost. The shape reappears, telling him if he wants to end this, he has to to face a trial like nothing he has before. Then he summons Kraven\u2019s ghost from the swirl and Kraven\u2019s body claws up out of the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re singing to me\u2026 the spirits of the suicides.\u201d Feel like Spidey\u2019s well on his way to writing a song for Switchblade Symphony. Spidey dives toward the corpse, misses, looks down into the grave, and totally bails on the premise, yelling at the corpse that it\u2019s not his fault it died, that people suffer all the time, and runs away. But, of course, the corpse appears in front of him, Jason Vorhees style. Spidey declares that, if he\u2019d known Kraven was going to kill himself, he would\u2019ve tried to stop him. That he wouldn\u2019t have let him die. I mean, obviously. Then he hears Kraven\u2019s voice in mind reminding him how Uncle Ben died, which is pretty low.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Spider-Man thinks of all the other people who\u2019ve died on his watch, wondering as usual if he could\u2019ve done more to save them, and then Kraven the Corpse inevitably tackles him back into his old grave, now a seemingly bottomless pit. Spidey thinks he doesn\u2019t want to die. But then, hanging from the edge, the corpse hanging fro him, he thinks he has to die for not saving those people. But theeeeen, he sees images of him and Uncle Ben when he was young and him and MJ earlier this evening in his mind, and decides he doesn\u2019t have to die. How heroic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This book\u2019s treatment of suicide as a topic is certainly well-meaning, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s terribly nuanced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The storm disappears along with all the ghosts. Spider-Man rights Kraven\u2019s tombstone and tells him to rest in peace. The next day, as the sun is out and people are clearing the snow, Peter & MJ walk down the street, MJ telling him his mind made up the whole thing as a coping mechanism, but he\u2019s not convinced. And as they reach an apartment door and knock, he says he doesn\u2019t want to talk about it, not like before when he was scared, but because talking about an experience like that too much can cheapen it, and they embrace, balance restored (For, like a minute).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And so, Peter\u2019s trauma over being buried alive is finally over. Until next post. Because DeMatteis just loves to wallow in it, I guess. Too bad for poor Roger. He seemed like a good character despite not getting much face time. This is his 2nd-to-last appearance in any comic. I\u2019ve not managed to cover the last yet, but it\u2019s on the docket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Surprise. It\u2019s a sequel to Kraven\u2019s Last Hunt. Fashionably late, this is. And, actually, it was published almost a year in the future, but it turns out it goes here. I wonder…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[191,125,45,21,213,166,2,994],"class_list":["post-13426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1990s","tag-bob-mcleod","tag-jm-dematteis","tag-kraven-the-hunter","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-mike-zeck","tag-roger-hochberg","tag-spider-man","tag-steve-bucellato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13426"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13450,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13426\/revisions\/13450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}