The Hunter gets captured by the game!
The cover: 5 stars
Fantastic cover set in a park with a night cityscape in the background, Spidey trapped and a colourful new villain, Kraven the Hunter, ready to attack our helpless hero plus the return of The Chameleon ... what more could you ask for!
Kraven The Hunter (22 pages)
Our story starts with Spider-Man breaking up a group of villains planning a bank robbery. One of them escapes and when our hero looks for him there’s only an old man walking by. This just happens to be The Chameleon who made a quick change to avoid being captured.
The Chameleon decides that Spider-Man is too powerful for him to tangle with so he sends for his good friend Kraven the Hunter to take care of Spidey. Kraven is a world renowned hunter so when he arrives in the press are there to meet him, cue Jonah, Betty and Peter at the dock. Kraven announces that he is here to hunt the most dangerous game of all … Spider-Man.
Stan and Steve create a lovely little scene with some escaped animals to show off Kraven’s powers and skills. The Chameleon sets up a robbery for Spider-Man to tackle so that Kraven can observe his prey at work. Spidey and Kraven lock horns briefly and Kraven drugs him in preparation for their big showdown.
The main battle is terrific with the Chameleon disguised as Kraven to distract Spidey, and the real Kraven using all manner of sneaky tricks to get the best of Spider-Man, who of course wins and the two villains end up getting deported.
Kraven isn’t the most powerful of villains and Spidey beats him fairly easily, however he will become one of the more important characters over the coming years of this series. Stan’s plots and dialogue get better and better and the cast of characters that populate the Spider-Man universe gain depth with every issue.
Trivia:
Another historic moment for Peter, Aunt May arranges a blind date with her neighbour, Mrs. Watson’s niece. Although not mentioned by name this is the first reference to Mary Jane.
Liz meets Betty for the first time and gets a frosty reception.
At the start of the story The Chameleon doesn’t set off Spider-Man’s Spider Sense, yet later on Spidey locates him hiding nearby using his Spider Sense.