The Hunt is On

   So due to popular demand, this week’s comic will be an arc called Grim Hunt, covering issues of Amazing Spider-Man (ASM) 634 – 637. For those of you who don’t read the Marvel big time titles, they like to have one big story a year, typically with all the others leading up to that point (these are also the kinds of stories that get made into movies). So for several months before this arc, Spider-Man was forced into the Gauntlet, facing several classic villains each arc as Kraven the Hunter’s daughter was working behind the scenes to finish off our favorite web slinger for good.

   On one hand, it was good to see a classic villain, Kraven, back and running around without being forced to the backseat by the new villains as the arc progressed. After the arcs One More Day/Brand New Day, the ASM series has undergone a total revamp. Spider-man was no longer married as a result of selling his marriage to the Devil to save his aunt’s life, and several new villains were running around. The staff claimed that this would allow them to escape from the old villains (like Venom, Dr. Octopus, and the Green Goblin) who have had their characters watered down over the years and introduce new villains as a fresh start.
   Why am I explaining this in a review supposedly about Grim Hunt you ask? Because for a move that alienated most of ASM’s standing fan base in order to try to attract new readers with new characters, they sure have been falling back on the old characters but in new forms (for example one new villain is Grey Menace, who rides on a glider and has super powers from ingesting a formula based on the Green Goblin).

   So after a bloody start, Kraven’s back with his family of hunters and wrecking havoc on Spidey’s life. This goes on for a while as Spider-man is forced to face more and more trials before eventually overpowering the hunters and returning some normalcy to his life. In other words, nothing really new has happened in the end, which is normal for a regular arc, but not for one as hyped as this one.
   In the end I felt that the whole point of this arc was to characterize Kraven’s daughter so that she could take Kraven’s place in Spider-Man’s roster of villains. As a reader I couldn’t help but feel somewhat cheated by the whole thing since now instead of a hunter who just likes the thrill of the sport, we have a whiny age 12 little girl running around with daddy issues.
   Overall the arc was entertaining, but felt shallow. It was good to see the writers connect the new villains to their older classic counterparts, but at the same time it felt unnecessary to do so. Sure it attempts to add some depth to the new characters, but why say you’re going to give the readers something new if it’s just the same character wrapped in new packaging.
   But this is why I avoid a rating scale on these reviews. If you were to read just the arc itself, it would probably be entertaining and enjoyable. Yet if you’re a constant reader like I was, then you might feel a little let down after about a year of steadily building up to this and all the hype around it.