Amazing Spider-Man: Kraven's First Hunt

Collects: Amazing Spider-Man #564-7 (2008)

Released: April 2009 (Marvel)

Format: 112 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 9780785132431

What is this?: A new hunter arrives in town, one who wants to destroy Spider-Man.

The culprits: Writer Marc Guggenheim and pencilers Phil Jimenez and Paulo Siqueira

OK — Spider-Man: Kraven’s First Hunt will be the last Spider-Man title for a while. I hadn’t planned on reviewing it so close after Brand New Day, v. 3, but I didn’t have on hand the book I had planned on reviewing (Promethea, Book 3), and Kraven’s First Hunt is the fill in.

With First Hunt, “Brand New Day” is kinda over, and the writers have to figure out a direction to go with the books. They decided, somewhat strangely, to go with yet another child of Kraven the Hunter. (That guy got around.) Thankfully, this time the child’s name has nothing to do with The Brothers Karamazov.

The arc doesn’t quite work for me, though. A great deal of the suspense is predicated on the hunter’s identity being secret; the villain’s desire to “hunt” Spider-Man and the return of Vermin is a hint, with the name “Ana Tatiana Kravinoff” being revealed in the last panel. But the surprise is spoiled well before then; the book is, after all, titled “Kraven’s First Hunt,” and that’s the name of the arc, which is plastered on every title page. There is no mystery, and it seems there’s no real reason to get excited about yet another Kravinoff. (Yes, I know, she and her mother become important over the next two years.) The biggest surprise is that Ana is only 12 years old.

She certainly doesn’t look it. She only appears shorter than Spider-Man and his roommate, a full-grown man, in a few isolated panels. But that’s really the only problem I have with penciler Phil Jimenez’s design of the character. Ana’s appearance is outré, visually striking without seeming too over the top. Her eye makeup echoes the face paint of hunters, and that and her upswept blonde hair give her a distinctive look. As a teenager, she might get second looks, but she wouldn’t be that out of place at a high-school party — well, if she weren’t wearing the catsuit-ish costume. But even that dull costume has a leather chest / shoulder guard that has the lion’s eyes from Kraven’s old costume subtly worked into its design.

So. Writer Marc Guggenheim’s surprise is lost, and he had to know that marketing would blow it. But the story doesn’t completely work without that revelation. The purpose of the story is to build up Ana for a later story, and Ana manages to “ruin” the lives of Peter and his new roommate, Officer Vin Gonzalez. But the ruination is brief and quickly put right, and her identification of Spider-Man is erroneous; Ana is a tough fighter, but tough fighters are a dime-a-dozen in the Marvel Universe. And Spider-Man was handicapped during their fight. Were it not for her name and visual, she would be just another one-arc villain for Spider-Man, one I wouldn’t expect to see again. (I lie; no one would waste that visual by not reusing the character.)

Two other stories are included in this volume. One is a throwaway story from Spider-Man: Brand New Day — Extra #1 (like there was going to be a second issue); in the story, Harry Osborn learns that friendship, even with an unreliable doofus like Peter, is more important than finance. The second, Amazign Spider-Man #564, is a fight between Spider-Man and Overdrive, with Vin not being able to decide which of the two is the real criminal. It’s an amusing story despite having three different writers: Guggenheim, Dan Slott, and Bob Gale. The physical comedy is excellent, and the way Overdrive tells the story to his boss is hilarious. (As is the way his boss’s goons plan to execute him.) Meanwhile, Vin’s story is poignant; his hatred for Spider-Man is so great he throws away an afternoon with his father at Yankee Stadium in order to chase Spider-Man around the Bronx.

The art, as usual in the Brand New Day relaunch, is great. Paulo Siquiera provides the art for #564, Patrick Olliffe for Brand New Day — Extra, and Jimenez for the “Kraven’s First Hunt” arc. All do excellent work with the action scenes, and Siquiera is a natural with the humor. (Not so much for Olliffe, but I didn’t really think the Zeb Wells-written story was that funny.) Jimenez excels with his biggest task, the design of Ana Kravinoff. Credit for the “First Hunt” arc should also go Andy Lanning and Marc Pennington, who provided finishes for Jimenez’s art.

From what I understand, the introduction of Ana Kravinoff and her surprisingly young-looking mother, Sasha, is a big deal. It doesn’t feel like a big deal, though. Perhaps I’m expecting the consequences to be too heavy too early. Still, rather than the first appearance of Venom or even Mr. Negative, this feels like the introduction of Azrael in the Bat-books, who readers didn’t realize was that important when they read Batman: Sword of Azrael in 1992. (Probably because he wasn’t supposed to be.) Still, the art is quite nice.

Rating: (2.5 of 5)

Amazing Spider-Man: Brand New Day, v. 2

Collects: Amazing Spider-Man #552-8 (2008)

Released: December 2008 (Marvel)

Format: 168 pages / color / $19.99 / ISBN: 9780785128465

What is this?: More post-deal with the Devil adventures with Spider-Man and his more appropriately themed villains.

The culprits: Writers Bob Gale and Zeb Wells and pencilers Phil Jimenez, Chris Bachalo, and Barry Kitson

Although I enjoyed the first volume Brand New Day, it didn’t guarantee I would enjoy the second. Given the rotating stable of artists and writers, I knew the quality and tone of Amazing would fluctuate over the arcs. So I shouldn’t be surprised I didn’t particularly care for Amazing Spider-Man: Brand New Day, v. 2.

The first three-issue arc and the final issue of v. 2 are written by Bob Gale, who is best known for co-writing the Back to the Future movies and a Daredevil arc few liked between the ones almost everyone did like (v. 2 #20-5). Gale’s work focuses on a new villain: the Freak, a drug addict who injects a bunch of samples from Curt Connors’s lab looking to get high. Instead, the Freak gets mutated. And every time he’s “killed,” he goes into a chrysalis and mutates again, becoming immune to whatever killed him.

The Freak didn’t thrill me. A villain who gets more powerful every time he’s defeated is difficult to make work because eventually he has to win or become a joke, neither of which is good. (The former can work; it just rarely does.) The final issue seems a throwback to monster movies of the ‘50s and ‘60s, where the monster has to be stopped with a common chemical (The Horror of Party Beach, for instance). The Freak, blaming Spider-Man for his predicament, desire revenge on Spider-Man; despite the Freak being the cause of his own misery, he doesn’t have to deny or confront his own shortcomings. He’s repetitive in his screaming and slashing; that’s fine for a villain who appears in only one issue, but when it’s four, that’s a bit too one note.

Gale writes a good Spider-Man. That’s one thing in Brand New Day’s favor so far: all the writers seem to understand Spider-Man needs to be funny. He also advances the plot with J. Jonah Jameson, dealing with his wife’s sale of the Bugle. He seems to overestimate the power of Carlie Cooper, the friend of Harry’s girlfriend who works in the coroner’s office; she seems to have real influence here, whereas in v. 1, she was obviously low on the totem pole. I also enjoyed a return appearance by the Bookie, but I have my doubts about whether some of the villains shown placing bets would really be in a supervillain bar. But perhaps that’s an art problem.

The second storyline, written by Zeb Wells, is a misstep. Spider-Man visits with the New Avengers and teams up with Wolverine, for no other real reason I can think of other than to show he still is part of the New Avengers. Then he fights Mayan snow ninjas (did the Mayans have much snow?), a monster from Beyond, and a crazed priest of a Mayan god. Nothing in those two sentences “feels” like Spider-Man, and nothing Wells does makes it any more like him. Joining the New Avengers was one of the screw ups that caused the “One More Day” / “Brand New Day” nonsense in the first place, and mystic adventures was one of the three major problems people had with the J. Michael Straczynski run (the other two being animal totems and Gwen Stacy’s Goblin babies). The banter with Wolverine is fun — like I said, all of the Brand New Day writers have done well with the Spider-dialogue, and Wells isn’t an exception — but Wolverine is gone after the first issue, and despite some helpful bums, the plot gets less interesting the rest of the way.

Still, there’s something about the art from Chris Bachalo that I enjoy. I can’t quite put my finger on it, though. His pencils tell a comprehensible story — a big challenge for him at one point — and his odd, angular style works with the odd, mystical story, complete with a monster from a place where the geometry might not be the same as ours. (It never says, one way or the other, about the geometry; that’s just my inference.)

I’m less thrilled about Phil Jimenez’s work on the first arc; it’s just as professional, but it’s less distinctive. It comes across as boring but effective; that’s not the worst review, but it’s not an endorsement either. I also don’t care for his design(s) for the Freak. It’s a hard job designing characters who are supposed to disgust the reader visually. The Freak is certainly revolting, but … the picture Jimenez draws is not as effective as my imagination. The story doesn’t give Jimenez the opportunity to obscure the villain’s deformity, but I wish he could have. I enjoy Barry Kitson’s Freak more; Kitson, who penciled the final story in Brand New Day, v. 2, has a Freak who is much more visually streamlined, less deformed, and more menacing.

Overall, because of the strong start on v. 1, v. 2 of Brand New Day is a disappointment despite its competence. Nothing clicks as well as it did in the first volume, and Brand New Day drifts into areas that are distractions rather than strengths for Spider-Man.

Rating: (2 of 5)

New Warriors, v. 1: Reality Check

Collects: New Warriors #1-6 (2005-6)

Released: February 2006 (Marvel)

Format: 144 pages / color / $15.99 / ISBN: 9780785116615

What is this?: The New Warriors team reunites for a reality show.

The culprits: Writer Zeb Wells and artist Skottie Young

In between the time the New Warriors were introduced as an interesting and respected part of the Marvel Universe in 1990 and their ultimate demise as a plot point to start a Bendis-over²⁴ in 2006, the team had two series. One was an eleven-issue relaunch in ’99, which was a failure. The other was a six-issue limited series, collected in New Warriors: Reality Check.

The failed second volume of the title has obviously had an effect on the team’s profile. They are now a joke — their old members (save Firestar and Justice) are slackers and underachievers, and when their leader, Night Thrasher, convinces them to reunite for a reality show, they add an even bigger loser to the team: Microbe is fat, smelly, socially awkward, and talks to microorganisms. If you revere the old days of the New Warriors, this is not for you.

On its own merits, though, it’s relatively entertaining, and there’s no false advertising involved: when you see artist Skottie Young’s exaggerated, cartoony style, you know it’s not going to be played straight. I do not enjoy Young’s work — I feel it makes familiar characters like Night Thrasher look hideously deformed — but there’s no doubt he’s the right man for the job. His work fits the tone of the book, and it tells the story.

Writer Zeb Wells does a good job also. I’m always fond of writers who can use the Marvel Universe to tell their stories, and that’s what Wells does here. He pulls in Armadillo, Tiger Shark, the Super Apes, the Corruptor, and the Mad Thinker’s robots to tell his story of a sad little team trying to improve their profile while being heroes. The Super Apes story (issue #2) turns out to be the best of the lot, with the New Warriors dealing with an animal-rights watcher and supervillains at the same time. Most of the stories are at least mildly amusing while treating the villains with respect.

The concept for the miniseries, a reality show around heroes … I don’t know. It was inevitable that someone in comics was going to crossbreed reality shows and superheroes, because it’s such an obvious idea. But it’s such an obvious idea because reality shows have been relentlessly mocked and parodied — rightly so, but the idea has to run out of steam sooner or later. I also think more could have been done with the reality show concept — wasting half an issue explaining the team to network executives in issue #3 seems a mistake (and is filled with easy jokes, although from what I’ve heard, anyone who’s worked with studio executives may have a hard time avoiding those jokes). The reality show concept seems mainly an excuse for them to roam from town to town and to make jokes about how the cameramen didn’t catch something.

I’m also not sure about the choice to make the New Warriors into losers trying to remake themselves into A-list heroes. This doesn’t seem like a good idea to me, tearing the team down before you can build them up. In fact, the only Warrior Wells seems to be able to rehabilitate is the fat, stinky Microbe, which is a bit of a waste, given … well, Civil War. There’s not much growth of the other characters, and the fight with the Corruptor that ends the series seems like a pat way for the team to realize they’re not a very good team.

Reality Check is the opposite of the chocolate-coated pill. It’s the outside, the concept, that makes it hard to swallow, but when you get past that, the inside is actually pretty sweet and fun.

Rating: (3.5 of 5)