What Happened To Everyone Who Became Spider-Man?

7. Kraven The Hunter

Kravens Last Hunt
Marvel Comics/Mike Zeck

First Appearance As Spider-Man: Amazing Spider-Man #293

Several other villains managed to assume Peter Parker's identity while he was active as Spider-Man, but only two have managed to do so while deposing the original wearer. One of them is Kraven the Hunter, an originally B-tier Spider-Man villain who ascended to new heights of villainy in J. M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck's seminal story, Kraven's Last Hunt.

Set during a period where Spidey was still wearing the black suit (only not the alien version), DeMatteis had Kraven kill Spider-Man in his opening issue on the character. It ends with the Russian villain burying Peter in his own coffin, with the second showcasing the longtime adversary in his own Spidey costume, determined to prove that he was better than wall-crawler in every conceivable way.

It's a brilliant story - perhaps even Spidey's best - and it ends with the wall-crawler mustering the strength to break out of his grave to beat Kraven once and for all. During his time as the web-slinger, Kraven single-handedly defeats Vermin, brutalises dozens of New York criminals and grows progressively more unstable with each passing issue, to the point where he kills himself, satisfied that he'd proven to his foe that he was superior.

It was an incredible end for the character, but with comics being comics, he was soon resurrected. Kraven has since embarked on a number of roles - some villainous, others not so much - but none have managed to equal the heights the character achieved with his titular last hunt.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.