Art: Michael Lark, Marco Checchetto, Stefano Gaudiano, Matt Southworth
Just like the previous issue, Marco Checchetto comes back to help with the art alongside Michael Lark. However, we get TWO MORE fill-in artists for this issue - Stefano Gaudiano and Matt Southworth - which seems to be happening a lot lately in the Spidey books. Now that I've seen more of Checchetto's art, I can say for myself that I wish he drew the whole Grim Hunt arc. That's not to say Lark's art was ugly. Checchetto's use of shadows fit more with the theme. His panels are more dynamic compared to the other artists in the issue. Plus, and I've said this before, he draws a pretty good Kraven.
As for Joe Kelly's script, he recaps the whole "Kraven's Last Hunt" through a monologue of Peter in the second page. As Peter goes through each "spider people" involved in the story, I can't help but wonder why Spider Woman (Jessica Drew) isn't here. Is it because she's not one with the spider?
Anyway, here we see Spider-Man rage. Not like that is something new, as we have seen Peter get really pissed off in a previous story years ago - Back in Black. It's also pretty nice to see Peter back in the black costume again. I think he's the only superhero who can change between two costumes and still look bad ass.
On to the Kravinoffs, we see Sasha demote from a strong, initiating, leading type of woman to a pitiful mistress. I mean from the whole Gauntlet up to this point on she was portrayed as a strong woman with a plan. However, as soon as Kraven showed up everything went spiraling down. This is a perfect example of the "be careful what you wish for" cliche. She realizes everything is going wrong then goes to slit Madame Web's throat, which in turn, kills her. I'd like to point out, though, in this particular scene where Sasha was talking to Kraven then suddenly he becomes Spider-Man. Like, what? After rereading the whole issue again, I still at a lost about what happened in that scene. Does that mean Spidey can give illusions when he's angry? I have no idea what Joe Kelly wanted to happen for that scene, but I didn't get it.
Kelly sets up a new status quo in this issue as well. As Madame Web dies, she transfers her power into Julia Carpenter. Thus, making her the new Madame Web. Julia Carpenter then gives her costume to Araña. With Julia being the new Madame Web, we'll probably get to see her more often in future issues.
Kelly's depiction of Kraven is good though. Kraven is still the hunter we all know about, however this time, he wants Spider-Man to kill him off, to be free from his curse of immortality. We also get to see how insane Kraven is, killing Sasha (which is ironic) and Vladimir himself.
I don't why Kelly opened the story up with J. Jonah Jameson, but I guess he was just there only to blame Spider-Man for all that's happened.
J.M. DeMatteis and Max Fiumara's conclusion of "Hunting the Hunter" even showed more of what was going throught the minds of Kraven and Kaine. We also get to see why Kraven buries Spider-Man alive in "Kraven's Last Hunt", because the same thing happened in this story only it was Kaine doing the burying.
Finally, we get to Stan Lee and Marcos Martin's Spidey Sundays. Brain and Bull still doesn't realize that Peter and Spider-Man are one person. And we get some cameo appearances from the creators. I don't know who the other is, I guess that'd be Martin himself, but the other is Joe Quesada in a Mickey Mouse hat.
Overall, at first I thought bringing back Kraven was a stupid idea, but seeing how he ended up being immortal and only Spider-Man can kill him is pretty interesting. Although that could lead to stories where Kraven would orchestrate plans only for Spider-Man to kill him, since after the whole arc, it's pretty much clear Kraven wants to be at peace again.
And seeing how this ends makes the whole Gauntlet pretty useless, although we got some good stories from that. The Gauntlet's main purpose was to wear Spider-Man. But we didn't see one sign of Spider-Man being exhausted at all. And that swine flu also didn't make much effect on him as the story went on.
Rating: 3.5/5
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