As of 2024, Spider-Man probably has the largest catalog of movies of any superhero. Aside from the mainline movies, we also have Sony’s villain movies and Spiderverse franchise. That’s a lot of Spider-Man. And in his travels, the hero has come against a large portion of his main rogues gallery. We’ve seen two Green Goblins, Doc Ock, Mysterio, Vulture, Sandman, Electro, and more. But there’s one villain missing from that list that is being introduced into the Sony portion of the Spider-verse in just a few days, Kraven the Hunter.
While most of Spider-Man’s rogues deal with elemental powers and magic and the supernatural, Kraven is a physical antagonist. He is a superpowered hunter, and he is responsible for one of the most famous and controversial Spider-Man storylines created so far: ‘Kraven’s Last Hunt’. It’s understandable film studios probably want to stay away from this one because in the story, Kraven doesn’t just hunt Spidey, he kind of buries him alive for a couple weeks. Yeah, that’s not happening in any Disney owned Marvel movie, but to be honest to use Kraven you really don’t have to. You can “bury” people metaphorically, and if the movie took this idea it could put a less dark twist on this long overdue movie adaption.
Hear me out: Kingpin hires Kraven to hunt Spider-Man, and in the background buries Peter’s life by pulling every last string behind his back without his knowledge. Kraven’s presence serves as a distraction but since he’s such a giant threat he is relentless and doesn’t give Peter a chance to look into what Kingpin is doing behind the scenes. Kingpin buries Peter in an effort to weaken him, hoping Kraven will kill him in the process. Oh, and Miles Morales will be there.
Sony
Sony needs to either piss or get off the pot by either fully merging their properties with Marvel or just calling it quits (love you Sony, but you know it’s true). This solves that by pulling Venom, Kraven, and Miles into the MCU. Miles, Peter, and Venom both already have experience with the multiverse so explaining how it happens honestly wouldn’t be too hard. This story doesn’t include Venom, but if it were up to me I’d probably have Kraven’s Last Hunt be a sequel to follow up a Venom/Spider-Man vs. Knull movie in an effort to fully integrate all of the (good) Sony properties seamlessly.
Sony also has the Spiderverse movies, and Miles Morales is a heavy hitter. Kevin Feige has mentioned introducing Miles into the MCU, and we already have a multiverse-hopping Miles established from a successful trilogy of fan favorite movies, so like, why would they not do that? Kraven is a hugely physical threat, so in my version of the Last Hunt movie, it would actually be Kraven vs. Peter and Miles. Just picturing scenes of Miles and Peter swinging through the city double teaming Kraven as he leaps from building to building is enough to sell the movie for me. Adding Kingpin is just icing.
Kingpin
Kraven is enough of a threat by himself, but he needs motivation. Kingpin is the perfect character to be the one to hire him, while simultaneously pulling the strings in Peter’s life behind his back. Vincent D’Onofrio already owns the role and has been integrated into the MCU, and will be next seen in Daredevil: Born Again. Depending on how they do that story, Kingpin’s motivation could be a number of different things but they would all have one common denominator: complete power. Most likely political. He will be pulling the strings in the background of this movie with the goal of setting him up to be the big-bad of the third movie in this imaginary trilogy. In this movie, he sees Peter as a small potato, but he is a superhero nonetheless and after getting his butt handed to him by Hawkeye and Daredevil numerous times he’s putting it in cruise and contracting out the hard stuff.
Kingpin pays off numerous networks outside of the city to convince the rest of the country that Spider-Man and other metas are dangerous. As a result, he manipulates events that create distress in the lives of Peters loved ones, and all Peter sees is one bad thing happening after another to the people around him with no rhyme or reason. This hits Peter psychologically, because he realizes the one thread all these bad things have in common are him, but he doesn’t get why. So he isolates himself. It gets to the point nobody even believes Peter that something bigger is happening because they’re all too worried about the bad things happening in their life to give benefit of the doubt. Kingpin, knowing this is crushing Peter psychologically, keeps doing it in an attempt to make Peter feel like he’s going crazy, while at the same time relentlessly sending Kraven after him again and again. The only thing that is keeping Peter together in this movie is his new found friend, Miles.
Miles Morales
Miles needs to be in the MCU, and I think that he and Peter would bond quickly because of all the crazy stuff they’ve seen in a short period of time. In the past movies, it’s always been Peter, MJ, and Ned. This movie is a Peter-Miles movie, as Peter’s friends are all quietly angry with him and Peter isolates as a result. In this version, Miles would be transported over to the 616 MCU with Kraven and Venom, but would search out Spider-Man almost right away since he’s been to numerous universes and knows they all have some sort of Peter Parker. While all this bad stuff is happening around Peter, we would have Peter and Miles becoming friends, and then eventually allies when Kraven begins attacking them. This is a darker movie, but Miles would serve as a large amount of the comedic relief. I can picture Miles and Peter pulling off some pretty cool Spidey-combos in the air against Kraven and can’t help but think how cool that would be to see on screen.
When Peter pushes everyone else in his life away, he maintains his friendship with Miles because he knows Miles isn’t from this world so he has no strings that can be pulled. Peter’s breaking point in the movie will be somewhere about two-thirds of the way though when Kingpin has Kraven kidnap just Miles, the last thing Peter has left. Once Miles has been taken, Peter hits a wall, but then realizes he has one more person he can go to about this in a last ditch effort to save Miles and make things right:
Daredevil
Peter already knows Matt Murdock is Daredevil by now, but doesn’t realize his connection to Kingpin, or that Kingpin is even the one responsible for all of this yet. He goes to Matt as a friend, and he knows that his powers are actually quite similar to Peters. While Peter has his Spider-senses, Daredevil also has increased senses to compensate for his blindness. When Peter tells Daredevil what happened, Daredevil suggests he bypass Kraven and figure out who is pulling all the strings because they’re most likely connected. Kraven always attacks directly after Peter receives bad news from one of his loved ones and Daredevil points out this pattern.
Peter then asks what he can do to figure it out, and Daredevil helps Peter expand his Spidey-senses. It will be almost like when he was able sense Mysterios attacks at the end of Far From Home, but effortlessly. He trains Peter for a small period of time, and by the time he is done the Peter tingle is now the SUPER Peter tingle. In past movies, Peter has upgraded his suit and his tech, but in this one Daredevil helps him actually enhance his powers. So, Peter goes off to look for Miles using his enhanced abilities.
Kraven
Kraven will be an absolute nut in this movie. In The Dark Knight, one of the reasons Heath Ledger’s Joker was such a threat was because he literally is attacking something in every other scene. The movie didn’t waste time on backstory because there was none relevant to the movie. First a bank, then a gang, then a hospital, then Rachel and Harvey, then the boats. In most super-hero movies, the villain gets in maybe one or two good attacks to set up the characterization. Kraven will be brutal. He attacks, and attacks, and attacks. There won’t be any time spent setting up a backstory because the stand-alone movie already did that and there’s nothing relevant to his story for this movie besides the multiverse jump. He’s just a contract killer, that’s it. After every time Peter gets bad news from someone, caused by Kingpin, Kraven is then sent in right after to take advantage of Peter’s vulnerable state. The only thing keeping Peter alive is being able to 2v1 him with Miles each time. Kraven does not have a deep backstory, and his lack of any substantial motivation to do what he is doing other than the thrill of the hunt is what makes him so terrifying. He is relentless and he makes that known almost immediately with the first fight in the movie.
The last fight scene of the movie Peter can now keep up with Kraven because of his super Spidey senses. In previous scenes, it was Kraven’s agility and speed Peter had the most trouble with and now that’s not a problem. However, it still isn’t enough and by the end of this fight Kraven STILL bests Peter, but right before Peter is about to die there is a flash of lightning and BOOM, Daredevil jumps down and the fight continues. This doesn’t last long because Daredevil is going to play a main role in the third movie, but he helps just long enough to take down Kraven and save Miles. Once Miles is saved, Daredevil leaves quickly. This isn’t the end though. Right as that happens, Peter’s phone rings and it’s Kingpin. “I have your friends”.
So, Peter and Miles go to the location Kingpin tells them. There is no fight, there is no anything. It’s just Kingpin. But he tells Peter and Miles that if they make one wrong move, all of his friends will die. Peter and Miles stand down. He then brings out Peter’s friends, and says specifically to Peter: “You can have them back if you give me the other one”, meaning Miles. This whole time, Kingpin has actually been doing this to take Miles. Kraven took Miles not just to break Peter, but because Kingpin actually has a plan for him. The next movie would be about Kingpin turning Miles into a weapon for hunting down other heroes. It just so happens Kingpin knew Peter would already be at his breaking point by then so two birds one stone. He was truly stunned that Peter saved Miles, and had no idea Daredevil was ever involved. At least he doesn’t mention it.
Peter tells Miles that he can’t do that, but Miles actually offers. “He has three of your friends, I’m one stranger. I’ve also already beaten one of these guys before”, referencing the Kingpin from his universe. So, Miles goes with Kingpin, and Peter goes directly back to Matt Murdock. Daredevil tells Peter he already knew it was Kingpin but knew Peter would come to that conclusion himself and wanted to use it to help Peter gain experience with his enhanced Spider-sense. Daredevil is openly not intimidated by Fisk anymore, so much so he used him as a training exercise for Peter. It’s why he was there to help with Kraven, he was actually tailing Peter just in case things happened to become overwhelming for him and was ready to jump in at any point. This is actually the set up for the third movie I’d like to see: Spider-Man AND Daredevil teaming up to take down Kingpin and get Miles back. Maybe I’ll write about that another time.