Comics Fondle

I read “Kraven’s Last Hunt” when I was nine, ten on the outside. I think it might have really messed me up. “Last Hunt” is an awesome (in terms of DeMatteis’s endeavor) look at fear, insanity and innocence. Lots of time, in the first half, are spent inside Kraven’s wacko mind, without it becoming clear he’s suffering not from a fatal disease (I misremembered the plot point), but from a hereditary insanity. I’m not sure how DeMatteis landed on Vermin to play such an important role, but the character really works for what he does in “Last Hunt.”

DeMatteis runs four narrators in all in the six issues–Spider-Man, Kraven, Vermin and Mary Jane (coming off “Last Hunt,” it’s impossible to think of Spider-Man and Mary Jane as anything but married… I guess years of bad writers really do hurt a comic book)–but none of them are really connected. It’s not like Kraven represents one thing, Vermin another and Spider-Man another. The only commonality is the attention DeMatteis gives what they’re thinking. (It’s really cute because, apparently, Bendis got his parenthetical asides from DeMatteis in this story). The result, the effect of attention, is to create a claustrophobic reality inside the comic book–a rainy, scary world absent of any hope until the end. It’s a masterful superhero story from DeMatteis, taking in to account the years of history, the terminal nature of the story and the contemporary events in the Marvel Universe. Somehow, the references to Captain America and Spider-Man’s fight with Vermin before–which may or may not have involved Baron Zemo–sound like they took place in a far-off reality with flying cars and whatnot, but the references never pull from the reality DeMatteis and Zeck define.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Zeck. Or even a fan. Don’t know what he drew besides this story. Oh… he did Secret Wars? Whatever. “Last Hunt” is weird because there’s a lot of page layout storytelling going on. There’s got to be a term for it, but it’s not visual and it’s not explanatory, it’s using the placement of panels and words on the panels to create a reaction in the reader. Did Alan Moore do stuff like it? I can’t remember. It makes me want to read more DeMatteis superhero stuff, but the knowledge he turned Daredevil into four or five different Daredevils brings me back to reality.

But, “Kraven’s Last Hunt” is definitely something special. Even if it did damage my young mind.

A

Technorati Tags: Comic Book, J.M. DeMatteis, Marvel Comics, Mike Zeck, Review, Spider-Man

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