Kraven the Hunter

Cosplayer playing the character.

Kraven the Hunter (Sergei Kravinoff) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #15 (August 1964), and was created by writer Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. He is one of Spider-Man's frequent enemies and the half-brother of Dmitri Smerdyakov, better known as the Chameleon. He is widely regarded as one of the most formidable enemies among his rogues. The character gained considerable attention from the story Kraven's Last Hunt. The character has been a founding member of the supervillain group, the Sinister Six. He is also an enemy to many other heroes, such as Black Panther, Tigra, Ka-Zar, Deadpool, Venom, and the X-Men.

Fictional character biography

He is a former Russian aristocrat and big-game hunter that is unrivalled in his abilities, constantly seeking new prey in order to challenge himself. After learning about the existence of Spider-Man, Kraven would become obsessed with hunting and defeating him, believing him to be his ultimate prey. Over the years, he has occasionally been depicted as an anti-hero or neutral ally to Spider-Man because of his strict code of honor, although he has always returned to menace the wall-crawler and many other heroes nevertheless.

Powers and abilities

Kraven possesses superhuman abilities conferred upon him via special herbal potions he periodically ingests. These abilities include enhanced strength (optimally lifting 2 tons), speed (able to sprint short distances at 60 mph), agility, stamina, and longevity. He can perform a standing broad jump of 20 feet.

In other media

The character appeared in numerous Spider-Man adaptations, including animated series and video games. He made his live-action cinematic debut in the Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU) movie Kraven the Hunter (2024), which is portrayed by Aaron Taylor-Johnson.