NEAR-MYTHS: "THE GRIM HUNT" assorted Spider-Man comics (2010)

 

This post is more of a notation than a proper review. I only picked up GRIM HUNT from a local library because I noticed that, though its main plot concerned the return of Kraven the Hunter from the undiscovered country, a subplot dealt with an alliance between the prophetess Madame Web and at least two Spider-Women. None of the HUNT narrative bears any strong resemblance to the storyline of Sony Pictures' recent flop MADAME WEB. But since the subplot about the "Spider-Clan" precedes the action of HUNT, it's possible that either this arc, or another like it, gave the Sony scripters the idea that Marvel's "school for spiders" concept could be converted into a "girl power" movie.                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Ironically, the subplot could have made a better film than the upscale Lifetime movie that Sony came out with. Every fan knows that Marvel Comics began to come out with assorted "spider-women" to protect and/or enhance the franchise created by Spider-Man. That's one reason I'm not giving HUNT a proper review: it's referencing all sorts of continuity-based developments that I'd have to research over many assorted SPIDER-MAN comics. In any case, as far as the origin-stories of characters like "Arana" and "the Julia Carpenter Spider-Woman" are concerned, the heroines' resemblance to Spider-Man is mere coincidence. Someone-- I might assume the dominant writer of HUNT, Joe Kelly-- elevated the coincidence to the level of a metaphysical possibility, that all of Marvel's Spider-people are bound within a "web" of influences. Madame Web asserts the existence of this intertwinement, while Peter Parker and the other Spider-people are more skeptical. This sort of metaphysical uncertainty might have been produced a better dramatic arc for a movie about spider-heroines, even one that was obliged to erase Spider-Man from the (literal) picture.                                                                                                                                                                                                      Then there's the main plotline about the rebirth of Kraven the Hunter. I was loosely aware that, following the demise of the villain in the 1987 continuity "Kraven's Last Hunt," other pretenders to his throne had popped up, at least one of whom was Kraven's son. By 2010, there's a whole family of Kravniofs, all of whom quarrel with one another over their patrimony but who are united in the quest to bring down their nemesis, "The Spyder"-- also sort of a symbolic representation of all the spider-people, I think. Joe Kelly's definitely a much better SPIDER-MAN writer than most of the people who followed in the wake of Stan Lee, but I can't really judge this HUNT without having seen more of the surrounding terrain.