Is ‘Kraven the Hunter’ connected to ‘Spider-Man?’

It’s the type of question that I feel like you already knew the answer to before you clicked on this article, and yet, here we are. Which is fine by me. After all, we write about superheroes for a living around here. With the recent release of the Kraven the Hunter trailer, plenty of people have begun to wonder just how connected Kraven is to your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man anyway.

Sure, it looks badass, but after watching Morbius get memed into oblivion all we can do is hope that Kraven doesn’t share a similar fate. Seriously. I still have nightmares.

Asking whether or not Kraven the Hunter is connected to Spider-Man is like asking if Kevin Feige is on a sound stage somewhere — cooking up more MCU madness… Of course he is. As one of Spidey’s most iconic and formidable foes, Kraven is unlike any other villain in Marvel’s rolodex, and a character that fans have been dying to see on the silver screen for ages.

How are Kraven and Spider-Man connected?

To be fair, Kraven’s interest in Spider-Man is really more of an obsession than a connection. In truth, he looks at the Wall-Crawler like a trophy — a piece of dangerous game worth conquering, and since his introduction into the comics in 1964 Kraven has left a lasting mark on the mythos. It’s pretty simple; Kraven hunts stuff. Spider-Man is good at not being hunted. Once you’ve run out of animals to kill, and plain old human beings aren’t doing it why not try and go after a superhero?

Super-powered in his own way, Kraven has a plethora of enhanced attributes to go up against Spider-Man. He’s skilled in hand-to-hand combat, a master of advanced weaponry, and can track just about anyone with ease. Although are you surprised? Hunter IS in his name. It’s sort of his thing.

So is Kraven the Hunter, as a character, connected to Spider-Man? Yes. As far as the upcoming film is concerned though, that remains to be seen. Kraven the Hunter looks to be more of an origin story than anything else, which means that we probably won’t be getting an on-screen appearance from any sort of Spider-themed people before the credits roll.

Now this doesn’t mean that in the future we won’t see a Kraven-Spidey face off, it just means that we might have to wait a while. The deciding factor there really comes down to whether the film is good or not, and with a less than stellar record — I’m not convinced that Kraven the Hunter will deliver in the ways that matter. I just hope that I’m wrong.