It sounds a little insane to say that one of the most consistently excellent mainstream comic book titles published today has been a tear lately, but it’s 100% true when it comes to Marvel’s Ultimate Spider-Man. And the latest issue, Ultimate Spider-Man #13, continues that upward trajectory with a tense story that riffs off the classic Kraven’s Last Hunt.
Written by Jonathan Hickman with art by Marco Checchetto, the issue picks up a month after the jaw-dropping cliffhangers in Ultimate Spider-Man #12. Spoilers past this point, but Kraven took Peter Parker and Harry Osborn hostage two months ago and has been torturing and breaking them ever since. In the interim? Peter’s son Richard has not only found out about how Peter’s sentient suit replaced him in the interim, but has been adventuring as Spider-Man in his stead.
Focusing on the second part first, the tension of expectations play heavy in the Richard storyline. The suit is now Spider-Man’s black suit, with all the “Venom” weight that implies. And Checchetto’s leans into that with his designs for the suit, which seems innocuous and helpful on the surface, but certainly seems to be visually leaning into darkness and terror. That’s a pretty bad place for Richard, a teen, to be — though his meet cute with the new Black Cat at the end of the issue implies a potential spark of romance.
Far tenser is the story with Harry and Peter, which sends them to the Savage Land to be hunted by Kraven. It’s kill or be killed, with the hunter threatening to murder their families if he’s left standing. And while readers will be worried for the fates of, well, everyone, what Hickman is playing with here is the morality of our two “heroes.” While Peter is becoming more and more heroic by the issue, living up to his destiny as Spider-Man; Harry is delving further into the darkness, and it seems entirely plausible that before this is over Kraven’s blood will be on his hands.
In both these storylines, Hickman is weaponizing our expectations for maximum drama. We know, or think we know where these characters will end up. By setting them on a different path, it raises the question of whether we know them at all. And perhaps even scarier for this particular storyline, with every issue jumping ahead a month in time, where will Peter and Harry even be in Ultimate Spider-Man #14? Not physically, but emotionally?
Every issue of this series is a master class in storytelling that has found an entirely new way into the Spider-Man mythos. Here’s hoping Peter and company make it out, if not intact, at least alive.
Ultimate Spider-Man #13 Rating:
Ultimate Spider-Man #13 Official Synopsis:
KRAVEN’S MOST DANGEROUS GAME! The Sinister Six are all hunting Spider-Man and the Green Goblin for their ringleader, Kingpin – and this time, Kraven has the upper hand in Jonathan Hickman & Marco Checchetto’s love letter to “Kraven’s Last Hunt”!
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