American Update: Mighty Marvel Firsts/Spider-Mania: Amazing Spider-Man #15 – First Kraven the Hunter
*Marvel: A combination of our two Marvel events this week. Another early Lee/Ditko classic Spidey new in, with the debut of Kraven the Hunter. Sergei Kravinoff, scion of exiled Russian nobility and the self-determined ‘Greatest Hunter in the World’, set out to entrap Spider-Man to, basically, big up his own reputation, and that slender premise has been parlayed into a surprisingly long career culminating in several major stories, most notoriously 1987’s ‘Kraven’s Last Hunt’. Originally just a highly trained and skilled human, Kraven has been retconned as having enhanced strength and longevity to make him more of a match for the super-set, and his moral ambiguity has led to him crossing the line between hero and villain many times – currently, for example, he’s a hero and a member of Squirrel Girl’s supporting cast! This copy of Kraven’s debut is a lovely VG-, a cents copy with deep unbroken background colour, tight pages and corners, and off-white, flexible interior pages. There is one specific flaw – a tiny patch of discolouration from upper staple rust which precludes a significantly higher grade on a comic which would otherwise make an easy Fine or better. Amazing Spider-Man #15 VG- £200.