Marvel's plans to marry Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson prompted DeMatteis to make their marriage the emotional focus of the story.
"[1] Because the plot had been completely written by the time Zeck started work on "Kraven's Last Hunt", he drew all six covers for the story before doing any of the interior art.
If an issue has a scene with the title hero rising from his own grave, it’s like receiving the number-one gift on your Christmas list!
Spider-Man reflects on his own mortality after the deaths of Ned Leeds and common criminal acquaintance Joe Face.
Kraven culminates his crusade with the unarmed capture of the cannibal Vermin, who Spider-Man needed the help of Captain America to defeat.
To prove his final point of superiority, Kraven releases Vermin and goads him to battle Spider-Man.
He leaves a confession of his burying and impersonating Spider-Man for the police to find, complete with photographic proof; this is published in the media.
A sequel to "Kraven's Last Hunt" was published in August 1992 as a 48-page prestige format graphic novel titled Amazing Spider-Man: Soul of the Hunter (ISBN 0-87135-942-1), again written by J. M. DeMatteis, drawn by Mike Zeck, and inked by Bob McLeod.
"Soul of the Hunter" was done as a response to a widespread misinterpretation of the suicide scene in chapter 5 of "Kraven's Last Hunt".
In this continuity, Kraven hunts down Spider-Man in the 1980s during the midst of the Cold War shortly after he was diagnosed with cancer.
2) #17 (September 1990) of the Marvel alternative history title What If?, Kraven uses real bullets instead of tranquilizers, thus actually killing Spider-Man and assuming his place.
Afterward, Mary Jane holds a press conference to attempt to clear Peter's name of Kraven's time as Spider-Man, but is unsuccessful in doing so because J. Jonah Jameson intervenes and convinces people to believe that all superheroes are unreliable.
In 2012, "Kraven's Last Hunt" was voted by readers of Comic Book Resources as the greatest Spider-Man story ever told.
In his commentary on the results, Brian Cronin described the story as "a breathtaking piece of work that inspired countless imitations by other writers over the years.
[3] Writing for Complex, Jason Serafino ranked "Kraven's Last Hunt" the fifth best Spider-Man story of all time.
According to Serafino, "'Kraven’s Last Hunt' features the usual comic action, but it also blends aspects from classic literature and recurring themes in order to present a deeper, more complicated narrative.
It routinely quotes William Blake’s poem 'The Tyger,' and Mike Zeck’s art fills the book with gritty photorealism.
It adds extra layers to marriage and makes the end of the story where Peter goes back to MJ to recover that much better.
In this adaptation, Peter and Mary Jane are not married, due to the changes in continuity that resulted from the "One More Day" story arc.