Marvel Novels--Spider-Man Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also from Titan and Titan Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Par Two

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Part Three

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Part Four

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Part Five

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Epilogue 1

  Epilogue 2

  Epilogue 3

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  A NOVEL OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE

  NOVELS OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE BY TITAN BOOKS

  Ant-Man: Natural Enemy by Jason Starr

  Avengers: Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Dan Abnett

  Avengers: Infinity by James A. Moore

  Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther? by Jesse J. Holland

  Captain Marvel: Liberation Run by Tess Sharpe

  Civil War by Stuart Moore

  Deadpool: Paws by Stefan Petrucha

  Spider-Man: Forever Young by Stefan Petrucha

  Spider-Man: Hostile Takeover by David Liss

  Spider-Man: Kraven’s Last Hunt by Neil Kleid

  Thanos: Death Sentence by Stuart Moore

  Venom: Lethal Protector by James R. Tuck

  X-Men: Days of Future Past by Alex Irvine (June 2019)

  X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga by Stuart Moore

  ALSO FROM TITAN AND TITAN BOOKS

  Marvel Contest of Champions: The Art of the Battlerealm by Paul Davies

  Marvel’s Spider-Man: The Art of the Game by Paul Davies

  Obsessed with Marvel by Peter Sanderson and Marc Sumerak

  Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – The Art of the Movie by Ramin Zahed

  The Art of Iron Man (10th Anniversary Edition) by John Rhett Thomas

  The Marvel Vault by Matthew K. Manning, Peter Sanderson, and Roy Thomas

  Ant-Man and the Wasp: The Official Movie Special

  Avengers: Endgame – The Official Movie Special

  Avengers: Infinity War – The Official Movie Special

  Black Panther: The Official Movie Companion

  Black Panther: The Official Movie Special

  Captain Marvel: The Official Movie Special

  Marvel Studios: The First Ten Years

  Spider-Man: Far From Home – The Official Movie Special (July 2019)

  Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse – The Official Movie Special

  Thor: Ragnarok – The Official Movie Special

  Spider-man: Kraven’s Last Hunt

  Print edition ISBN: 9781789092479

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781789092486

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First Titan edition: May 2019

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  © 2019 MARVEL

  Spider-Man created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko

  Editor: Stuart Moore

  Design By Nelson Ribeiro

  Cover Art By Michael Lark and Jodi Wynne

  Interior Art By Mike Zeck, Bob Mcleod, Steve Geiger and Art Nichols

  VP Production & Special Projects: Jeff Youngquist

  Assistant Editors, Special Projects: Sarah Brunstad and Caitlin O’Connell

  Director, Licensed Publishing: Sven Larsen

  SVP Print, Sales & Marketing: David Gabriel

  Editor In Chief: C.B. Cebulski

  Chief Creative Officer: Joe Quesada

  President, Marvel Entertainment: Dan Buckley

  Executive Producer: Alan Fine

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  For Jack, Owen, Olivia, and the little super hero on the way. The night I wrote this was the night I explained to you for the first time that with great power must also come great responsibility. Always know: You are my great power.

  PROLOGUE

  THE HUNTER lifted his rifle from its case. He turned it in his hands and tested its weight. Running a palm along the stock and tightening the barrel in his grip, the Hunter rested cool metal against his strong, calloused fingers, then lovingly placed the weapon on a nearby table with a reverence equivalent to mother and child. The rifle, a modified Remington, was one of a kind: handcrafted for the Hunter alone, built atop the bones of a classic Model 700. Its case was a coffin, lined with velvet and burnished with copper. It lay open and resting in the heart of his lair.

  Sergei padded from the room, which was situated at the center of his compound—a private sanctuary containing an accumulated lifetime of artifacts and memories. He walked deliberately, placing weight on his toes like a jungle cat, moving silently through his modest quarters, away from the casket and the waiting rifle. Waiting to be used, waiting for the inevitable end of the affair.

  But not just yet.

  Dressed in a cobalt robe barely cinched at the waist, Sergei moved to the rear of his townhouse, back where not even aides or servants dared tread. Here, in a secluded inner sanctum draped in exotic finery and littered with stuffed trophies—former adversaries dragged across land or sea in nets or cages, or draped over his shoulders, or ridden between his legs. Each had failed to best Sergei in his element, to defeat the Hunter in his prime. He’d faced them all, from proud Lion to mighty Elephant, terrible Tiger to sleek Jaguar. They’d bared claw and tooth, roared and pounced, and Sergei took them one by one, claiming skin and bones for his own. Every animal. Every beast. The Hunter had proved victorious against them all.

  All but one.

  Sergei drew the curtains, shutting out light, and shrugged aside his robe. Bare and alone, dressed only in Hunter’s skin, he circled the room and nodded to his enemies. His gaze landed on the midnight-blue of a fierce panther, jaws opened in a silent snarl.
He padded past the looming figure of a mighty ape, arms raised as if to strike, but gave the imposing figure no notice. Arriving at a table in the back where waited an array of potions and candles hastily arranged on a small, silver tray, he moved through preparations with little fanfare, distracted as he was by plans and memories. Sergei lit incense, thin purple smoke rising from wicks to filter through the room, and swallowed several potions, the mixed herbs within serving to enhance his state of mind.

  He turned to the animals, stepped into the circle of beasts against which he’d proved his mettle and gained honor, and dropped to all fours. Sergei moved along the floor—the Hunter no more, now adopting the ways and instincts of the Beast, using the limbs provided to propel himself along…to crawl. The herbs and drugs altered his perception, turned aside the Hunter-as-man and allowed him to become the Hunter-as-beast—though as he stalked imaginary prey, crawling beneath Elephant and Rhino, Sergei knew he was more than that.

  I am Kraven, he thought—the name echoing around his skull, across the room, off each trophy and every wall. I am Kraven, and I am the Beast. He twisted it into a mantra, wore it for a crown as he pounced toward the panther, barely visible as the purple fog enveloped its frame of blue and black. Sergei landed opposite the panther, opening his own mouth and growling in return. Then he cast his enemy aside, tossing the panther into a collection of ornate shields and carefully stacked spears. The taxidermic prize and deadly weapons fell to the ground, scattering in a heap.

  Sergei turned—no, crawled away and stalked another foe: an ape, tall and proud, rising up to cast a shadow across the Hunter’s naked form. Sergei rose to meet the furred behemoth, lifting his arms to match the simian’s own; he drove his palm into the underside of the ape’s jaw, knocking head from body with a short, powerful blow and a primal, bloodcurdling scream of rage. The Hunter reached out, grabbed the ape’s body, and lifted it above his head, sinewy muscles flexed taut and firm from rage and exertion.

  Sergei smiled, cold and dangerous through gritted teeth. My mind is rage and glory, he thought. My heart: fire and pride. I am Kraven. My body is grace and power.

  Bellowing like Elephant, rearing back with both arms, Sergei slammed the stuffed ape to the ground, shattering it and sending pieces out across the room, among the rest of the watching creatures. Breathing heavily, skin slick from sweat and smoke, he stumbled to the curtain and tore it aside, stopping only to retrieve his robe. The smoke filtered from the room and into the rest of the lair, following the Hunter as he strode down the hall toward the front of the compound.

  Sergei paid the escaping smoke no mind, lost in thought and the mission at hand.

  I am Kraven, the Beast, he reminded himself, but also Kravinoff, the man.

  Securing the robe around his body, pulling arms back through the sleeves, Sergei cast the Beast aside—as he had the rifle—and walked on the flats of his feet, pushing through solid oaken doors to the thin warmth of the library. Surrounded by dog-eared books and faded maps, Sergei poured another drink— not a mind-altering potion this time, but a pleasant African red, aged to perfection in earthenware casks, and laced with hints of poppy and lion’s blood by master vintners. He decanted the wine into a heavy silver goblet, a remnant of a life he’d barely known, carried by his parents from Russia years before. He let the wine breathe, casting a gaze around the room at the goblet’s cousins: items and heirlooms passed from Kravinoff to Kravinoff down through the years into his own undeserving, calloused hands.

  “I am Kravinoff,” he repeated aloud to anyone who might be listening, man or beast. Kravinoff, Sergei knew, was a man—an old man, though few would believe it. Years had passed—long, hard, often fruitless years since he’d traveled overseas as a child, coming with his parents to this land of sheep and prey. He had been nothing more than a cub, a mewling pup riding the seas with his mother and wet nurse, traveling to the shores of a land without honor or dignity.

  To look upon Sergei—his powerful form, his weathered face and jet-black hair—the average person might see a man of forty or younger. But the truth lay within the potions and herbs that Sergei imbibed. These herbs turned him from man to beast—from Hunter to predator—but they also allowed him to retain youth, agility, stamina, and strength. In truth, Sergei Kravinoff had stalked the Earth for nearly a century.

  And he had learned much, Sergei thought as he idly swirled the wine within his goblet. This land was not alone in its lack of honor. There had been no more room in Russia for such things: for aristocrats or culture. For honor or human dignity. Once the Cossacks came, once man became prey, hunted by other men who were nothing more than beasts in human skin—once they came for Sergei’s family and fortune, it became necessary to seek new fortune in a new world called America.

  But everything his parents had been forced to leave behind in their beautiful homeland—honor, dignity, pride—all of those things had been bred in Sergei’s bones long before the Trotskys and Lenins dragged Mother Russia into the pit. He carried them alone, inside his skin and within his cells, for the entire world seemed to have followed Russia’s sad example. Where can one find dignity today? Sergei wondered. He stood at the desk in the center of his study, lapping at the wine and allowing the blood-red liquid to dribble down his chin and onto his wide, muscled chest. Honor, he asked himself, where is such a quality now?

  He reached across the desk to a small intercom and jabbed a flat button with a thick, insistent finger. A bookshelf slid aside, its volumes no more than clever facsimiles, and a pair of nondescript doors parted to reveal a dimly lit chapel lined with rows of ceremonial candles. Sergei walked around the desk— placing weight back on his toes again, unconsciously returning to an animal’s pace—and carried the goblet into the chapel. The doors slid closed behind.

  I am Kravinoff, he thought once more, and were my father alive…were my mother alive…they would look upon this frightened, wounded animal called civilization without recognition and with great fear. Sergei nodded to himself and drank deeply, wine splashing over his chin. He absentmindedly wiped it away on the back of his hand and moved farther into the soft glow of candlelight, shadows lengthening on the walls and windows to either side.

  With great fear, Sergei thought. And great disgust. He moved slowly to the center of the chapel, past rows of chairs and the dulled, prismatic colors of exquisitely designed stained-glass windows set into deeply niched walls. Finally, he returned to the coffin, waiting and resting on a platform before a larger window and a handful of silver candlesticks shaded to either side by lush, verdant floral arrangements imported from Madagascar, Moscow, and the Middle East. Sergei ascended the short staircase leading to the coffin and cast a brief glance at the modified Remington he’d laid on a nearby table. He set the goblet aside, resting it on the lip of the open coffin, and placed his hands to either side, staring up at the unlit candlesticks and impassive, decorative window beyond.

  I am the man, he reflected. I am the Beast.

  I am Kraven. The Hunter.

  The Hunter had found dignity in this world, but not in cities. No, the Hunter had found it in jungles. He had seen honor not in the civilized, those who existed in a society that claimed to be honorable, but in the primal—in those who knew no law but that of tooth and fang, of kill or be killed. And as the Hunter, he had found morality, found meaning—not in culture or arts, or in anything a supposedly civilized society created in an effort to prove itself better than animals. No, Kraven had found meaning in the hunt. And he had given his life to it.

  But Time, like all good predators, had finally caught up with the Hunter. And soon, there could be no escape from its cage of flesh. Herbs, roots, potions—they could keep him alive, yes, as they had long beyond Sergei’s allotted time. But no potion could rejuvenate the Hunter’s dying spirit, and no herb would heal his heart, corrupted as it was by the weight of a corrupted age.

  I was a child, Sergei thought, no more than a cub in his mother’s jaws, carried along from one jungle to another.
And in many ways, Sergei believed, he still was. But the meaning of the hunt had begun to fade, and the Hunter’s failures weighed upon his soul. His eyes ticked away from the window to the side table, where lay the rifle.

  I will die soon, Sergei thought. I must die soon.

  He turned back toward the open casket and carefully ran his hand inside, caressing the velvet and what lay within. Sergei’s jaw set. He thought of Russia and his mother, of all the wrongs he had endured since coming to America. His fist clenched, grasping the object inside the coffin, and fingers entwined with the face of his enemy. With the skin of the Beast.

  Slowly, Kraven lifted his hand and pulled a garment from the coffin—crimson and blue, emblazoned with the eight-legged sign of the Beast. He raised Spider-Man’s costume to his face and traced the mask’s wide, white eyes with a thick, coarse finger. Tears ran, unbidden, from the corners of Kraven’s own eyes as he contemplated the task before him and studied his prey. He stared deep into the unseeing eyes of the Spider. He prepared for the hunt.

  I will die soon, Kraven said to himself, using the mantra for focus like the steady beat of a jungle drum, echoing his earlier thoughts with fearful symmetry. I must die soon. He tightened his grip on the Spider’s mask.

  But not yet.

  PART ONE

  MOURNERS

  ONE

  SIX men carried Ned Leeds’ body, at peace in a simple cherrywood coffin, through the rain to a waiting grave. A small crowd of silent mourners circled the plot, hands folded before them as a light drizzle pattered against their coats, their backs, the grass and trees. The pallbearers moved slowly, doing their best to avoid slipping in the mud. Heads bowed, they made their way through the sparse gathering of friends and family, and brought Ned’s casket to rest on a pair of thick straps laid across the yawning pit.

  Peter Parker, eyes red and face drawn with grief, barely listened as the priest spoke to the bereaved. He was exhausted. Events of the preceding week had left him too weary to focus on anything but the woman to his left, one of his oldest friends in the world: the departed’s widow, Betty Brant Leeds. Quiet and composed, Betty closed her eyes and sighed as the priest finished his words of comfort. She clutched one hand in the other as a gentle wind fluttered the collar of her belted, navy topcoat. Peter placed a hand on her shoulder, doing his best to support her, to stand by her side. In truth, Peter wanted to run screaming from the cemetery, to tear through the city and find something to hit—someone on whom he might release frustration in the guise of his alter ego, the infamous masked hero known as Spider-Man.