Before we get to discussing the elephant in the room—that elephant being one of the best-regarded and most influential Spidey stories of all time—let’s discuss something a little more esoteric and speculative presented in The Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection: Kraven’s Last Hunt: Peter Parker’s undiagnosed bipolar disorder.
In the grim-n-gritty 1980s, many books were undergoing dark revisions, tempering their previously four-color heroes with tragedy, drug addiction, and trauma. It was a process begun in the 1970s with stories about Speedy’s heroin habit and the death of Gwen Stacy, but it arguably came to a head with stories like Dark Knight Returns in 1986. Kingpin destroyed Daredevil’s civilian identity, there was a Mutant Massacre, and Captain America decapitated a Nazi vampire.
Marvel Comics
Overall, it wasn’t a particularly good time for most heroes. Spider-Man, Marvel’s most bankable property at the time, wasn’t completely free of the trend; indeed, Kraven’s Last Hunt itself is a brutalist narrative that ends with a death by self-inflicted gunshot. There were, however, moments of brightness dotted throughout Spidey’s decade. . . like his marriage to Mary Jane directly preceding KLH.
There’s just one thing: the marriage comes in the middle of a profound dark period for our wall-crawler, and its sudden arrival reads not as a joyous occasion but as an ill-conceived and spontaneous mistake.
Epic Collection: KLH begins with a string of tragedy and misfortune. In the first issue collected here, Peter Parker unknowingly causes the eradication of Arno Stark (the Iron Man of 2015)’s entire family when he inadvertently puts a child in the hospital. But time-travel annihilation wasn’t blood directly on Spidey’s hands. In Spider-Man vs. Wolverine, Peter Parker both fatally injures one of Wolverine’s spy ex-girlfriends, and his momentary absence from the Berlin hotel in which he was staying might very well have prevented him from stopping the murder of his friend/enemy Ned Leeds. He develops a type of PTSD over the former, while the latter bleeds into his ongoing titles.
Marvel Comics
The hits keep coming. Suffering from that PTSD and an ever-deepening depression, Peter is forced to watch Ned’s wife (and his own ex-girlfriend) Betty Brant detach completely from reality. Flash Thompson is blown up by a pumpkin bomb; desperate for someone to talk to, Peter finds himself abandoned by Felicia Hardy; he vows to give up being Spider-Man (again), only to be reeled back in by Wolverine and a new Hobgoblin. He’s marinading in deep self-incrimination and self-hatred, and is bombarded by guilt and sorrow. He is, quite frankly, crushingly depressed.
Which makes what comes next deeply unsettling:
Marvel Comics
In a bout of out-of-the-blue good cheer, Peter decides that not only is he happy being Spider-Man but, blood on his hands or no, he’s going to marry Mary Jane. It doesn’t matter if MJ has resolutely turned him down—that she has separated herself from him romantically for fear of the very super-human activity he’s committed to doubling down on.
Marvel Comics
With the single-minded persistence and energy of a manic episode, Peter Parker begins to pursue MJ even as she dodges him. However, at a point of her own emotional desperation (set up by their father, MJ’s sister is in prison), MJ reaches out to him—which makes Peter Parker ignore the violent activity of the Spider-Slayer and fly to Pittsburgh to be with her.
In a flurry of emotionally draining and violent action, Peter is so high-flying in his mania that when he learns that he is to blame for spider-slayer mastermind Alistaire Smythe’s paraplegia—a detail that would have made him throw his costume away only a month earlier—Peter barely registers the fact; his sights are set on happiness, on the life raft of Mary Jane and a domestic future, on the inherent goodness of being a violent vigilante. Finally, after an high-adrenaline weekend overcoming long-held familial adversity, an exhaust Mary Jane accepts Peter’s proposal.
In Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 (written, of course, by Jim Shooter, who may have editorially insisted on the lightening of tone by way of marriage), Peter and MJ plan and execute their marriage over the course of a few days, opting to alert their aunts and friends of their plans the day before their wedding.
Marvel Comics
It is in this whirlwind of textbook definition mania that the couple are betrothed—and against this financially and emotionally unplanned backdrop that Peter Parker is buried alive by Kraven the Hunter, leaving his bride to wander the streets for two weeks, hoping against hope that the man brutalizing criminals in his costume is not, in fact, her husband.
Kraven’s Last Hunt is therefore colored by a pre-existing sense of dread and imbalance that the supposedly bright and cheerful wedding cannot derail; if anything, MJ’s increased importance in Peter’s life deepens and enriches the demented stakes of Kraven’s machinations. As sudden—and unstable—as their marriage was, it provides a narrative anchor to a hero adrift in trauma after trauma, giving him both a sense of refuge and culpability. If, as in the preceding stories, Peter inflicts harm, it is Mary Jane he must answer to. If, as in Kraven’s Last Hunt, something terrible happens to him, Mary Jane is directly affected. It’s an unplanned dynamic that nonetheless elevates the masterpiece of the story that follows it.
Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection – Kraven’s Last Hunt contains one of the true Spider-Man masterpieces. It also contains ample evidence for speculation for Peter’s mental wellbeing in 1986.
Join the AIPT Patreon
Want to take our relationship to the next level? Become a patron today to gain access to exclusive perks, such as:
- ❌ Remove all ads on the website
- 💬 Join our Discord community, where we chat about the latest news and releases from everything we cover on AIPT
- 📗 Access to our monthly book club
- 📦 Get a physical trade paperback shipped to you every month
- 💥 And more!
You must be logged in to post a comment.