Sony Pictures’ Spider-Verse might be ending (for now), but the swansong movie of the shared universe delivers plenty of teasers that will please fans of the Spider-Man comics.
It’s been a long journey to the big screen for Sergei Kravinoff/Kraven the Hunter (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), whom Spider-Man comics fans know as one of the web-slinger’s most formidable foes. After several delays, Kraven the Hunter has been unleashed, albeit sans Spider-Man himself. Here are five Easter eggs and references in the movie, which is reportedly closing out Sony’s Spider-Verse.
1) The Kravinoff Family
Sergei is the son of Russian crime lord Nikolai (Russell Crowe) and the half-brother of Dmitri Smerdyakov (Fred Hechinger). In the comics, Nikolai was an aristocrat who fled from Russia to America in the early 20th Century after the collapse of Tsar Nicholas II’s reign and the February Revolution, which lines up with Kraven’s comics debut in 1964. He also interacted with Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, Karl Mordo, and Namor the Sub-Mariner. Nikolai’s wife, Anna Makarova, went insane and killed herself while interned in an asylum; this is referenced in the movie.
2) Calypso Ezili
Academy Award winner Ariana DeBose portrays Calypso Ezili, the movie’s female lead. In the comics, the character is a voodoo priestess of Haitian descent who is Kraven’s on-again, off-again lover. She is usually characterised as more villainous and deranged than she is in the film.
The movie ties her to Kraven’s origin story: while on a hunting trip in Tanzania, a young Sergei (Levi Miller) is wounded by a lion while trying to protect Dmitri. Young Calypso (Diaana Babnicova) heals him with a magical potion from her grandmother, leaving behind a tarot card.
In the movie, Calypso is depicted as an expert archer, but in the comics, she prefers to use mystical powers against her opponents. She also has a day job as a lawyer, which is invented for the movie. In the comics, Calypso has used her mind control powers to hold Dr Curt Connors/the Lizard in her thrall and has also faced off against Daredevil and Brother Voodoo.
3) The Rhino
Aleksei Sytsevich/the Rhino (Alessandro Nivola) is one of several classic animal-inspired Spider-Man villains. In the comics, Aleksei is a low-level Russian mob enforcer who willingly undergoes procedures that give him an artificial skin covering made of an experimental polymer, granting him rhino-like superhuman strength. In Kraven the Hunter, Aleksei has an existing disease that turns his skin hard and grey, and he uses an experimental serum to keep himself from fully transforming (which, of course, he eventually does).
We saw a different version of Aleksei in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, played by Paul Giamatti. That incarnation of the Rhino had no superhuman powers, instead wearing a mech suit that was vaguely rhino-like in appearance.
4) The Foreigner
Aleksei hires an assassin named the Foreigner (Christopher Abbott) to kill Kraven. While the character doesn’t have superpowers outright, he possesses a near-mystic ability to place an opponent in a 10-second-long hypnotic trance through eye contact. This creates the effect of the Foreigner moving faster than the eye can perceive. The Foreigner poisons Kraven with a neurotoxin, making him hallucinate his greatest fear: spiders, in a nod to Kraven’s eventual archenemy.
The Foreigner holds up a copy of the Daily Bugle newspaper with the headline “Hunter vs Hitman”, explaining that Kraven killed his mentor. The ‘hitman’ of the headline could refer to an unspecified hitman or one of the Marvel characters who took on the moniker ‘Hitman’. In the comics, the Foreigner married fellow Spider-Man villain Silvija Sablinova/Silver Sable and has had business dealings with Wilson Fisk/the Kingpin.
5) The Chameleon and Dr Miles Warren
Dmitri spends the movie showcasing his mimicry skills, impersonating his father’s voice and that of various singers while performing at his nightclub. By the end of the movie, Dmitri undergoes treatment by Dr Miles Warren, giving him the ability to physically change his face into that of anyone else. He is also seen sporting the featureless white mask from the comics.
The Chameleon was the very first supervillain Spider-Man fought in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man #1. While it’s not immediately obvious, Dmitri has appeared in live-action before, played by Numan Acar in Spider-Man: Far from Home. He did not showcase his Chameleon abilities in the film.
Aleksei mentions that Dr Warren formulated the serum that keeps The Rhino’s condition under control. In the comics, Dr Warren is the alter ego of the villain the Jackal and is responsible for creating Ben Reilly, the clone of Peter Parker, during the Clone Saga arc.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays the iconic Marvel villain Kraven, a man whose complex relationship with his ruthless father starts him down a path of vengeance with brutal consequences.
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