This arc is titled, “Beware the Rage of a Desperate Man.” That’s a pretty heavy title. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. That may be why nobody remembers it. Or maybe it’s forgotten because it’s pretty close to the Clone Saga that everyone, including me, has actively tried to erase from memory?
Demo (Demi?) Goblin is now split from Jason Macendale, but wants to kill him. Macendale, meanwhile, wants to have some power back–but doesn’t want to be merged with Demogoblin–so he starts reading up on Kraven the Hunter’s secrets. I think he figures that Kraven was a normal guy who managed to kill Spider-Man so maybe Macendale can do the same?
Macendale hooks up with Kraven’s son, Vladimir, and his partner, Gregor. At first, Vlad just wants to kill Macendale, but Gregor convinces him to hook Macendale up to a machine that is supposed to give him enhanced abilities.
Bottom line: Macendale ends up ripped AF.
Vladimir is undeterred–and ends up also getting enhanced.
And Demogoblin dies–killed by Hobgoblin.
I like that this story focused on the villains. Spider-Man almost wasn’t necessary to the tale.
Issue #50, which is technically not part of this arc (but is actually more directly intertwined than issue #49, discussed below), gives us Vlad in his new Grim Hunter costume.
And then, anticlimactically, Spider-Man beats him up and takes him down in just a few pages.
Issue #49 is still titled as part of this arc, but it feels tacked on. It introduces Coldheart, a government operative who was trained to kill supers but has recently been decomissioned as mentally unfit.
She manages to nearly kill Spider-Man.
So in this story, Coldheart AND the upgraded Hobgoblin both manage to nearly kill Spider-Man. Maybe he should rest for a while? Let someone else wear the suit?
Yeah. The clone saga is next, which means I won’t be covering this comic until issue #76 (it turns into a Ben Reilly vehicle for a bit, and goes on hiatus as well).
In some ways, it’s a nice parallel that a cloned Spider-Man will fight a copy of Kraven–so it makes sense to introduce the character right before Clone Wars.