This article contains spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home.
This year has been a very good time to be a Spider-Man fan. 2021 started with many fans of the wall-crawler still making their way through the enjoyable Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and then as the summer months dragged on, Marvel released the stunning first trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home. Now that the film is finally out and audiences have been able to soak in all of the magnificent sights, many Spider-Man fans are looking towards the future of the character. For gamers all around the world, one of the most anticipated steps in that future is the long-awaited Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 from Insomniac.
Interestingly enough, the newest Spider-Man film may have given fans a slight tease for the upcoming Insomniac sequel. Spider-Man: No Way Home managed to slip in a couple of references to Marvel’s Spider-Man throughout its multiversal madness, but there was a brief moment during the film’s climactic third act where various beings could be seen trying to come through a tear in spacetime. While many of the forms were difficult to properly identify, one of them strongly resembled a Spider-Man villain who is being teased for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2: Kraven the Hunter.
Kraven the Hunter Explained
Spider-Man has built up a laundry list of ferocious foes over the decades, some of them more popular than others. While names like Green Goblin and Doc Ock are known the world over, Kraven the Hunter as a character is a bit of a deep cut for those that aren’t overly invested in the comics. Nevertheless, Kraven is one of the most challenging villains that Spider-Man has had to take on, as he is a master tactician with a keen eye towards big game hunting. Kraven views Spider-Man as the greatest hunt of all, and unsuccessfully tries to defeat the webhead on numerous occasions to prove that he is the best hunter in the world.
While he has a flair for dramatic fashion choices, Kraven has never had the same mainstream success as other villains like Venom or even Electro. However, by giving a brief look at the character in No Way Home, Spider-Man fans that usually engage with the character through the films now have some sort of baseline for when Kraven shows up in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Creating that foundation in even the smallest sense should get some fans thinking about the character, so when Kraven eventually appears in Spider-Man 2, more gamers won’t be completely unfamiliar with the villain.
A True Cohesion Of Spider-Man Gaming And Film
If the massive box office success of Spider-Man: No Way Home is any indication, a wide range of fans are ready for all elements of the character to be embraced in all pieces of media. The appearance of so many Marvel’s Spider-Man easter eggs in No Way Home is a true testament to how successful Insomniac’s superhero venture was, and the fact that the film could be teasing the next installment shows just how influential the game has been on Spider-Man’s legacy as a whole. It just goes to show that if there’s any Marvel hero who can transcend all forms of entertainment, it’s the webhead.
The fact that video games once provided cheap film tie-ins for Hollywood blockbusters, and now those same films are taking elements from popular games, demonstrates how far the gaming industry has come. Comic book properties have always been about crossovers, so seeing No Way Home leverage that mentality by potentially providing a small nod to Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is a big step towards fully merging the two art forms. Hopefully, when the release of Spider-Man 2 draws closer, the game will be able to better market itself on Kraven’s appearance thanks to this brief showing in No Way Home.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is set to release in 2023 on the PS5.
