Background

The first of Kraven's offspring to inherit the Hunt, Vladimir was also the most unfortunate. Being a character who showed up at the wrong time, he was fed to Kaine to show how nasty the degenerate clone could be.

In his first appearance, Spider-Man Vol.1 #47, in a story arc ranging from #46 to #50, he got involved with the Hobgoblin IV (Macendale), which caused them both to gain the benefits from Kraven's super strength formula. In a extra- sized Spider-Man Vol.1 #50, he had his only fight with Spider-Man, reminiscent of the original Kraven's ways, which ended up by bringing Spidey out of the "I am the Spider" mood, and him and Gregor into jail, by killing two muggers Spidey was trying to catch.

After bribing his way out of jail "using their fortune", (I don't think a murderer can bail out, so I'm going for bribery) he tracked down the Scarlet Spider by scent, but when he realized he wasn't Spider-Man, he headed out for Pete's head. Ben went to Pete's apartment, but he was followed by Kaine who intercepted him and knocked him out. The Grim Hunter followed his nose there, and threatened Kaine to stay out of his business. They fought, and Kaine killed him.

Vladimir was never the lucky Kravinoff son. His stint at the Grim Hunter was brief, and his resurrection didnt go so well either. Used as a guinea pig by his mother, Sasha Kravinoff, he was reborn using the blood of the fourth Spider-Woman, Mattie Franklin. She wasn't a "pure" Spyder, so Vladimir returned as a man-lion hybrid. That wouldn't be too bad, if he could talk or return to human.

Sergei was resurrected later by the blood of Kaine, in a kind of poetic justice. He was saddened to see his son in a subhuman state, and later killed him in the Savage Land. At least he apologized to his son as he put a rifle bullet into his head.

Thanks To:

The assistance of the Marvel Chronology Project is gratefully acknowledged.

Some of the above information is extracted from the various versions of the Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe and the more recent Marvel Encyclopaedias.