Does Kraven the Hunter have powers? Spider-Man villain explained

The next entry in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, or the SSU, has just been unveiled. Kraven the Hunter is set to hit theaters this October. It stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the titular big game hunter.

Sergei Kravinoff, aka Kraven, is one Spider-Man’s best-known villains. Despite how long he’s been terrorizing the wall-crawler in comics and cartoons, Kraven has never appeared in a live-action movie until now. We’ll see his rise from a young Russian aristocrat to a ferocious big game hunter. Check out the trailer below, but be warned that it gets pretty grisly:

How did Kraven the Hunter get his powers?

Watching this trailer, you might wonder if Kraven has any superpowers. The answer to that is: kind of. While Kraven wasn’t born with any innate superhuman abilities, in the comics he eventually begins taking an elixir of jungle herbs which give him incredible strength, agility, stamina, and longevity. With the exiler, he can spring as fast as a cheetah and lift up to two tons.

The movie is taking a slightly different approach, as the trailer shows that after being mauled by a lion as a teenager, the beast’s blood mixes with Sergei’s, granting him these supernatural traits. But the same basic premise remains: Kraven has all the strength and ferocity of an apex predator.

In the comics, he also employs a vast number of gadgets and weapons like whips, claws, and stun bombs. Kraven is threatening not just because of his powers, but because of the lifetime of skills he’s honed facing the world’s most dangerous animals. He’ll need all those skills to one day face off against Spider-Man, if the SSU goes on long enough that the villain and hero’s paths cross.

Kraven the Hunter premieres in theaters on October 6.

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