COMIC BOOK JOB EVALUATIONS: Kraven the Hunter

Hello, and welcome to Job Evaluations. We stumbled upon a box of files here at the iFanboy HQ. Inside that box were performance reviews for jobs kept by many of the characters we read about week to week. Let’s dive in!

Today’s evaluation:

NAME: Sergei Kravinoff a.k.a. Kraven the Hunter

OCCUPATION: Hunter

EVALUATED BY: Ernest Hemingway

The following is an excerpt that was edited out of Ernest Hemingway’s Green Hills of Africa. Why Ernest and his editors cut this from the published book we may never know. 

To shoot. To track. To hunt. All these things made one man stand up and act as a God. I hunted with this man. He was a Russian. He was handsome, wore a lion’s face, his pants seemed to made from the hide of a leopard. He also had a moustache. We both had mustaches. Our mustaches were good.

There were three of us on the safari. Myself, the Russian, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. F. Scott was not a hunter. I tricked him into coming along with us. I told him that there was a lavish party on the other side of the river. The Mountain. The Jungle. Whenever we crossed anything, I told him that we were closer to a party. The party had much sparkling wine. F. Scott loved sparkling wine. The Russian, his name was Sergei, found this humorous.

F. Scott kept asking why were taking rifles to a party. To shoot elephants was my reply. F. Scott was confused and sweaty. Sergei stopped. He touched the ground and ran off into the brush.
“Where is he going?” F. Scott asked. “Is he going to urinate? I also have to go.”

Sergei returned within the moment. He had a deceased leopard draped around his shoulders.
“The hunt!” He said twice. His smile was intense.
The shot? There was no shot, Sergei.
“I prefer not to use a gun. Mechanical conundrums that just get in my way. These hands however, they were given to me by the gods. They will never malfunction.”
I rather like guns but each to his own.
“And call me Kraven. Kraven the Hunter!”
“And you can call me F. Scott the Writer. Where is this party?”

Kraven then ripped open the hide of the leopard. He began to eat the inner organs.
“Come, feast with me!”
I partook. F. Scott vomited.

We continued walking through the brush. Bored by F. Scott’s company and intrigued by Kraven’s persona, I asked him many questions.
“I have hunted many things.”
Tell me what you have hunted.
“All of them?”
“Hey, you guys are walking too fast! I cannot keep up!”
Yes, Kraven, all of them.
“Very well, elephants, tigers, whales, lions, aardvarks, bears, giraffes, walrus, hippopotamus, lemurs, praying mantis, gorillas, rabbit, panthers, dolphins, rhinoceros, raccoons, kangaroos, poisonous frogs, baboons, rattlesnakes, eagles, hawks, hydrangeas, starfish, badgers, house cats, scorpions, giant rats, goldfish, Polar Bears, penguins and, as of today, leopards.”
Fascinating. You had never hunted a leopard before? I asked that as I gestured toward his leopard print pants.
“Oh these? No. No, I bought these. There was a sale.”

Kraven then stopped. He became crestfallen.
It’s okay. I go shopping for clothes too sometimes. There is nothing emasculating about a well dressed man.
“No it is not that. It is just some of those hunts have been challenging, others quite easy. I have yet to find my match. I want to hunt somebody as strong, cunning and sharp as I.”
Somebody?
“Yes. I want to hunt a man.”

I gestured back towards F. Scott, who was tangled in some vines.

Kraven sighed.
“Too easy. I need a challenge. I want to hunt a man at his evolutionary peak. One who will push me to my physical and mental limit. That will be my final hunt!”
Then what?
“Then I kill myself.”
That made sense.

Kraven was sad now. We ate the last of the leopard and returned to the camp, had a few beers, swapped stories and remembered that we had left F. Scott out in the jungle.
“I sure hope he finds his party.”
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Timmy Wood is a writer and comedian who lives in New York City. He has never been hunting. He has been on twitter.