Kraven the Hunter vs The Predator
The FORBIDDEN Death Battle Prediction Blog Episode 8
Original Fight 5
Kraven the Hunter vs The Predator
The first thing that needs to be said is a huge thank you to the youtube channel Schizofenik. Thank you Shizofenik. You are without a doubt THE authority on everything Yautja on the internet and your channel helped me a whole lot. Keep on keeping on Schizofrenik. Your enthusiasm for the predator franchise is infectious!
They hunt the most dangerous game: Man! And they were inspired by The Most Dangerous Game. They utilize weaponry that’s both archaic and on the bleeding edge of technology. They follow a demanding code of honor even unto death.
They are Kraven the Hunter, the deadliest hunter on Earth-616, and the Predator, representative of a race that hunts throughout the universe.
No prey is too challenging for these hunters. In fact, they welcome the challenge whether their prey be superheroes with radioactive blood or aliens with acidic blood.
But if they had to hunt each other, who would be the predator and who would be the prey?
Let’s find out!
Kraven the Hunter
““I am Kraven the beast. My mind is rage and glory. My heart is fire and pride. My body is grace and power. I am Kravinov the man.”
Little was known about Kraven when he first appeared in the sixties. One of many comic book takes on General Zaroff from The Most Dangerous Game, he was Russian and he liked to hunt people. Lee and Ditko added in some elements from the jungle adventure genre that was popular at the time like magic witch doctor potions and trained animal minions, but Kraven was far from A-list. He might have gone the way of the Crime-Master or the Looter. In fact, in his second appearance in Tales of Suspense 58, Kraven gets humiliated by Iron Man in a single panel while his brother the Chameleon goes on to be the antagonist of the issue. But Kraven had two things going for him that saved him from obscurity. The first was that he was part of the original Sinister Six in the first ASM annual. The second was that he was nutty as a fruitcake.
There was always something disturbing off about how Kraven’s personality switched from story to story. He had no problem announcing to the public that he wanted to hunt down and kill Spider-Man. He would admit to dressing up as Spidey to ruin his reputation because he gave his word he would do so if Spidey beat him and he’s a man of honor. And then when he fights Ka-Zar, he tells him that he doesn’t believe in honor, only expediency. He would vow to kill Spider-Man for killing his giant alien pet Gog (I’m serious) and then forget all about Gog. He would see Tigra and Gibbon as animals to be tamed to his will but Beast and Spider-Man as animals to kill.
Kraven never seemed all there. He felt more like he belonged in Batman than Amazing Spider-Man. Was he a madman or was he just the product of several writers each having a different take on Marvel’s General Zaroff? Fortunately, J.M. DeMatteis was skilled enough as a writer to recognize it was the latter and write Kraven as the former.
Dematteis’ Kraven’s Last Hunt was one of the best Spider-Man stories of all time. It was a nightmarish meditation on one of the chief themes of Spider-Man–that of Peter Parker the man vs Peter Parker the spider-man.
It was a story about man vs animal, life vs death, compassion vs savagery, and man vs spider.
It was a story where Kraven won as an animal and lost as a man. Kraven proved he could kill as an animal, but he also proved that he couldn’t live as a man.
And not only did J.M. DeMatteis write one of the best Spidey stories ever, he followed it up with the excellent Soul of the Hunter where Spidey goes through a maybe-in-his-mind-maybe-not thing where he puts Kraven’s ghost to rest and conclusively deals with the trauma Kraven inflicted on him.
It was what Tom King’s Heroes in Crisis would have been if Tom King was a good writer and not a CIA experiment in depression.
(Can you believe Kraven’s Last Hunt started as a proposal for a Grim Reaper and Wonder Man story? Then DeMatteis took the idea over to DC and wanted to use it for a Hugo Strange and Batman story, but couldn’t because they already did a story where Hugo Strange became Batman. Then he wanted to use it for a Joker and Batman story, but Killing Joke was scheduled and DC didn’t want to do too many Joker stories at once (can you imagine?). So he took it back to Marvel and dusted off old Kraven for the story.)
Kraven’s Last Hunt was the perfect Kraven story and the the perfect end to the character.
But modern comics can’t let us have good things, and so the Grim Hunt storyline brought Kraven back from the dead.
Grim Hunt was awful. It was everything wrong with modern comics–a bunch of OCs in the form of Kraven’s brats kiling and traumatizing established characters amid recycled iconography and scenes. Remember when Spidey dug himself out of a grave? Here it is again! The heroes don’t learn anything or win anything or make anything better. They just survive trauma.
So naturally, Marvel rehashed Grim Hunt for Slott’s Spider-Verse where his vampire OCs murder a bunch of beloved alternate reality Spider-Men.
That page where Ms. Lions cries over the bodies of Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends? That’s modern comics. That’s the distillation of modern comics.
But enough bitching.
Though robbed of his dignity on the Island of Misfit IPs that is the Marvel universe, Kraven will never stop being one the coolest Spidey baddies. His primal simplicity has allowed him to be reinterpreted across cartoons and video games. He is Kraven the beast. He is Kraven the man.
He is Kraven the hunter.
The Evolution of Kraven Throughout Animation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmS5nwvm9q4
The Most Dangerous Game (1932) (Learn why Kraven is Russian.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DXLTw22HOQ
Kraven’s History
Sergei Kravenoff (sometimes spelt Kravinov) was the son of Russian nobles that fled the October Revolution for America. America was not kind to the Kravenoffs. Kraven’s father, once a respected noble, meekly eked out an existence as a laborer and his mother–they said his mother was insane. But Kraven would deny the latter to the day he died (and then got better!). The Kravenoffs were not insane. The Kravenoffs were nobility and it was the world that was insane. The world, be it in the form of the communists, the decadent civilized world that made his father weak, or the men that called his mother insane, was out to get the Kravenoffs.
Kraven personified the challenges that faced the Kravenoffs as a metaphysical, animalistic force that had to be confronted and defeated lest it defeat the Kravenoffs. It was kill or be killed, hunt or be hunted, and Kraven decided that he would be the hunter. He left the civilization that made his father weak and fled to Africa where he proceeded to become the greatest hunter the world had ever known. By 1959, his reputation was such that Nick Fury recruited him to be part of his Avengers (Yes, there was a 1959 Avengers. It sucked. It was a soulless rehash of Agents of Atlas. Now we have a prehistoric caveman Avengers and it’s even more awful. Dear god. When are we going to get a Hadean Epoch Avengers where Spider-Man is a lava spider or something and Iron Man is a rock?).
Kraven seemed pretty stable in 1959 from what we see in the comic. I sure hope he wasn’t doing any Most Dangerous Game-ing off panel. Otherwise it says a lot of bad things about Nick who trusted him enough to hire him and Namora who trusted him enough to sleep with him.
(Dear god imagine the children. Crazy Namor genes plus crazy Kraven genes. They’d be superstrong flying fish people covered in whale carcasses flying around screaming about their mother and the indignities of the surface world.)
Between 1959 and whenever silver age Spider-Man is supposed to have happened (sliding time scale is a headache and a half), Kraven got a hold of a magic potion from an unnamed African witchdoctor that granted him superstrength. Personally, I like to think that he stole one of the heart-shaped herbs from Wakanda that gives Black Panther his super strength. Kraven then proceeded to hunt down every animal on Earth by hand. He didn’t use weapons. He took down elephants and rhinos and gorillas unarmed.
Then he went off the deep end and tried to tag and bag Spider-Man. That didn’t work out, and he abandoned a lucrative career in capturing and selling animals for mercenary work. He’d run into other superheroes during his career–Beast, Captain America, Daredevil, Black Widow, Ka-Zar, basically any Marvel superhero with ranks in acrobatics.
Oh, and Tigra.
But though he fought a wide range of superheroes, Kraven always held a special enmity for Spidey and came to identify him with the metaphysical force that he believed hounded his family. Spider-Man wasn’t Spider-Man to him, he was the Spider. He was every bad thing in Kraven’s life embodied in something he could kill. And kill the Spider he did, but not the Spider-Man.
Early in his history, Kraven was pretty…craven. By predator standards, he’d be considered a Bad Blood. He’d fight with his bare hands until he’d start to lose and then out came some secret James Bond gadget to turn things in his favor. He kidnapped a fat bureaucrat for money. He took a job to kill John Jameson’s father and girlfriend and gave them the choice of either shooting John in Man-Wolf form or letting him eat them. He did a weird jungle flavored Vulcan mind-meld thing with Gibbon and tried to use him to kill Spidey and did the same thing with Tigra but with 100% more Claremont mind control fetishism.
Kraven was craven.
But then he met Calypso and in his desire to impress her and win her affections, Kraven realized how much of a dishonorable loser he had been. He decided to put the James Bond gadgets and brainwashed proxy fighters away. He even regretted involving Tigra in his plans and called her an innocent which…is honestly probably the most humiliating thing Kraven can say about another person. Ouch.
During this period, Kraven became the man-hunter with a sense of honor that he’s most known as today. When he hunted a Ka-Zar driven out of his mind by a bullet wound to the head, he saved Ka-Zar’s life when he discovered that Ka-Zar was wounded. He was fine with killing a fit Ka-Zar, but if a wounded Ka-Zar died because of his actions it would be a blemish on his honor. He also rescued Spider-Man when Calypso drugged him during a fight with Kraven. Killing Spider-Man was honorable. Killing Spider-Man while he was drugged was not.
But after finding that he couldn’t take Spidey without using his fancy gadgets, Kraven did a backflip off the deep end. He did a lotttt of jungle drugs and went on his last hunt defeating Spider-Man and proving he was the superior Spider but the inferior man. Feeling he had nothing left to give the world now that he was greatest foe was defeated, he killed himself.
Then the Marvel universe had his clones and kids running around and then brought him back to life with a blood sacrifice and dear god Marvel after the 80’s is such a shitshow.
He’s alive now. Poor Kraven. I don’t wish being part of modern 616 on my greatest enemy.
Kraven’s Gear
Hidden Blowgun
–Disguised as a stiff hair on his lion’s mane, this blowgun can fire you typical poisoned darts (Daredevil 104) which Kraven used to defeat Black Widow as well as explosive darts (Astonishing Tales 2) which Kraven used to try and kill Ka-Zar.
Nets
–What’s the first thing you think of when you think “Kraven’s signature weapon?” It’s not a spear. Maybe you’re thinking of a rifle because you got that cover image from Kraven’s Last Hunt where he’s crouched with a rifle in his hands and grinning like the maniac he is? But it’s not a rifle either. It’s nets! Kraven’s used nets either as throwing weapons or as traps going all the way back to his first appearance where he used one so strong Spidey had to focus his strength into breaking it link-by-link.
Poisoned Tusks
–The tusks on Kraven’s belt can come off and are filled with injectable poisons. An unnamed poison was used to knock out a bull gorilla (ASM 15) and Kraven tried to use two filled with black mamba venom to back-stab Spidey and Tigra (MTU 67).
Hidden Plasti-cord
— Kraven keeps a “plasti-cord,” which is probably fancy comic-book speak for “durable plastic wire” hidden in his belt. He used this cord to try and hang Ka-Zar after doing a “I surrender OH WAIT NO I DON’T” fake-out (ASM 104) and to garrote Man-Wolf (Creatures on the Loose 32).
Lion Claw
–Kraven once used a clawed lion glove Michael Jackson style (or cestus style if you prefer) on one of his hands (Daredevil 104). Not a significant weapon of Kraven’s by any stretch, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
Lion Eyes
–Those lion eyes on both sides of Kraven’s vest? They exist for more than to be sexy during that time Calypso wore it. They’re actually highly advanced sci-fi gadgets. Typically, they fire beams that “magnetize muscular electrolytes” and paralyze opponents (ASM 47, ASM 49, Astonishing Tales 2, Creatures on the Loose 32). But Kraven also upgraded it to fire knock-out gas as well as beams (ASM 104, Astonishing Tales 1, MTU 67). He further upgraded the lion eyes with a sonic weapon (Marvel Chillers 4) he used against Tigra. When she managed to overcome it, he increased its power so that she couldn’t (MTU 67).
And you thought Astro Boy was the only comic with nipple beams!
They’re shockingly versatile as weapons, but I got to say, I think if I had the choice I’d go with the predator’s plasma gun over Kraven’s lion eyes. There’s more dignity in a gun sitting on your shoulder like the best pirate’s parrot ever than a gun as a pastie.
Gas Grenades
–Kraven used leopard print gas grenades (how cute!) to knock out Man-Wolf (Creatures on the Loose 33) and Tigra (MTU 67). You got to admire Kraven’s dedication to his theme. It’s not as if his opponents are going to see the grenades for more than a second before they explode, but he painted them anyway. He probably painted them by hand all while thinking to himself how impressed his prey will be when they see he painted his grenades like Easter eggs.
Tranq Rifle
–Infamously used to capture Spider-Man and keep him drugged underground for three days during Kraven’s Last Hunt, Kraven brought it back to drug up Black Panther. Whatever the darts are made out of, they sure are strong as they were able to penetrate Black Panther’s vibranium suit (Black Panther: The Man Without Fear 518).
Dart Gauntlet
–Man, Kraven really digs the concealed James Bond weapons, huh? I guess it comes with being made in the 60’s. James Bond was big. Just look at Kingpin and his disintegrator cane and knock-out gas tie tack. Krave has a poisoned dart launcher in one of his wristbands that he used to beat Spidey once (MTU 67).
.585 Gehringer
–Because modern comic writers love rolling back previous character development by better writers more than even virtue signalling, Kraven decided he wanted to tag and bag innocent scalies that happened to be living beneath New York City (think the Morlocks but instead of being experiments by Mr. Sinister, they’re experiments by Stegron the Dinosaur Man, because modern comic writers love rehashing previous stories by better writers more than using characters as their therapy tools). Women, non-coms, it didn’t matter to Kraven. He was going to get those scalies (Venom 155).
He even teamed up with Shriek. You know, Carnage’s Manson-girl that likes killing random people?
Oh Kraven, what have modern writers done to you?
Because the dinosaur people had tough skin, Kraven decided to use a real-life elephant gun called a .585 Gehringer. He would later spear and knife two dinosaur people to death, so it turned out he didn’t actually need that elephant gun which means a further knock against his honor.
A gehringer is a powerful gun with a muzzle energy of 15,500 Joules. For comparison, the muzzle energy of a 12-gauge shotgun is about 4,500 Joules.
Animals
–Kraven is highly skilled in taming animals and even made a business out of capturing and selling animals before he went off the deep end and decided to go full-Most Dangerous Game. He’s been known to use trained animals as weapons. He siced two lions on Spidey in ASM Annual 1 and two bengal tigers in Spectacular Spider-Man 2. He even sent a whole African savanna stampede after Tigra and Spidey in MTU 67. Spidey tanked that by the way. Elephants and rhinos trampled him and he was fine enough to get back up and one-punch Kraven. It’s one of his best bronze age feats in my opinion. Kraven has even used animal themed characters like Tigra and the Gibbon as weapons, but that falls outside the limits of standard Death Battle rules. Kraven won’t be able to throw Tigra at the predator just because he mind controlled her once.
After Grim Hunt, Kravaen took to using a hawk like Akuma from Kareteka which seems to be his current animal of choice and the one that will be considered in his fight with the predator.
Archaic Weapons
–Before running into his witch doctor girlfriend Calypso, Kraven was sort of…craven. He would try and overcome a foe with his bare hands and maybe a net, but as soon as his started to lose out would come the James Bond weaponry to give him an advantage. This is most notable in his fights with Ka-Zar which always ended either with Kraven getting slapped around or Kraven getting slapped around and then shooting Ka-Zar with a sci-fi laser or knock-out gas.
After meeting Calypso (ASM 209), Kraven realized that he had gone too far with the tricks and cost himself his honor. He decided to throw away the sci-fi gadgets and hidden weaponry and start fighting with traditional melee weaponry.
Yeah. As strange as it might seem, Kraven never actually used a spear before ASM 209. And even in ASM 209, it was a spear he took from a museum while he was fighting Spidey.
In Spectacular Spider-Man 65, Kraven showed off the wide range of weapon proficiencies. He used a war axe, a set of spears, a Bantu war club, and a Lovedu war whip. While his weapons may appear frail, it’s worth noting that he was able to hurl his axe with enough force to break the side of a rooftop. Given that he’s a wealthy mercenary kitting himself out to hunt someone that he knows has superhuman strength, it’s safe to assume that his weapons are pretty durable. They’re certainly durable enough to parry the predator’s wristblades.
Ritual Magic
–I’m not talking about the magic potion Kraven took to get his superhuman physique. Kraven was able to use legit magic, likely taught to him by Calypso, to weaken Spider-Man during Kraven’s Last Hunt to the point he couldn’t dodge his tranq shots. Kraven pulled this off by doing a lottttt of jungle drugs and then rolling around the floor naked eating spiders. In Kraven’s own words, “Tonight I have immersed myself in your being…eaten of your flesh. Tonight my mind has penetrated your essence, it feasts upon you like maggots feasting upon a corpse.”
After Kraven performed the ritual, Spidey woke up from a nightmare and struggled through a creeping sense of dread and a mindfog that clouded his senses.
Kraven won’t be able to pull off this magic weakening during his fight with the predator as it’s accomplished through a ritual. Kraven won’t have time to trip out and eat god only knows what for the ritual to affect the predator.
Jungle Scent
–Kraven has spray (yes, different from what he stocks the lion eyes with and his gas grenades) that not only inflicts a target with dizziness and trembling but marks them with a powerful scent (ASM 15). Kraven already has a Wolverine-level sense of smell to the point that after finding his giant pet alien Gog dead in quicksand (aren’t comics awesome?) that he was able to tell Spidey was responsible just by his lingering scent (ASM 110), so anyone hit with the jungle scent stands out like a Christmas light to Kraven.
What do you think it smells like? My guess is patchouli.
Magnetic Shackles
–Kraven has two magnetic shackles that clamp onto the limbs of his opponent and then attract each other (ASM 15). To resist having their limbs bound together, the opponent has to pull against the magnetic force. Spidey was able to do this and defeat Kraven but had to strain himself in order to do so, which was the point of the shackles to begin with. The shackles aren’t intended to immobilize a superstrong opponent but wear him out.
Mindcontrol Collar
–Where did he get this? I mean, besides the one-track fetish-filled mind of Chris Claremeont. Kraven has a collar that scrambles a person’s brains with electromagnetic magic so that they become his obedient pet at his feet. Why he only decided to use this on the bikini-clad catgirl instead of someone like Ka-Zar or Spidey is obvious. I mean, putting a mindcontrol collar on a guy so that he crawls around and nuzzles you would just be weird and indicative.
And let’s be honest. Tigra’s never regained her dignity from Kraven making a pet out of her. Just ask her fellow owners Molecule Man, Graviton, and Red Hood (comic writers, please don’t do this to your characters).
If Kraven’s Last Hunt involved Kraven forcing Spidey to do petplay, Peter would have never recovered. He would’ve been traded around his rogues gallery as the friendly neighborhood spider-pet. It’s better to be buried alive for two weeks than spend an issue as the bad guy’s (and writer’s) fetish object.
I’m pretty sure there’s already a fanfic out there about Kraven mindbreaking a Yautja into his loyal hunting hound, but I’m not going to look for it.
What would Kraven use against the Predator?
It’s important to address the fact that Kraven post-Calypso stopped using sci-fi gadgets and started using archaic weaponry. Does this mean that Kraven shouldn’t be allowed to use his lion eyes or gas grenades?
I say he should be allowed his sci-fi gadgets. Kraven post-Calypso practiced an Arthurian sense of honor. If he had a spear and his enemy had a sword, he would drop the spear and take up a sword. But if he had a sword and his enemy had a spear, he would drop the sword and take up a spear. Kraven was fine with having Calypso use voodoo magic to block Spidey’s spider-sense because he thought Spidey’s spider-sense was an unfair advantage (Spec 65). But he got pissed when Calypso drudged Spidey as that made things unfair in the other direction. Likewise, he doesn’t use adamantium fish hooks attached to balloons and rocket launchers…unless he’s going up against the Hulk, then he does (Incredible Hulk vol 6 10).
Kraven wouldn’t mind using his gadgets at all against another hunter kitted out with gadgets. I see no problem with giving him his pre-Calypso tech for this fight.
Kraven’s Strength
–He stabbed through dinosaur people hide that he said would need a .585. Gehringer to pierce (Venom 136).
–Has a nerve punch that can make limbs useless (How about another…paralyzer!). (ASM 15, ASM 209, WCA 3).
–He can kill a charging elephant with a punch (ASM 209). Eat your heart out, Balrog! Originally, this was stated as being due to his nerve punch but later stories made it so that he can do it with raw strength alone.
–He can throw an axe hard enough to crack the concrete siding of a rooftop (Spec 65).
–He’s overpowered bull gorillas which can lift about 1,800 lbs (ASM 15).
–What’s Kraven’s strength level exactly? That’s hard to pin down. It would be easy to look at the Handbook of the Marvel Universe, but you should only rely on stats from the Handbook of the Marvel Universe with massive caveats attached, and I’ll demonstrate why.
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Strength_Scale
Kraven is listed as lifting 2 tons.
Spidey is listed as lifting 25 tons.
Captain America, who defeated Kraven, is listed as lifting 800 lbs.
Vermin, who Spidey needed to team up with Captain America to originally defeat, is listed as lifting 1,000 lbs. During Kraven’s Last Hunt, Kraven dressed up as Spidey and defeated Vermin on his own so he could die knowing he defeated an opponent Spidey couldn’t on his own. When Spidey woke up from his drug-induced coma, Kraven had Vermin fight Spidey and though Spidey gained the upper hand, he hesitated and refused to brutalize Vermin as Kraven did and had to be rescued from Vermin by Kraven.
If we go Kraven>Vermin>Cap and Spidey, we have to go 2 tons>1000 pounds> 25 tons and 800 lbs.
It gets trickier.
Ka-Zar, who Kraven admitted had strength equal or greater than his own, is listed as lifting at least 430 lbs but no more than 800 lbs.
Tigra, who Kraven has embarrassed consistently past their first fight, is listed as lifting 5 tons (2 in older Handbook editions).
If we go Ka-Zar>Kraven>Tigra, we have to go :
800 lbs>2 tons>5 tons
You see the problem?
I’d say that 2 tons represents the absolute minimum of what Kraven can do and 25 tons represents a firm limit. Now there’s a lottttt of room between 2 and 25. I think I’d stick him somewhere around 8 tons. That allows him to slap around Tigra but it also explains how he lost to Beast once he went berserk as Beast can lift 10 tons and has the feats to back it. 8 tons also lets him trade blows with a Spidey that’s holding back but get floored by a Spidey that isn’t and that matches his history
Kraven’s Durability
–Has survived electrocution (Spec 2).
–Has survived a fall down a cliff in the Savage Lands by touching the sides (ASM 110). Wasn’t that a monk ability in early Dungeons and Dragons?
–Has taken blows from Spidey, though when Spidey has decided not to hold back, Kraven’s been dropped a single blow.
Kraven’s Speed
–During Grim Hunt, Kaine charged a seated Kraven and got his throat cut by a knife in a flash. This is far and away Kraven’s best speed feat as Kaine is explicitly Spidey’s more powerful clone-brother.
–Beat Daredevil without any tricks (Daredevil 104). Keep in mind that even newb Man Without Fear Daredevil with the big Frank Millar sneakers was able to swat bullets out of the air. Daredevil would have died if he wasn’t teleported to another planet (Daredevil 105) because it was a Stever Gerber comic and thinks like that happen in Steve Gerber comics. God bless Steve Gerber.
–Tagged a leaping Black Widow with a blowdart (Daredevil 104).
–Can move faster than cobras, picking them up and throwing them into cages by hand (ASM 15). Cobras can move 17.6 feet in 1 second.
Kraven’s Stealth
–Snuck up on Black Widow and damsel’ed her as bait for Daredevil (Daredevil 104).
–Tricked Tigra into attacking a dummy then ambushed and defeated her (MTU 67).
–Snuck up on Black Panther (Black Panther: The Man Without Fear 518).
–Tricked Spidey’s spider-sense. Kraven pulled this off by allowing Spidey to make him with his spider sense and then double back around to try and ambush Kraven. But this is exactly what Kraven planned and Kraven floored him with a shoryuken without even turning around to look at Spidey (MTU 67). Pretty badass!
Kraven’s Fight Record
Wins/Losses/Inconclusive
Kaine–0/2
Iron Man–0/1
Beast–0/1
Captain America–0/1
Spidey–3/8/2
Man-Wolf–1/1/1
Ka-Zar–3/1/2
Tigra–5/1
Daredevil–1/0
Black Panther–1/0
Black Widow–2/0
The Predator
Well, let’s get something out of the way real quick first. The predator isn’t a person, it’s a race. The predator from Predator isn’t the same as the Predator from Predator II. The predator that fought Batman isn’t the same Predator that fought Judge Dredd. They’re all members of an alien race called the Yautja who really, really like hunting. Their entire culture is based on turning other races, be they xenomorphs or humans, into trophies for social prestige. Successful hunters get to lead and get the babes. Unsuccessful hunters flip the nuke strapped to their arm to do the cover art for Omegaman by The Police and remove themselves from the gene pool.
Since they’re a race, that means the predators we get across the franchise encompass a wide range of skills and abilities. Yautja are like humans in that they have pathetic weaklings and alpha-chads. Yautjas have absolute scrubs that lose to a single xenomorph and mighty-hunters-before-the-lord that can do to a team of action heroes what Jason and Michael do to a team of teenagers. It wouldn’t be fair to throw, for instance, the predators from AvP (Chopper and Celtic) that got punked by the same xenomorph against Kraven. He’d destroy them. Nor would it be fair to throw Kraven the predator from Predator: Primal who got this ass beat by a grizzly bear. The shame! The poor guy was so ashamed of himself that he walked back to his spaceship and nuked himself. One of Kraven’s tamed cats could probably beat that guy. I bet even Tigra could beat him. And don’t even start with the predator from Predator: Strange Roux. He got killed by Cajuns and turned into gumbo. You want to guess how many dishonor points that’s worth? They even included a recipe for the gumbo at the end of the story. It involves tabasco sauce. That’s right. The poor dude couldn’t even get cooked with Louisiana hot sauce. The shame!
So, which Yautja do we use? Do we just composite all predator feats and gear together across the franchise and throw our Franken-predator against Kraven? I say no for two reasons. The first is that I don’t like using composites for vs battles as a general rule. Compositing takes distinct characters and merges them to create a character that doesn’t actually exist and that defeats the entire point of a vs battle for me. I want to know how Leonardo from TMNT does in a fight, not super-Leonardo with all the abilities of every Leo across the multiverse.
The second reason is that a lot of Yautja gear is mutually exclusive. Take their armor for example. The armor the predator from Predator uses isn’t like the fire-proof armor that the spear masters from Alien vs Predator: Extinction use or like the strength-enhancing, life-draining armor used by Yautja mercenary Viper in the toyline.
Oh yes. A great deal of Yautja lore comes from the toyline. In fact, the toyline is very important to this discussion.
We don’t want Kraven to fight a scrub. So he should fight the biggest and baddest Yatuja ever, right?
That Yautja would be the Grand Elder.
You know, the guy that runs their homeworld Yautja-Prime? The Chaddest of a race of Chads? The guy a race of hunters keeps trying to assasinate and none of them have come close to getting the job done in millenia? The dude that’s so badass that other Yautja think he’s a divine immortal?
Oh wait. You haven’t heard of the Grand Elder?
Because he’s from the NECA toyline?
Yeah I thought so.
You can take a look at the dude here:
https://news.toyark.com/characters/clan-leader-predator
I’m not going to have the Grand Elder fight Kraven for a couple of reasons. The first is that he’s far from what people think of when they think “the Predator.” Who here heard “Kraven vs Predator” and thought “Oh yeah, Kraven vs the guy with the two Doc Ock arms right?”? It’s like if you ran Sentinel vs Terminator and picked Bastion to be the Sentinel. You picked the strongest Sentinel, but you know good and well that people expected a giant purple mutie eater and not some android guy.
The second is that it’s really, really hard to gauge anything when it comes to the Grand Elder. How long do his tentacles reach? Is he really immortal or just hard to kill? Do his tentacles shoot plasma? Does he carry any other weapons on him and if so, what?
All we have to work with is a paragraph on the back of his packaging. That’s not very fun.
So I went to Schizofenik’s incredibly useful list of deadliest predators and went down one to find the Yautja prince from the AvP 2 video game.
Then I went down to third place and picked Broken-Tusk, the protagonist from the first Aliens vs Predator comic written by Randy Stradley and published by Dark Horse.
If only the franchise had stayed with Dark Horse…
Why did I pick Broken-Tusk? I did it for the theme and because while Broken-Tusk is rated lower than the prince, the gap between them isn’t as huge as it is between the prince and the Grand Elder. The prince being placed over Broken-Tusk is largely due to the prince taking down a guy in a souped-up power loader. That’s something Broken-Tusk and Kraven should be able to replicate.
If Kraven can Broken-Tusk, he can beat the prince.
Broken-Tusk also has a character while the prince was one of those player character ciphers and has far more in common thematically with Kraven. Broken-Tusk and Kraven were both the protagonists of seminal comics that went on to influence their respective franchises for years to come. Both died in honor fighting against what they considered the ultimate foe. Both had others carry on their legacy–though Machiko was far, far, FAR better as a character than any of Kraven’s family.
“Hunters that died in honor” works so well as a theme for Broken-Tusk and Kraven, and I’m not going to throw that theme away to tick the power level of the chosen predator by a negligible amount.
The Top 5 Deadliest Yautja by Schizofenik:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43uGIG5twUQ&t=1381s
The Top 5 Deadliest Yautja in the Literary Universe by Schizofenik:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFwMci5lUEY&t=995s
A Guide to Yautjas by Schizofenik:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkebaFFSPlk&list=PLp7HMRspvT6RTvBqKwh4n6Bmhr9KzzxEf&index=18
The Predator’s History
Broken-Tusk’s history is taken both from the Dark Horse comic as well as its novelization Predator: Prey which elaborates on Broken-Tusk’s history and amps his power level up a bit.
Broken-Tusk’s name in his native Yautja is Dachande, which means “different knife.” Broken-Tusk and “different knife” are references to Dachande’s lower-right mandible torn in a battle with a xenomorph. Yautja possess the technology to repair Dachande’s broken mandible, but he opts to keep it to show off to other Yautja how tough he is.
As a youth, Dachande was a bellicose bruiser with a chip on his shoulder. He’d pick a fight with other Yautja at the drop of a hat, or in this case bio-helmet. But as he grew up, he made it a personal policy to never pick a fight against someone he knew he would beat.
Without the chance that he might lose, a fight was meaningless.
Even before the events of Aliens vs Predator, Dachande was something of a legend among his own kind. He was the first Yautja in the entire history of their civilization, which makes Earth’s civilization look young by comparison, to kill a xenomorph unarmed. That’s right, he killed a xenomorph with his bare hands–acid blood and all. Dachande was also the first Yautja to kill two xenomorphs during his bloodening ritual, a rite of passage where young Yautja are taken on a supervised hunt to make their first kill.
With these achievements, it’s little wonder that Dachande became a clan leader. In Yautja society, clan leaders aren’t the most authoritative position within a clan. That would be the elders. But clan leaders are the ones out in the field, and they’re known to be the ones that attract mates for their exploits. Clan leaders are responsible for training the next generation of Yautja hunters, and as a fellow teacher might I suggest that Dachande’s position might be a little underappreciated by his society?
It was while taking a group of young Yautja on their first hunt to a desert planet with two suns named Ryushi (how very Tatooine!) that Dachande would achieve his ultimate end and his ultimate glory.
Ryushi was seeded with xenomorph eggs by the Yautja long ago. But between the seeding and the hunt, humans settled Ryushi. This complicated matters when the hunt started and suddenly there was a mass of non-coms between the predators and their prey.
Circumstances led Dachande to team-up with Machiko Noguichi, administrator in charge of the human settlement on Ryushi, to exterminate the xenomorph infection.
Though Dachande fought well, he was ultimately mortally wounded by the xenomorph queen and died, but not before he marked Machiko as a blooded predator to carry on the tale of his exploits. He would have lived, but he made the mistake of following the queen xenomorph around a corner and opening fire on a drone it pushed in front of herself as a shield (clever girl). Stopping to roar in what he thought was victory over the queen, Dachande’s bit of hubris cost him as the Queen sliced him open with her tail.
Dachande made a mistake, and though it was only a little mistake after a career of triumphs, one mistake was all it took.
He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
(Yeah. The AvP movie was basically the Aliens vs Predator comic but worse. Pretty much every Aliens vs Predator story after the Dark Horse comics can be described as “basically the comic but worse.”)
Dachande was the Percival of Yautja culture. He never picked a fight he knew he would win and upheld the rules of the hunt. He even killed one of his subordinates when he found that he had hunted human non-coms, a dishonorable act.
He was a predator above predators. He is the ideal foe for a hunter above hunters.
The Predator’s Gear
Bio-helmet:
— If you were one ugly motherfucker, wouldn’t you want to wear a mask to? The first and most basic function of the bio-helmet is to protect a predator’s beautiful crab-face. It’s tough enough to withstand gunfire. It also allows a predator to comfortably breathe in whatever environment it happens to be hunting in. On Earth for instance, a predator would have to take deeper breaths without its bio-helmet as the atmosphere of the predator homeworld Yautja-Prime has far more nitrogen and oxygen than Earth’s. But that doesn’t mean a Predator slows down any if it loses his mask. Just look at the first movie. That predator was able to slap Arnie around fine after losing his mask.
Predators naturally see in the infrared spectrum, and their bio-helmets augment this. Warm-blooded prey lights up like Christmas trees within their field of vision, though as Arnie showed in Predator, this can backfire if their prey suddenly becomes cold from smearing mud all over their body and blends into the background.
The predator in Predator II cycled through several vision modes on his bio-helmet before settling with the classic infrared. Later installments in the predator franchise elaborated on the different modes of the bio-helmet–infrared, ultraviolet, a specialized xenomorph vision (very useful as xenomorphs don’t give off a heat signature), a vision that tracks the emotional state of targets (and you thought Arkham did that first! Nope! It was Predator: Concrete Jungle!), and a vision that tracks technology through electro-magnetism.
The bio-helmet also comes with a targeting system that projects a red triangle onto targets to mark them and a zoom feature for precision stalking and sniping. This targeting system is capable of producing enough heat to warm up a predator’s metal weaponry, but typically a target doesn’t feel the red triangle on their body. The targeting system can also visualize projectile trajectories such as when the Predator II predator calculated the trajectory of his smart disc.
Wristblades:
–The sidearm of a predator’s kit. Every outdoorsman knows that your greatest tool is your knife and boy do predators’ have knives! They come in a wide variety of sizes and styles and wristblade size might mean something in Predator society as Scarface from Concrete Jungle was forced to use small ones after being dishonored. Some are also able to be fired as projectiles, though Scar (not to be confused with Scarface) from AvP was the only one ever to fire his blades.
You probably don’t see a lot of predators shooting their blades because throwing away something that’s supposed to always be by your side is a really bad idea–just like AvP.
Combistick:
–If wristblades can be thought of as a predator’s sidearm, the combistick can be thought of as a predator’s rifle. A combistick is a telescopic spear. Though most commonly used as melee weapons, predators have been known to throw their combisticks.
Dachande’s clan uses an interesting variation of the combistick. Their combisticks have larger blades making them more like double-sided glaives than spears and can detach from a locking mechanism at the center to become dual-wielded swords.
Burner:
–While most predator tribes utilize a shoulder-mounted plasma caster, Dachande’s clan uses handheld plasma guns called burners. Burners are functionally near-identical to plasma casters, though given how they’re depicted as projecting a beam rather than a bolt of plasma they may be more powerful than casters. They do have a small drawback however–they need to be manually reloaded unlike casters which reload themselves by drawing on the armor’s power supply.
Armor:
Yautja armor may look primitive in appearance, but this is only in appearance. Yautja armor is very durable and able to withstand smallarm fire without problems and provide resistance to stronger attacks. Yautja typically wear only a little armor and leave large areas of their body uncovered. This is likely done either because predators don’t want to be encumbered while pulling off sick ninja moves or because too much armor is seen as dishonorable. What are you so afraid of that you need to cover yourself head-to-toe in armor? Humans?
Dachande’s clan wears substantially more armor than other clans, though they still leave gaps on their arms and legs. Their armor doesn’t seem to slow them down much as Dachande was still able to take down 10 xenomorphs at once and leap over a charging rhynth herd. Though that might just be because Dachande is a badass.
The netting on Yautja armor isn’t just to look cool. It’s thermal netting designed to keep a Yautja warm on while on a hunt and even at its lowest setting is uncomfortably hot to the touch for a human. Yautja-Prime is a hellish lava planet. Even South American jungles seem kind of chilly compared to Yautja-Prime.
The netting is basically the Yautja equivalent of a sweater.
Cloak:
–One of the more popular predator features. Yautja use advance technology to make themselves invisible–well, almost invisible. If you look at them carefully, you can sort of see the predator like a shadow on water. But with a casual glance, a Yautja is virtually impossible to detect especially if he’s standing still.
The cloak isn’t very durable. It glitches up when exposed to water, though stops when taken out of water. Two things from the 80’s you shouldn’t get wet–mogwais and predators. The cloak also glitches when the wear is hit. The losers from AvP lost their cloaks permanently after being hit with a couple of bullets.
Medicomp:
–One one arm, Yautja have a miniaturized, advanced medical kit to heal their wounds. These medicomps vary widely in how they actually operate. In the films and comics, they’re tiny triage kits containing everything a Yautja might need to treat their wounds–but no anesthetic. Anaesthetic is for dishonorable wussies. The video games make the medicomps magical in their ability to heal wounds with just the injection of a syringe. These injections still hurt like a bitch as every Yautja that takes them screams in agony.
I don’t see the medicop helping Dachande much in this fight. If he has to run away from Kraven, Kraven is going to be hot on his heels and the scream that always accompanies using a medicomp is going to give his position away.
Nuclear Bomb:
–On one arm, Yautja have the means to preserve their lives. On the other, they have the means to take their life. That’s pretty poetic for a race of jocks.
Sometimes things just don’t work out. Even the best hunter can’t plan for all eventualities. If a predator can’t go on, honor calls for him to activate his wrist-mounted nuke and an hero not only to preserve his honor (you don’t want the disgrace or your corpse ending up in some Cajun’s gumbo) but to prevent predtech from falling into the hands of primitive screwheads like humans.
The nuke won’t be much of a factor in this fight. If Kraven wins, he’s likely going to kill Dachande before he can activate the nuke. Even if Dachande activates the nuke, Kraven should be able to outrun it like Arnie did when his own predator activated his nuke. And even if Dachande activates the nuke and Kraven’s too beat up to run away, the fight still counts as a win for Kraven because Dachande dies in the fireball first.
The Predator’s Strength
–Burst out of metal restraints in a medbay just in time to save the life of Dr. Miriam Revna from his disobedient subordinate.
–Overpowered and killed a disobedient subordinate who tore through a metal door with his bare hands.
–Split a xenomorph’s skull open with his fist.
The Predator’s Durability
–Dachande was hit head-on by a hovercraft that crashed into his spaceship and blew it up. He was caught in the blast along with a fellow predator, but only he survived. After a brief stay in a medbay, Dachande was able to function though he was wracked with agonizing pain. But he powered through and was able to get the job done.
The Predator’s Speed
–Leapt above a charging rhynth herd. Rhynth are the cattle of Ryushi–think of them as alien rhinos.
–Took on 10 xenomorphs at once. Machiko couldn’t get a shot in until the very last one because Dachande kept killing them faster than she could aim her gun at them.
The Predator’s Stealth
–See the cloak and bio-mask under the gear section.
The Predator’s Kill Count
Before Ryushi, Dachande had 50 xenomorph drone kills and 1 queen kill. He very likely had kills against unknown and miscellaneous alien species as well.
On Ryushi, his score was 1 rogue predator, 20 xenomorph drones, 1 chestburster, and 1 queen (with an assist).
In the comic, he fought 5 xenomorphs at once. This was upgraded to 10 in the novelization. In both versions, he killed all of them but the last one which Machiko shot, though she said she didn’t need to as Dachande had the bugger dead to rights.
The Fight
Who is Stronger?
Kraven takes this one even if it is hard to pin down his exact strength level. He’s strong enough to overpower a bull gorilla which on its own puts him in the 1 ton range. You add to that him killing a charging elephant with a punch, meaning his fist overcame the force of the charge and still had enough left over to kill the elephant and he starts to get pretty scary compared to Dachande. You add to that him cutting dinosaur people with hide that needed an elephant gun to pierce and he starts to get REALLY scary compared to Dachande.
This is all without diving into the voodoo that is Marvel strength scaling. With that crazy voodoo you could get a Kraven that can lift more than five tons. That’s about three Orcas from Jaws stacked in Kraven’s arms.
To compliment this strength, Kraven has nerve strikes. Would they work on Dachande? I’d say so provided he hits him in an unarmored spot. They work against guys with radioactive spider blood and magic catgirls. They should work against tribal-flavored Gorns.
Who Has More Durability?
Dachande takes this one. Not only does he wear actual armor over Kraven’s Tarzan Chippendale outfit, but he survived a ship-destroying explosion and after a brief stay in a medbay was able to get up and hunt some xenomorphs. Kraven’s tough, and he’s taken blows from Spider-Man, but as every Spidey fan knows there’s a big gap between Peter’s strength when he holds back against his foes and when he cuts loose. Whenever he cut loose against Kraven, such as the time he hit him with his Hulk staggering punch (ASM 49), Kraven went down hard.
Who is Faster?
Kraven takes this one by a lot. We’ve seen predators throughout the franchise dodge rockets and bullets, but Kraven embarrassed bullet-swatter Daredevil and his knife feat against Kaine is just insane. When you can “nothing personal kid” a charging Spider-Man +from a seated position, you got some serious speed. Kraven also has ways to magnify his speed advantage over Dachande through his gadgets and skills. Dachande is already slow against Kraven but because glacial after Kraven uses his magnetic shackles, lion eye beams, or nerve strikes.
Who is Stealthier?
I got to give this one to Kraven, but only by a little. The predator’s multiple vision modes are going to be able to spot Kraven whether it be by his heat or the sci-fi gadgets on his vest. But Kraven’s enhanced sense of smell and eyesight will let him not only break through the cloak but let him follow the predator’s trail. Kraven’s jungle scent weapon in particular is going to ruin dachande’s stealth. It won’t help Kraven get the first hit in, but once he gets it on Dachande might as well turn the cloak off to conserve energy.
Kraven ultimately takes this one because he has the most experience stalking and ambushing prey with supersenses coupled with human intellect. The xenomorphs may be “pure instance” in the words of an infamous youtuber, but they don’t have human intelligence to make the most of that. Kraven’s gotten the drop on Black Widow, Tigra, Man-Wolf, Black Panther, and even Spider-Man (MTU 67). He tricked Spidey’s spider-sense into allowing him to get the first hit in. That’s a really solid ambush feat.
Who Wins?
In this fight, the predator becomes the prey. Say they go full-honor mode and have it out like Billy and the predator from Predator. Say they go at it without hiding, tricks, or sci-fi gadgets with Kraven using a spear and Dachande using a combistick. Kraven wins because he’s faster and stronger and has the speed and precision to nerve strike Dachande where his armor doesn’t cover him. Dachande can take more damage, but that’s not going to help when his arms aren’t working and Kraven is gutting him again and again until he stops moving.
But say we let them use their sci-fi gadgets. Kraven is slightly more likely to get the drop on Dachande. His sense of smell and superhuman eyesight will beat the cloak and while the bio-helmet’s visual modes are a danger to Kraven, Kraven has more experience ambushing opponents with supersenses and human intellect. If he can find a way to trick Peter’s spider-sense into setting Peter up for a shoryuken, he can find a way to trick the bio-helmet.
Dachande has a range advantage with his burner, but Kraven is fast and agile enough to close the gap and make it a close-combat fight which he’ll dominate. He’s got a lot of mid-range options to use against Dachande. While the bio-helmet should filter out Kraven’s gas attacks, it won’t do anything to save Dachande from the sonic weapon built into Kraven’s lion eyes. And if Dachande’s bio-helmet ever comes off, he’s really screwed then.
Broken-Tusk gets broken.
Say, do you think Kraven would make a trophy out of Dachande or do you think he’d give him a burial like he did Spidey? Leave a comment letting me know what you think.
This actually makes more sense to be brutally honest. You just have no idea how a normal human with skillful speed, momentum, intellect, and tricks is really capable of against many alien species.