Sergei Kravinoff was the son of a Russian aristocrat who fled after the communists came to power. When his father remarried, he accused him of dishonoring his mother's name and tried to make life difficult for his half-brother Dimitri. Deciding to leave home, Kraven took up being a big game hunter and was quite good at it, especially considering he doesn't like to use ranged attacks, preferring to take down animals as large as rhinoceroses with his bare hands. One reporter, not knowing how to spell his name, shortened his last name Kravinoff simply to Kraven, and so began his legend as Kraven the Hunter. During one such hunt, he met Calypso, a jungle priestess who gave him special elixirs which gave him the speed and strength of the greatest jungle beasts. Bored by regular animals, Sergei got a surprise invite from his brother to deal with a new prey: Spider-Man.