Rhino makes his partial debut in the first trailer for Kraven the Hunter, revealing a more comics-accurate take on the villain that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 failed 9 years ago. Kraven the Hunter will be the latest installment of Sony's universe of Marvel villains, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson leading the movie as Sergei Kravinoff. In Kraven the Hunter, after being nearly killed in a lion attack, Sergei gains superhuman abilities akin to those of an animal and becomes Kraven the Hunter.
While Sony's Venom movies and Morbius were all released with PG-13 ratings, Kraven the Hunter is the first to debut with a hard-R (and, in so doing, makes it more likely that Venom 3 will be R-rated itself). Kraven will not be the only Marvel antagonist in the movie, with Alessandro Nivola also appearing as Aleksei Sytsevich, a.k.a. the Rhino. Here is the Rhino's backstory and what his role in Kraven the Hunter could be.
Rhino Is Marvel Comics' Aleksei Sytsevich
In Rhino's Marvel Comics backstory, Aleksei is a low-level member of a Russian mafia family who was subject to experimentation that permanently bonded a rhino-skin-like armor suit to his skin, granting him incredible toughness. After being apprehended by Spider-Man, arrested, and serving time in jail, Sytsevich is later experimented on further, this time by being exposed to gamma radiation to grant him dramatically increased strength. Rhino is unable to remove his armored skin suit in most iterations and was originally characterized as being a relatively mindless brute.
Rhino's Superpowers In Marvel Comics Explained
As a result of the experimentation he went through, Sytsevich possesses incredible superhuman strength and an equal level of durability with his strengthened skin. The Rhino also possesses enhanced speed, which, combined with his strength, enables him to plow through his enemies and even solid barriers like cars and walls with ease. Sytesevich's Rhino suit also augments his durability, giving him the ability to withstand gunfire and extreme blunt force impacts. Rhino's suit also grants him his trademark deadly horn.
How Kraven The Hunter's Rhino Is Different Than The Amazing Spider-Man 2
The Rhino made his big-screen debut in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, with Paul Giamatti playing Aleksei Sytsevich as a gang leader apprehended early in the movie by Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man. Sytesevich does not return until the final scene of the movie, where he pilots a heavily-armored Rhino mech suit outfitted with missile launchers and capable of running on all fours (the Rhino also being set up as an intended player in Sony's Sinister Six movie plans at the time).
The Rhino's minor role in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the subject of an in-joke in 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home, in which Garfield's Spidey calls his fight against the Rhino "lame" compared to Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's Spideys. While The Amazing Spider-Man 2's version of Sytsevich retains his Russian origins and criminal background, it otherwise completely reworks his powers to a Rhino mech suit. By contrast, Kraven the Hunter shows Alessandro Nivola's version of the Rhino injecting himself with a syringe, causing his skin to mutate into a scaly, grey form. Beyond that, it's unclear if Kraven's Rhino will be more cerebral than his comics counterpart.
Kraven's Rhino Is Still Different Than The Comics Version
The Rhino's place in Kraven the Hunter's cast of characters is being kept fairly hidden within the trailer and general marketing for the film, with the former only showing a brief glimpse at Sytsevich at the end. Sytsevich is possibly voluntarily injecting himself with a chemical agent and potentially has the ability to change back and forth from human to Rhino form. The idea of the Sytsevich being a possible combination of brains and brawn is a big change in Kraven the Hunter, with the Rhino notoriously being one of Spider-Man's most slow-witted villains.
Additionally, the Kraven the Hunter trailer does not make it fully clear whether Sytsevich will wear his Rhino suit. It could even hint that he will more fully mutate into a humanoid rhino with the line, "There is an animal in each one of us." In the end, every comic book movie has to create its own interpretation of both heroes and villains, and with the Rhino being an antagonist in Kraven the Hunter, it could be sticking to some core elements of his backstory while retaining others for the movie.
