Vanity Fair Interviewed The Real-Life Inspiration for Ashley Kafka

[Mister Mets]

J.M. Dematteis based Ashley Kafka, a psychiatrist who figured into his Spectacular Spider-Man runs, on his friend and counseler Freyda Kafka.

Vanity Fair's Jordan Hoffman tracked her down to ask her thoughts on things that happened to the character in Superior Spider-Man, and the version of the character seen in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

[Hypestyle]

curious. how did the author even have the frame of reference to look into the inspiration for the comics' Kafka character? An otherwise relatively obscure character, even at this point.

[Mister Mets]

curious. how did the author even have the frame of reference to look into the inspiration for the comics' Kafka character? An otherwise relatively obscure character, even at this point.

It's mentioned in the article. The author had dated Kafka's daughter a few years back, so he was already familiar with the story.

[Keeper of the Crows]

Kafka's reaction to the Massacre storyline, and to the character's transformation in the movie, were hilarious. It was like she kept learning new bad news. It was also cool to see the real-life person who inspired a Spider-Man character. Thanks for posting this.

[Spidey616]

My first introduction to Ashley Kafka was in the 90's Spidey cartoon.

[Bertone]

Dr. Kafka's death scene didn't sit right with me.

This was the woman who would try to find humanity with monsters such as Carnage and Shriek. In "Superior Spider-Man" she degradingly described Massacre in a way that the 90's Kafka never would. 90's Kafka would never call a patient a complete monster and say they were nonredeemable.

Before someone like Mets says "Ah but we needed the exposition for readers on who bad Massacre was and this was the only way to deliver it"....
OR...you could give Kafka's lines to an orderly and have her argue back for his potential redemption. This would have made her murder all the more tragic as it would have come panels after she argued for the ability to redeem him.

[jgprime]

Dr. Kafka's death scene didn't sit right with me.

This was the woman who would try to find humanity with monsters such as Carnage and Shriek. In "Superior Spider-Man" she degradingly described Massacre in a way that the 90's Kafka never would. 90's Kafka would never call a patient a complete monster and say they were nonredeemable.

Before someone like Mets says "Ah but we needed the exposition for readers on who bad Massacre was and this was the only way to deliver it"....
OR...you could give Kafka's lines to an orderly and have her argue back for his potential redemption. This would have made her murder all the more tragic as it would have come panels after she argued for the ability to redeem him.

Kafka's death was pretty much another plot point so Octavius could then kill Massacre. Afterwards she is only slightly referenced throughout the Superior Spider-Man run and everyone seems to forget about her. The fact that Octavius killed Massacre also has no aftermath beyond the Massacre arc. I wasn't bothered at all by the Kafka namedrop in ASM2, it was pretty much an easter egg and Kafka has never been much of a prominent character in the comics. But killing her like that in the 616 universe and having no real aftermath for her character was a bit of a disservice to the character.