Product Description: The perennial fan-favorite collection, back in print! Carnage, the spawn of Venom, has assembled an army of Spider-Man's criminally insane adversaries to spread his message of hostility, chaos and wholesale slaughter: Carrion, Demogoblin, Shriek and the Spider-Man Doppelganger! Outmanned and overpowered, the wall-crawler must recruit his own band of super-beings to combat the rising tide of evil: Black Cat, Cloak & Dagger, Firestar, Captain America, Deathlok and ... Venom?! Spider-Man's worst enemy becomes his uneasy ally in the battle to halt Carnage's mad rampage. But when he finds himself at odds with a number of his allies, who want to finish Carnage and his cronies once and for all, Spider-Man must decide whether to violate his personal code of honor to rid the world of pure evil. Can the web-slinger find an alternative before it's too late? Either choice carries dire consequences! Collects AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (Vol. 1) #378-380, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #201-203, SPIDER-MAN #35-37, SPIDER-MAN UNLIMITED #1 and #2, and WEB OF SPIDER-MAN #101-103.
Chaos and Carnage The story is chaotic, never takes itself TOO seriously, and captures the character of Spider-Man perfectly. My main gripe has to do with a few large out-of-nowhere plot devices that the writers insert toward the end of the story to help bring about the story's end. I chuckled at the absurdity of the sudden appearence of Deathlok's super-suit, and that was only one example. Still, an interestingly deep character study for a comic book, LOTS of action, and some gripping writing. Reccommended for Spidey fans of any age.
Maximum Carnage, even Spider-Man can get darker.
During the '90s, comics were getting to be a darker place. Grim and gritty anti heroes were the most popular thing at the time, and characters like Ghost Rider, The Punisher, and Wolverine took top billing it seems over the other characters in the Marvel Universe. This darkness even spread to the Spider-Man comics, with the popularity of Venom, who at this time fell under the anti hero category, and his spawn, the super powered symbiotic serial killer Carnage.
Marvel decided to cash in on that popularity during the summer of 1993, with a crossover that spread to all the books in the Spider-Man series. This series, dubbed Maximum Carange, is collected here in this trade paperback.
It's a beautifully re mastered trade, with some of the colors so bright and vibrant it almost seems to be 3-D. The story is a bit disjointed at times in the look, as it went through all the artists drawing the character at the time, some of the art, Mark Bagley's especially is some of the best stuff in my opinion in the history of the character, and some of the art borders on mediocre.
My only real complaint lies in that the story comes right in the middle of two other storylines, the death of Harry Osborn and the secret of Peter Parker's parents, that at this point to my knowledge have not been collected in any type of trade, so new comers to the book might be confused. And there's not even a foreword or afterword explaining what else happened with those stories. I guess if you're really interested you'd better go pick up the back issues at your local comic shop.
I'm giving it four stars, as I'm a fan of Venom and Carnage, and there's plenty of that to go around in this book. So if you're a die hard Carnage or Venom fan, I highly reccommend it.
Not as great as I remembered One event in comics that I had fond memories of when I was a kid was Maximum Carnage. Billed by Marvel as the ultimate Spider-Man event (there was even a video game of the same name for 16-bit systems), Maximum Carnage finds Eddie Brock, AKA Venom, on the loose. However, his symbiote left an offspring behind that has bonded with serial killer Cletus Kassidey; better known as Carnage. Soon enough, a wave of terror hits New York City as Carnage and a whole group of villains (including Shriek, Doppleganger, Demogoblin, and more) go on a murderous rampage; leaving Spider-Man with no choice but to team-up with arch enemy Venom to bring an end to all the madness. There's appearances from other heroes as well, including Captain America and Cloak & Dagger among others; but this TPB has an uneven feel to it. Conceived in the early stages of Tom DeFalco's reign of terror on the Spidey books (this is the same guy responsible for the much maligned clone saga), there's various writers and artists throughout Maximum Carnage; many of which trying to keep up the storyline, but as a whole this isn't as great as I remembered it being when I was a kid. Reading it now, Maximum Carnage comes off as kind of corny, but there's enough decent artwork and action to hold your interest. Not an essential Spidey title, but worth checking out regardless.
Not as good as I remembered Not much to say, Amazon did a good job of getting the book out to me, however it simply wasn't as good of a story as I remembered. (I used to own the original pressing of these books.) If you're a symbiote fan (venom, carnage, black suit spiderman) its a must, but otherwise it's pretty average.
An long history about Carnage mental illness This book contains the history about Carnage's attack to New York with some helpers, it is a cliche, it is like the new generation of the sinester six, but never as cool as those group of classic villians, the art is a little disapointing, and again the history is long, boring and SSSLLOOWWW, you can chek it, but it is not an buy option.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
