Marvel Comics Spotlight: Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage

[justinsayne]

Maximum Carnage
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Quick Summery
"Maximum Carnage" is a fourteen-part comic book crossover published in Marvel Comics's Spider-Man family of titles in 1993. It featured Spider-Man and Venom teaming up to face Venom's murderous offspring Carnage.

Plot Summery

Spoiler

During the first Carnage arc (The Amazing Spider-Man #361-363), the alien symbiote that gave Eddie Brock the power of Venom spawned a child. This creature bonded to a deranged serial killer called Cletus Kasady, and the two began a blindly murderous path through New York City as the monstrous Carnage. Carnage was swiftly defeated, however, his symbiotic suit was reborn.

The insane Kasady was jailed at Ravencroft Asylum. However, his visit was short-lived as he revealed that the alien had mutated his blood, and he could generate a copy of the symbiote (this was later ret-conned so that the alien had survived, and bonded to his head and blood). Kasady escaped, freeing other superhuman inmates and assembling a "family" of killers around him. They set their sights on New York.

During the murderous onslaught that followed, Carnage recruited Shriek, Doppelganger, Demogoblin, and Carrion to do his bidding, terrorizing New York City with their twisted "family values." Hundreds of innocent people were murdered. Due to the laws of escalation, Spider-Man and Venom were forced to join together to stop Carnage and his followers. They required the assistance of such disparate heroes as Captain America, Black Cat, Nightwatch, Cloak and Dagger, Iron Fist, Deathlok, Morbius and Firestar, although there was a great deal of conflict within this group, both sides polarized between Venom's desire to stop Carnage for good and Spider-Man's refusal to allow any more life to be lost.

However, both infighting between the villains and a successful rout from the heroes contributed to Carnage's defeat. Faking his death by covering a victim in a mock symbiote costume, he threw all of the heroes off his trail except for Spider-Man and Venom. The two tailed Carnage all over New York until they cornered him in a graveyard. Weak from days of combat, Spider-Man was saved from Carnage by Black Cat. Taking advantage of the Cat's return, Venom took on Carnage and tackled him into an electrical generator before disappearing from the scene, leaving Carnage to be incarcerated.

Bibliography

Reading order

Chapter I - Spider-Man Unlimited #1 - "Carnage Rising!"

Chapter II - Web of Spider-Man #101 - "Dark Light"

Chapter III - The Amazing Spider-Man #378 - "Demons on Broadway"

Chapter IV - Spider-Man #35 - "Team Venom"

Chapter V - Spectacular Spider-Man #201 - "Over The Line!"

Chapter VI - Web of Spider-Man #102 - "Sinking Fast"

Chapter VII - The Amazing Spider-Man #379 - "The Gathering Storm"

Chapter VIII - Spider-Man #36 - "Hate is in the Air"

Chapter IX - Spectacular Spider-Man #202 - "The Turning Point"

Chapter X - Web of Spider-Man #103 - "Sin City"

Chapter XI - The Amazing Spider-Man #380 - "Soldiers of Hope"

Chapter XII - Spider-Man #37 - "The Light!"

Chapter XIII - Spectacular Spider-Man #203 - "War of the Heart!"

Chapter XIV - Spider-Man Unlimited #2 - "The Hatred, The Horror & The Hero!"

Collected editions

This arc was collected as a trade paperback in September 1994 , and a new edition was released in January 2005.

Justin's Thoughts

The thing I remember most about this storyline was that about a year after it came out a game was released for the SNES and Genesis inspired by it, adn that me and my friend would spend hours at his house playing the game, we were huge Spidey marks at the time, so we couldn't get enough of this game, but that aside, I had heard about the arc, and wanted to read it, but didn't have the money and at the time had yet learned about the wonderful thing that are Trades, however now, assuming I can find a copy of the trade, I plan on going back and reading it in the near future

 

[FunKay the Inevitable]

Don’t want to come across as a grumpy old man (despite the age), but this thing is awful. Maximum Carnage has one of the most basic storyline ideas, which isn't necessarily bad, but it simply doesn't fit here. I'm talking about love vs. hate. Carnage builds up his own little family that doesn't get along with each other, while Spidey patches together his friends (and Venom, who's character is well and truly down the toilet by this point) to fight against Carnage. The plot is paper thin and there's an excessive amount of (no pun intended) carnage that simply isn't needed. The story is far too over the top, Venom's characterisation is terrible and the final group battle is ended in perhaps the most idiotic way possible. Maximum Carnage is a HUGE thumbs down from me.

 

[El Rev sXe]

I actually liked it specially for the classic superhero's dilemas: "aligned myself with enemy" and of course "does the end justify the means?". I didn't liked so much the Carnage family, but it was good to see Spidey messed up by this bunch of villains. It is in fact a classic comic story, but I enjoyed it very much. The way Carnage was shown was brilliant, at least for me.

 

[Jay Sherman]

It Stinks!
FunKay really could not have been more on mark, anything I can say would be what he has already said. I hate to be cynical but the only worth while thing this did for me was make a game my childhood is very fond of. I really do not like the Carnage at all or any of the Symbiotes. Venom was good in the beginning but became so watered down. Anti-Venom was fun....for like 1 minute.