Rating:  -
Comics use to be my passion way back in the days. My nephews got me interested again a little. So I picked up a few stories I remembered from the top of my head. This was one of them.
Even when I was a teen I always found Carnage to be a bland character. I really didn't care for a serial killer in a Venom outfit. This to me was a character that should have been killed off quickly. But they went and made this. A 14 part kill fest.
The beginning was a slick way for Carnage to be reborn. And that's possibly the strongest point of this entire series. He breaks from the institution he was in. He then recruits several other super villians that believe in his twisted gospel to slaughter all people. They embark on an extremely murderous rampage in NYC. Spiderman is beaten in battle, then later Venom is beaten also. This causes other superheros to get involved and help them in the fight.
The story is action packed from start to finish. But thats not exactly what makes a Spiderman story good. Mindless action is not the answer. There was absolutly nothing truly memorable about this story. It completely lacked the emotional impact of let's say The Death of Gwen Stacy. Or the thrilling outcome of The Sineater. I'll say again it was just plain mindless violence.
The artwork ranges from excellent to damn awful. The artwork from the pages of Spectacular and Web of Spiderman are horrible. While Amazing, Nontitle, and Spiderman unlimited has the best artwork.
Bottomline this is good for diehard Spiderman, Venom, and Carnage fans. However, if you're looking for a good Spiderman story. I think you should try and find Kravens Last Hunt, Torment, Death of Gwen Stacy, Round Robin, The Sineater, Revenge of the Sinister Six, and Spiderman vs. Venom.
Rating:  -
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.
Rating: -
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.
Rating: -
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.
Rating: -
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.
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