"Maximum Carnage"

            The following is a review of the Marvel Comics event “Maximum Carnage.”

            Okay, for you new readers, my name is Tim Cubbin. I am a certified journalist but can’t find employment, so to give myself purpose, I write this blog. I write essays, editorials, short stories, reviews, and I keep promising poetry but haven’t gotten around to it but I totally definitely will soon. Pretty much all my reviews have to do with Marvel, but every once in a while I tackle other content matter. When I review comic events, they’re usually from years back, and this is no different. I have Marvel Unlimited and read A LOT of reading lists, and in honor of the theatrical release of “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” (which I want to see because Carnage is my FAVORITE Marvel super villain but because of COVID I have no movie theaters open near me so I have to [shudder] wait until Blu-ray) the programmers highlighted the “Maximum Carnage” event, so OF COURSE I read it, and my devoted followers will note I haven’t posted anything in a while, so I said to myself, “Well, I read it, now I’ll review it” and now here we are. Again, new readers don’t know how my reviews work, and I’m sorry to my regulars that I have to explain this and you know how I roll, so here’s the deal: first I give my monologue (which I am obviously doing right now), then I give a synopsis of the story. This will also contain certain descriptions of characters for people who have no idea who Spider-Man and Carnage are. Then I go on to my review. My reviews consist of four parts. Part one: my own follow-up thoughts. Part two: accessibility (for my new readers who don’t know what I mean, just stay with me, I’ll explain when we get there). Part three: my numerical score (again new readers, I’ll explain my system when I get there). Part four: do I recommend this to others and if so, why? Then I write a few sentences and log out. You with me? Good! (You are with me, right? If you aren’t, I honestly don’t know what to say. Please be with me?)

            I think the best place to start will be to describe a bit about Spider-Man and Carnage (like I said I would). First off, Spider-Man. Peter Parker was fifteen years old. He was orphaned as a child and lived with his Aunt May and Uncle Ben. He was top student in grades, but was heavily bullied. One day, he went to a radiology demonstration. A spider got in the way of the radioactive rays. As it died, it bit Peter Parker and then Cindy Moon (Cindy however, has nothing to do with this story, she wasn’t revealed to have existed until quite a while later, so we’ll just leave her out of this, but I had to be totally correct here and mentioned her). Peter gained spider-like abilities: adhesive fingertips and toes; the proportional speed, strength, and agility of a spider; and a precognitive sense of danger which he calls “spider-sense.” He also created web shooters, which he uses to travel New York City faster, to restrain bad guys, and to save others in danger. At first, he wanted to use his powers to make money. After a television appearance, Peter let a burglar run past him, figuring it was nothing to him, why should he get involved? That burglar broke into the Parker residence and murdered Peter’s Uncle Ben. Peter caught him, and thought of something his Uncle Ben used to say: “With great power there must also come great responsibility.” (That’s how it was said in the comics. If you’ve only seen the movies, it was misquoted as “With great power comes great responsibility,” but we’re talking the comics, so “there must also come” is what I’m going with). After that, he decided to use his powers for good use and make the world a better and safer place. He has a very extensive rogue’s gallery, but of all of his enemies, Carnage is among the most dangerous.

            Cletus Kasady was a convicted serial killer, a total nutcase, with absolutely no remorse. He was held in prison (because that’s where they put convicted serial killers for life or until they are executed, of course, but Kasady just had several life’s sentences, so, yeah, jail). His cellmate was one Eddie Brock, formerly the super villain called Venom. Brock had powers from an alien creature called a Klyntar symbiote. The symbiote was brought to earth by Spider-Man after the first Secret War on Battleworld when Peter was given it after he needed a new costume for proprieties’ sake when his original was damaged. The symbiote enhanced Peter’s powers, but when Peter found out the symbiote was a living creature that was trying to bond with it, he spurned it and separated from it. The symbiote found Eddie Brock, who blamed Spider-Man for his ruined journalistic career, and they became Venom. Eddie had been separated from the symbiote after a battle with Spidey. The symbiote eventually came back and broke Eddie out of jail, but while doing so, it spawned another symbiote. This symbiote bonded with Kasady, and they became Carnage. After an intense battle with Spider-Man and Venom, Kasady had been separated from the symbiote.

            And that brings us to “Maximum Carnage.” Without the symbiote, some idiots decided to send Kasady to Ravencroft Sanatorium for study. As it turned out, the Carnage symbiote had actually entered into Kasady’s bloodstream during their bonding period and Kasady cut himself and became Carnage again. Carnage then escaped Ravencroft, busting out Frances Louise Barrison/Shriek in the process and they decided they were now husband and wife. Barrison can manipulate sound into a solid force and can release pheromones that cause negative emotions in others. Upon escape, the couple “adopted” the Spider-Man Doppelganger, the Demogoblin, and Miles Warren/Carrion. Shriek also turned a large grouping of New Yorkers into a rioting mob.

            Obviously heroes were needed to combat this situation, and Spider-Man took the lead, what with Carnage being one of his rogues. He had an epic team-up with Felicia Hardy/Black Cat, Tyrone Johnson/Cloak, Morbius the Living Vampire, the cyborg Deathlok, and (surprisingly), Venom.

            Okay, I think that’s all you need to know. Now let’s start with my own personal thoughts. Alright, I must say that I LOVED this event. I thought it was epic, one of the (possibly the) best Carnage stories I have ever read. The story was so exciting for me. I loved the Carnage “Family.” I thought this was a great grouping of villain, and I felt that “Team Spidey” was an awesome gathering. I mean, I could go on-and-on about this, but I won’t, I don’t want to bore you.

            Alright, now we go to accessibility. For you new readers to my blog intrigued by my tags, I always tell you what background information I feel is needed for optimal enjoyment of the story. I don’t give a numeric score for this, but I will usually go into background knowledge. For this event, I thought it was a great jumping in point. I feel that this is very much self-contained and that knowing nothing about Spider-Man and Carnage beyond what you’ve read in this post is more than enough to totally dig into.

            Well, now the whole reason you’re reading this: my numeric score. For you new readers, my score is based on a scale of one to ten, one being “Ugh, this was a piece of garbage!” ten being “this was one of the best stories I have EVER read!” Based on what you’ve read on this post, I’m sure you’re expecting to see very high. I will say I am a VERY harsh scorer as my regulars know, so a high score is a GREAT honor. So, my number score is… (drumroll) nine! I would love to have given this a ten, but I don’t know why, I just can’t quite do that. I just have to hold back. There’s something.

            This is now actually a first being singled out in a post, but will definitely be done in every review from now on, is if I recommend this event. Do I? YES! As I said, this is a good jump-on point for new readers, and if you like/love Carnage, you should TOTALLY read this and you most likely enjoy it. I mean, like I said, this is (one of) the best Carnage stories I’ve ever read, and Carnage is my favorite super villain, so you can’t get any higher recommendation than that.

            Okay, now, if you’re still here, you are THE BEST! I mean, you stuck with me through this whole rant, so thanks for the support! So now, please retweet, like, follow, comment, whatever you can do on the platform you found this on, that would be greatly appreciated and then you are TOTALLY THE BEST! Be ready for plenty more content, I have three more reviews on the way, and an editorial and two essays planned, so whatever, be on the lookout. If you’ve never been here before, you can check out other posts, I have done over fifty now, so yeah, plenty of stuff to read! And now, as always, until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!