Carnage Vol. 2: Carnage in Hell continues the evolution of Carnage from Spider-Man villain to cosmic threat. As the title of this collection suggests, Carnage does indeed venture to the underworld to build up his power even more. This naturally leads us to some wild visuals as Carnage battles through multiple realms to reach the gates of Hel. In one memorable sequence, we’re shown that the depths of Carnage’s evil are too unfathomable even for the gods, and that a peek inside the creature’s mind is enough to send anyone into unending despair.
The one drawback to this journey of evolution is that we never really get a sense that anything is in Carnage’s way. Sure, enemies stand before him, but they’re always dealt with pretty handily. There’s never really any suspense about whether or not Carnage will accomplish his goals, because no one ever really stands a chance against him. This certainly makes the character scarier and more intimidating, but it also means that some of the fights can feel slightly padded.
The suspense instead comes from when we occasionally check back in with Jonathan Shayde, the police detective who has found himself bonded to a remnant of Carnage and in a world not his own. We get to know a good bit more in these issues about the interior lives of both Shayde and Kenneth, the latter being Carnage’s protege who is beginning to have second thoughts.
These issues are full of big ideas and wild comic book mythology, ramping up towards Carnage’s end goal. What that goal is, I won’t spoil here, but suffice it to say that no one is safe in the Marvel Universe. This volume brings Ram V’s run as Carnage writer to a close, handing the bloody baton over to Alex Paknadel and featuring fantastically goopy art throughout from Rogê Antônio and Francesco Manna.
This run of issues also reintroduces us to Cletus Kasady, the original host of the titular Symbiote and an unexpected force of opposition against the rampaging Carnage. His resurrection is something of a mystery in the early goings, presenting us with my favorite issue of the bunch: a haunted house tale that makes Carnage into more of an idea than a thing that can be defined in flesh-and-blood terms. Told through the P.O.V. of a doomed streamer and taking us back to Cletus’ tortured roots, “The Lonely House” is like no other Carnage story before it.
The focus of this collection feels just a bit off, which may be due to the change in creative teams and the advent of a crossover storyline right at the tail end. It feels like Carnage builds up a heck of a lot of momentum in his battle through Hel and Nidavellir, only to then take a detour through Shayde’s memories while Cletus does his best Dr. Destiny impression in New York’s unluckiest 24-hour diner. Still, the character development and dialogue we get through these little side-steps are undoubtedly interesting. This series has always hinted at Shayde’s dark side, and that continues to manifest in new and unexpected ways. Meanwhile, Kenneth slowly becomes the anti-hero the book has been positioning him as since the beginning. It remains to be seen how long-lived his new sense of self will be, however.
This volume also places a greater emphasis on horror imagery, with fragmented flashback sequences and nightmarish hallucinations taking up a lot of psychic real estate here. Manna and Antônio clearly relish getting into the minds of these characters, delivering some intriguing page layouts that show us the non-linear paths of obsession and criminal insanity. The action sequences are no less impressive, with Carnage and Cletus both taking on new upsetting forms at every turn and letting these villains’ imaginations run just as wild as the art team will allow.
With Paknadel firmly in the driver’s seat at the end of this collection, the stage is set for Carnage’s next act. “The Cletus Kasady Show” is about to really kick into gear, and I’m intrigued to this collection of monsters get the reunion they’ve been after.
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