I’m pretty firmly on record as a Carnage fan, having reviewed a good amount of his solo series and previous collections featuring the character. Yes, he’s arguably the poster child for X-Treme ’90s excess at Marvel, but dang it, that’s the kind of silliness I grew up with. Therefore, I still have a real soft spot for storylines like Maximum Carnage, which revels in that kind of over-the-top “more is more” mentality. I say all of that to give you a baseline when I argue that the early-to-mid-2000s weren’t super kind to Venom’s least favorite kid.
The stories collected here — from creators such as Peter Milligan, Tom DeFalco, Howard Mackie, Joe Bennett, Lee Weeks, Clayton Crain, Darick Robertson, and many more — cover Carnage’s appearances from 1998 through 2009. They also cover a wide spectrum in terms of quality, with many showing how spotty Carnage’s history was at the time these were originally published. The continuity (or lack thereof) between some of these stories is such that some of the chapters feature a quick editor’s note before the issue proper that essentially tells us, “Yeah, the next writer forgot/ignored that last thing happened.”
Marvel Comics
Carnage gets turned to stone by the Silver Surfer, flown to space and ripped and half by the Sentry, and lost in another dimension, but he always finds an off-panel excuse to come back. I do applaud the attempt to include every Carnage story in this collection, no matter how small, and the context is appreciated. Even a small chunk of New Avengers #4 is reprinted here (the aforementioned death-by-Sentry sequence), just because the character briefly appeared in that issue. Some of these stories don’t offer much in the way of closure, as Carnage was only a bit player in a larger tale. However, while it’s great to have all of this in one place, these little interludes and editorial notes only reinforce a feeling that Marvel wasn’t quite sure what to do with Carnage at this point in time.
On top of all of this, Carnage is not the focus of a large section of this book. The Toxin miniseries is also reprinted here, starring Carnage’s anti-hero spawn as he navigates leaving his old life behind and hunting criminals that evade police capture. Yes, for those of you who may have forgotten, we reached a point in Venom/Carnage history that Venom became an anti-hero after spawning Carnage, who then spawned an anti-hero character. It’s truly a case of the symbiote snake eating its own tail, and large swaths of this story (and the preceding miniseries, Venom vs. Carnage, also included here) don’t hold up particularly well. While the action sequences and some of the character work is solid here, a lot of the “edgy” humor in these two miniseries hasn’t aged particularly well. Ultimately, while I appreciate Marvel’s insistence on including these to act as a more “complete” compendium of Carnage-related stories, Toxin just feels like it slows the momentum maintained in much of the rest of the collection.
Marvel Comics
The highlights here would be the aforementioned “Carnage Cosmic” storyline featuring the Silver Surfer and its What If…? retelling, which is also included here. The decision to arrange the stories in such a way that the two bookend the collection is also nicely done. I also quite enjoyed the cosmic goofiness of “Living in Oblivion!”/”The Time Before,” which not only gave Spidey a chance to face Carnage in another dimension, but also brought the Spider-Man Unlimited suit into a mainline 616 comic for the first time! The hows and whys of the suit existing here don’t really add up, but the main goal of this story is to have fun by throwing Peter into a situation way outside of his usual stomping grounds, and it works in that way. I always love watching Spidey reacting while simultaneously catching his bearings in a larger than life setting. Throwing Carnage into the story is the chaotic icing on the cake.
Overall, your mileage may vary with the latest Epic Collection of Carnage stories, as it can be hard to keep a handle on where the Symbiote was at certain points in Marvel history. The editorial notes definitely go a long way towards giving readers much-needed context, but not all of these stories quite hit the spot when looking for that nostalgic Carnage/Spidey/Venom fix.
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