‘Cult of Carnage: Misery’ TPB is packed with ideas

This collection features all five issues of the Cult of Carnage: Misery miniseries, focusing on Liz and her work in collecting Symbiotes. Thanks to her ties to Alchemax, a new Symbiote is introduced, a pretty neat concept. Given how many are running around, one might think it’s one too many, but Pirzada does a good amount of work explaining why and how a new Symbiote would sprout from the first issue’s events. I won’t spoil it here, but it has a yin and yang root to its creation, with the requirement of the human host to be strong enough to keep things at bay.

Things start slowly in this collection as we are reminded of Liz’s love for Harry and how things turned out. She’s a caretaker of two Osborn kids while keeping the business afloat. We see Liz as a mother and a badass boss lady reminiscent of shows like Succession. In a few short pages, Pirzada proves Liz is a strong character worth rooting for. This strength is also how she can harness the ability of this special Symbiote.

There is some familiarity if you enjoyed Spider-Man comics in the ’90s since the Guardsmen played a big role in the story. They’re meant to protect Liz, but a rogue agent upends all of her protections.

There’s also a lot of new ideas and characters. Starting with Misery, of course, but also villains like a Hulk-sized Symbiote named Madness who harbors multiple Symbiotes in his body, and another known as Symbiotechs. It’s almost like an idea dump of fun ideas that aren’t necessarily deeply thought out, but are cool as heck. There are also enough enemies to get Spider-Man involved, which helps build the story out into an epic event-caliber level of action by the end.

Mortarino does a good job with art, giving everything a nice, detailed look. Things can sometimes look stiff, but it generally tells the story well. A standout moment in the first issue involves a chimp who is wearing a Symbiote, and it’s a chilling concept. It appears Alchemax is cool with testing on animals. This leads to some Symbiote tendril fighting that looks cool.

One hiccup early on is what appears to be a double-page scene introducing an erratic Guardsmen member. The writing is good, but the layout of the page is a little confusing. It’s hard to read. The use of film strips to convey we’re looking at footage is an exciting idea, but the way it’s laid out makes it look like you’re supposed to read it left to right when it’s two separate pages. It also flows a little unnaturally.

Cult of Carnage: Misery is a miniseries that’s filled with new characters, making for an exciting foray into a Symbiote side project. The creators set things up beautifully, making you care about a C-list character while establishing the need for a mother to rise up and protect her kids, even if it takes a Symbiote to do it.