This is “From a Different Point of View,” a feature where I discuss a comic book series with other people. Ever since the pandemic began, I’ve been doing twice-weekly reader chats about notable comic book crossovers, storylines or miniseries. We started with Secret Wars and then we did Knightfall and now we’re starting with Maximum Carnage!
Each time around, I’ll share a chunk of our discussion.
When last we checked in on Maximum Carnage, we were discussing Spider-Man #35, Maximum Carnage Part 4, “Team Venom,” by Howard Mackie, Tom Lyle and Scott Hanna with letters by Rick Parker and colors by Ericka Moran and Kevin Tinsley.
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Carnage has escaped from custody and gone on a rampage in Manhattan, along with Shriek and Doppelganger. Venom has just arrived from New York City. Meanwhile, Spider-Man is rattled from an earlier battle where he tried to stop the villains with Cloak and Dagger and Dagger was seemingly killed! Mary Jane tries to convince Peter to give being Spider-Man a rest during this situation, but Peter can’t do that and he heads back out to hunt down Carnage. He encounters the Demogoblin instead and only barely fights him off, but reinjures his ribs (which he hurt earlier in the crossover). Spider-Man then heads home, but Venom attacks Carnage and his crew and gets beaten badly. An injured Venom arrives at Peter and Mary Jane’s apartment and passes out. Mary Jane storms off, offended that Spider-Man let him in. Spider-Man needs someone to turn to, and rather than going to the Avengers or the Fantastic Four, he turns to Black Cat. She then storms out on Spider-Man when he shows an unwillingness to kill Carnage. Ultimaely, Spider-Man agrees to team up with Venom and Black Cat to take Carnage down, even as Carnage and his crew made a deal with Demogoblin.
What happens next?
Writerboy: Peter and MJ have a rotary dial phone and an answering machine with tape, and both were already obsolete when this comic came out.
Tom A. : To be fair, Peter and MJ probably went for what was cheap.
Tom A. : Old rotary phones were probably cheaper.
Flavio Sette Yeah, though we did have with a rotary phone in my home until like the late ’90s.
Sean Whitmore To be fair, WB, the rotary phone is May’s
Flavio Sette So it’s not that weird I suppose.
Writerboy: Oh, right. May would definitely have a rotary phone.
Writerboy: I love Spidey’s little headphones.
Brian Cronin: Yeah, gotta give Lyle credit for the headphones.
Brian Cronin: It’s a nice visual bit.
Brian Cronin: It was sort of his version of the bomber jackets of the era.
Flavio Sette Team Venom should all be rocking matching bomber jackets.
Brian Cronin: The big fight scene is weird.
Brian Cronin: Since everyone except Spider-Man (who has somehow stored the headphones…somewhere) seems super incompetent
Chriscoke: I feel like all three characters are in the same intersection noting they don’t see Carnage in that particular intersection. “Nothing!” “Here either!”
Flavio Sette Carnage has Spidey right where he wants him, but waits to monologue so Spider-Man can figure out he can just fall back down and punch him in the face.
Writerboy: I can buy Felicia being incompetent in the fight; she really hasn’t done this much
Brian Cronin: She kicked Sabretooth’s ass back in the day!
Flavio Sette How Cloak knew where Shriek used to hang out I dunno. Again, it feels very much like a “Crap, Tom, why did you draw Cloak showing up out of nowhere in the hideout? How am I gonna explain that?”
Sean Whitmore Cloak been talking to Oracle
Chriscoke: Why doesn’t Spider-Man want Carnage in Cloak’s dark dimension? That seems like a pretty sensible result to me.
Brian Cronin: It really does seem sensible
Sean Whitmore Yeah, isn’t that Cloak’s primary mode of attack?
Brian Cronin: And he just comes off as strange for not wanting it.
Sean Whitmore If Spidey has a problem with that, Cloak should be like the Punisher to him
Chriscoke: Yeah, Cloak does it to every villain.
Flavio Sette I think Peter is afraid Cloak’s gonna kill Carnage.
Chriscoke: It’s like teaming up with Spider-Man and being morally opposed to webbing up villains.
Flavio Sette And he does have reason to kill Carnage, so I can see why Spidey’s afraid of that happening.
Sean Whitmore And I guess we’re just meant to accept that Carnage’s new, unexplainable symbiote is in fact “stronger than a dimension” or whatever.
Tom A. : And of course, the two female characters from each side fight each other.
Writerboy: It’s a superhero union rule
Brian Cronin: I like that Michelinie at least has Carnage’s voice down pat.
Flavio Sette I wonder, was Cloak supposed to be drooling here or was that originally gonna be blood and the colorist made a mistake?
Sean Whitmore No pain, no reign
Brian Cronin: I mean, he invented the voice, so he should.
Chriscoke: In the time it took Spider-Man to think about whether to save Black Cat, he could have saved Black Cat.
Brian Cronin: But it’s still nice compared to some of the other writers.
Chriscoke: It’s almost like telling a story with 4 rotating writers is a bad idea.
Sean Whitmore By the way…why does Carnage want to break off the fight and leave? In-universe, I mean.
Chriscoke: I don’t understand why Carnage left the last fight with Spider-Man two issues back. Shriek killed Dagger and then they retreated.
Sean Whitmore Over and over again, Carnage and his team will leave heroes behind unconscious instead of doing…y’know…what they love to do.
Sean Whitmore What they loooooove to do soooooo much.
Brian Cronin: The only vaguely reasonable explanation is that they want them alive to see all of the killings they were unable to stop.
Brian Cronin: It’s not much.
Brian Cronin: But it’s something?
Tom A. : So the Joker excuse.
Chriscoke: There’s three of them, Brian. Kill one. Save the other two.
Chriscoke: Or four of them. Why not kill Black Cat and then leave Spider-Man alive?
Brian Cronin: Well, that’s the big problem.
Brian Cronin: Is that they clearly start the fights always very much clearly TRYING to kill the heroes.
Brian Cronin: Then the fight ends and they just leave
Writerboy: “We’ve got better things to do!” Like what? Because if I’m Carnage, killing Venom and Spider-Man would be pretty high on my list
Tom A. : Cloak’s kind of an asshole, he teleports away without saving his allies.
Brian Cronin: I think we’re not supposed to think anything otherwise about Cloak at this point, Tom.
Brian Cronin: These stories are not meant to be complimentary towards him, ya know?
Flavio Sette For some reason, Chris’ comment made me think of this: Fuck, Marry, Kill: Spider-Man, Venom and Carnage.
Flavio Sette I really don’t know why that popped in my head.
Chriscoke: Cloak doesn’t even get to be on the cover. I’d be angry too
Brian Cronin: He doesn’t even get a Team Venom bomber jacket
Brian Cronin: “We figured with your cloak, you wouldn’t want one”
Brian Cronin: “Maybe I wouldn’t have worn it, but it’s the thought that counts”
Next issue, we wrap up this issue by showing how the story ends with a fake dilemma. If you have any Maximum Carnage thoughts, feel free to share them at brianc@cbr.com!
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