Wes Serafine
Equinox Staff
Confession time: I don’t read too many Marvel comics these days. Though I love Marvel’s characters and movies, the questionable story directions that the management of Marvel has taken several characters in has turned me off from most stories. However, there are some gems left within the comic world of Marvel and today’s outing is one of them. This comic focuses on three characters, four if you count a certain character as two, and none of them are particularly well-known.
First up, we have Venom, the most well-known of the characters, but he does not appear in the expected form. Venom is a symbiotic alien being that bonds to a host in the form of a black costume, in turn granting them immense power.
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Its first chosen host was Spider-Man, who rejected the costume. Venom subsequently bonded to Eddie Brock, a man who hated Peter Parker as much as the symbiote hated Spider-Man. Venom was brought to the big screen in “Spider-Man 3,” played by Topher Grace, much to fans’ chagrin who thought he was wrong for the part. Recently, the Venom symbiote chose a new host.
This brings us to our next character, Flash Thompson. In the earlier days of Spider-Man comics, Flash was the school bully who picked on Peter Parker and Flash was depicted this way in both the original “Spider-Man” film and the recent reboot.
However, what casual fans do not know is that while Flash picked on Peter, he idolized and admired Spider-Man. Spider-Man inspired him to enlist in the army in order to be a hero himself, but tragically lost his legs in combat.
With the help of the Venom symbiote, Flash can walk again and he has chosen to use the power granted to him by the black suit to be a hero.
Yet Venom is not the only symbiote running around. While bonded to Eddie Brock, the Venom symbiote gave birth to a second symbiote. This second symiote bonded to Brock’s then cell mate, the psychotic serial killer, Cletus Kasady. Kasady combined with the symbiote and started calling himself Carnage, who acts as the villain of today’s piece.
Finally there’s the Scarlet Spider. In the 1990s, something happened in the Spider-Man books called the clone saga. It was not exactly considered a high point in Spidey’s history due to confusing story lines and bad writing but the gist of its relevance to our story is this: A super villain creates an evil clone of Spider-Man, who supposedly died, but recently it was discovered that it wasn’t and because Spidey saved his life, the clone, named Kaine, became a hero by the name of Scarlet Spider.
This is actually the second issue in the mini-series that teams up Venom and Scarlet Spider. At the end of the last issue, Carnage escaped into another dimension with the help of some mysterious allies and with a friend of Flash Thompson as a hostage. Kaine, having only known Venom as a villain, attacks Flash, temporarily causing him to lose control of the symbiote.
However, the two quickly call a truce and decide to enter the alternate dimension in order to save the innocent hostage and stop whatever Carnage and his allies are planning. They enter the portal and end up in separate area’s both of them confronted by strange and powerful monsters.
This is a decent story but not the strongest I’ve read. Really, I think this crossover is only happening because in the past year the two main characters have gained a cult following with comic fans but have yet to achieve mainstream popularity.
Honestly, I believe the story would be stronger if the two were just fighting Carnage without the addition of the alternate dimension story.
Also, the story seems to move very slowly with quite a bit of padding. I wish that our two main heroes had spent less time bickering, but other than that they are both written quite well. I think the reason why I like these characters is because, to me, they act like Spider-Man should act.
Marvel writers seem to have this idea in their heads that Spider-Man should never grow up or be put in adult situations, failing to recognize that the character has aged and matured since the 1960s.
These characters are similar to Spider-Man, but feel like adults and as such, are more well rounded characters. Carnage on the other hand is not written as strongly. Carnage works best when he’s the main villain of the story arc but here he’s relocated to the role of minion for his underdeveloped allies.
Overall:
3/5
Wes Serafine can be contacted at
wserafine@keene-equinox.com