Marvel Comics has no shortage of classic stories. All Marvel fans have a favorite character or series they’ve been reading for a long time, but every now and then Marvel creates a story that draws everyone’s attention and stands out above the rest.
With that in mind, I’ve decided to take a look back at these classic stories and maybe help you decide whether or not you would like to check them out. Our next series brings back a classic villain in a very big way. Only this time, when the sinister symbiote Carnage returns, the only one who can stop him is Venom.
Absolute Carnage
An ancient deity, which created the symbiotes billions of years before existence as we know it, is suddenly once again a threat when infamous serial killer Cletus Kasady, better known as the symbiote-infused Carnage, plans to awaken it. Who better to stop this threat than someone who has been intertwined with a symbiote for a good portion of his life – Eddie Brock, better known as Venom.
In order to awaken this deity, the dark god known as Knull, Carnage has to collect codices, a remnant wrapped around the DNA of anyone who has ever worn a symbiote. In other words, Carnage has a lot of targets and Venom has a lot of people to protect, including his son Dylan.
You’ve never seen Carnage quite like this. With some new power and a seemingly limitless army at his disposal, he has gone from being a ruthless killer to potentially the bringer of the end of the world. As Spider-Man puts it, “what happened to evil business-men and digging robots and sewer dinosaurs and fun stuff like that?”
Venom is one of the most complex and fascinating characters in the Marvel universe. He is largely looked at as a villain, one of the many members of Spider-Man’s vast rogues’ gallery. That’s not really who he is though. Or at least it hasn’t been in a very long time. Venom has been more of an anti-hero than a villain and he’s gone toe-to-toe with Carnage a number of times.
Like I said though, this isn’t Carnage like you’ve ever seen him before. He’s charged up with some dark magic and an even darker purpose and it leads to one of the biggest showdowns between hero and villain the Marvel universe has ever seen. You only get about 15 pages into this series before the action starts and it very rarely lets up after that.
One thing this series does very well is bounce back and forth between being a major crossover event with all of Earth 616 in its scope and being a very intimate story about Eddie Brock and his ability to cope with his issues. He’s been through so much. He lost his other, everyone he’s ever loved is being targeted by an evil alien and he just learned he has a son but can’t tell him for fear of getting too close to him and hurting him too. We get deep into the head of Eddie Brock and it can be a very dark and scary place.
On the other side of that coin, “Absolute Carnage” is a story about an ancient god who wants to eliminate all life in the known universe until there is nothing left but darkness. You can bet some of your other favorite heroes are going to get involved in an issue like that. This isn’t Venom trying to stop a serial killer. This is the heroes of Earth trying to protect it from a force like they’ve never seen before. Venom and the most notorious serial killer in the history of Marvel Comics just happen to be at the center of it all.
You can find “Absolute Carnage” here. And be sure to check out some of our other looks back at other classic Marvel Comics here.