Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage

[strontium_dog_90]

The central library where I live has had a massive chunk of Lottery funding awarded to it, and one of the greatest things about this is that they've radically overhauled their graphic novel section, getting in tons and tons of books. On the good side, I got The Authority: Kev out of there. On the less good side, I got the above.

I was really looking forward to reading it - I love Venom and Carnage and the fact that it's a pretty big edition meant that there'd be a lot of story to sink my teeth into. Or so I thought.

I don't suppose I was expecting a big philosophical work or anything, but it was almost offensively simplistic, with no substance beyond a series of punch-ups. I tell you, it made me apperciate Dredd epics a whole lot more. Anybody else out there wish to agree or disagree?

[SmallBlueThing]

Nope- only beaten in the "ARGH I WANT TO KILL ALL COMICS AND PLUCK MY EYES AND BRAIN OUT!" stakes, by The Clone Saga. Thankfully, that's unlikely ever to get a singular collected reprint, so we can all breathe easily.

Steev

[The Monarch]

not counting La Saga Du Clone of course....

[SmallBlueThing]

Oh, the dirty, dirty fuckers.

Steev

[strontium_dog_90]

Phew, glad to see it wasn't just me, then! I looked the story up on Wikipedia after reading it, and was surprised to see that it was listed as being "a popular story" - I was left tearing out what's left of my hair, screaming why Why WHY?

[Dandontdare]

Maximum Carnage and the Clone Saga were indeed awful. Spiderman has had some absolutely dire storylines down the years. I'm currently re-reading all my old late 80's Marvels - remember when he got cosmic powers and became the most powerful hero in the universe?

Also just revisited the daft pan-title crossover event that was Acts of Vengeance. But worst of all (and I actually thought this had been okay when I bought the TPB a few years ago), was Secret War. What a steaming pile of action-figure based shit that was.

[Professor Bear]

Acts of vengeance had some solid periphery entries that took the daftness ball and ran with it, like the issues of Daredevil and Power Pack where Doctor Doom sends a self-harming sex-crazed Ultron to kill Daredevil, and a sex-crazed knife-wielding schizophrenic to seduce a 12 year-old boy.  Ahhh, Doom, you mad fucker.

Depressingly, my local library also has Maximum Carnage in stock, alongside at least 3 phonebook-sized Spawn collections.

[Dandontdare]

Acts of vengeance had some solid periphery entries that took the daftness ball and ran with it, like the issues of Daredevil and Power Pack where Doctor Doom sends a self-harming sex-crazed Ultron to kill Daredevil, and a sex-crazed knife-wielding schizophrenic to seduce a 12 year-old boy. Ahhh, Doom, you mad fucker.

Yeah, the Daredevil/Ultron one was cool, but I wouldn't have been caught dead buying Power Pack in those days! The Hulk vs Grey Gargoyle was good too. The FF ones were interesting - in contrast to Civil War, Reed & co argue before congress against a Superhero Registration Act, whilst being attacked by an endless stream of mind-controlled Z-list villains.

[Professor Bear]

Yeah, the Daredevil/Ultron one was cool, but I wouldn't have been caught dead buying Power Pack in those days

I only read it because it was in the back of Thundercats and Return of the Jedi and with the weird aliens, European-style artwork, and taking ages to get to the bit where they actually got powers, it looked like some sort of sci-fi strip rather than a superhero book, and as can be seen by my presence here, I'm a bit into sci-fi comics.  Although the rationale for maybe abstaining if I'd known what it was about does confuse me now: I would have thought kid superheroes were silly, but a guy with radioactive blood or a metal skeleton was somehow the bomb?

The Hulk vs Grey Gargoyle was good too. The FF ones were interesting - in contrast to Civil War, Reed & co argue before congress against a Superhero Registration Act, whilst being attacked by an endless stream of mind-controlled Z-list villains.

A recurring plot during the 1980s was the Mutant Registration Act in all the Marvel books, and it usually turned up in the non-mutant books as superheroes worrying Mutant Registration would turn into superhero registration if they weren't careful, so the characters had already nailed their flag to the mast as regards the issue as far back as 1987, yet their opinions didn't line up with Civil War, which strikes me as sloppy writing.  Of late, I've revised my opinion on comics continuity from 'I don't care about it as along as it's a good story' to 'it's not an either/or thing'.  Besides, if they were writing soap operas or movies they'd be expected to get the details right, and comics should be no different.
In our own tooth, I recall continuity was an issue with Morrison's Inferno.