Review by Win Wiacek

In 1991 with Venom a massive hit, David Micheline saw a chance to take the idea further. When the Venom symbiote went into breeding mode it created a junior version of itself that merges with a deranged psycho-killer named Cletus Kasady. Totally amoral, murderously twisted and addicted to both pain and excitement, Kasady becomes the terrifying metamorphic Carnage – a kill-crazy monster who carves a bloody swathe through the Big Apple. The relevant pages by Michelinie, Erik Larsen and Mark Bagley (sample art) open this massive collection of a story spinning into all the era’s Spider-Man titles.

This mammoth and extremely controversial summer event featured the inevitable return of the terrifying travesty and his bloodcurdling assault on everything Peter Parker holds dear: family, responsibility, love and the heartfelt faith that killing is never justifiable.

The return begins with Tom DeFalco and Ron Lim showing a seemingly powerless Kasady moved from ultra-high security penitentiary the Vault to an experimental lab at Ravencroft Asylum, where an ambitious psychiatrist believes she can cure the monster’s underlying psychosis. Those opinions die with her and the rest of the staff and security officers when the long-dormant Carnage entity manifests and breaks free. His killing spree halts at Shriek, a creature after Carnage’s own heart. She’s a survivor of appalling childhood abuse whose incredible powers make all her vile drives and dreams come true. Instantly attracted to each other, the pair join forces as a twisted “couple”, resolved to kill as often and as many as they can.

Carnage and Shriek first battle a mystical, nigh-mindless Spider-Man doppelganger – which has been stalking the Webslinger since the end of the Infinity War – and adopt it. Together, the ultimate embodiment of a dysfunctional family set out to teach the city the pointlessness of life and the imminent inevitability of remorseless death.

Spider-Man is in a bad way coping with the death of a close friend, so The Human Torch, Cloak and Dagger, Venom, Black Cat, Deathlok, Morbius, Firestar and others appear, almost as many guest stars as writers and pencillers overall. However, the action switches smoothly from chapter to chapter as traps are laid, battles occur and secrets are revealed, many of them appalling ones from Kasady’s childhood.

This exhaustive collection includes a 1993 epilogue from Michelinie and Steven Butler, and a wealth of extras including original art pages from Bagley and Tom Lyle.

If you love the extended hyperbolic, continual conflict at the core of all costumed dramas, this non-stop battle bonanza is a grand way to spoil yourself. Logic and pacing are subsumed into one long, escalating struggle, and a working knowledge of the players is largely unnecessary to the raw, brutal clash of wills, ideologies and super-powers. One fair warning however: although handled with a degree of reserve and taste, this yarn has an appalling body count and scenes of torture that might upset younger fans of the Amazing Arachnid.