(I originally read these comics in mid April 2016)
Amused myself over the last few days reading recent adventures of Marvel's favourite serial killer 'symbiote.' If you don't have much interest in Carnage, I wouldn't blame you - he has always been a desperately one-dimensional character and his stories nothing more than an excuse for bloody violence. Certainly the first two series by Zeb Wells and with dark 'n' slimy art by the inexplicably popular Clayton Crain are nothing to get excited about.
However, the 'Minimum Carnage' crossover sees Carnage being transported to the Microverse and pressed into use by nefarious forces, with the new, heroic Venom (Spidey jock 'Flash' Thompson) and Scarlet Spider (the surviving Peter Parker clone from the '90s 'Clone Saga') in pursuit. I wasn't sure how I'd like FlashVenom, but he's obviously gone through a lot of recent character development and is put to good use. I'm certainly eager to check out more. The few Marvel-owned characters from their '80s 'Micronauts' series - namely Arcturus Rann, Marionette and Bug - also appear.
The 'Superior Carnage' series entails the Wizard abducting Carnage, left catatonic after his previous adventure, to make up the final element in his latest incarnation of the Frightful Four with himself, Klaw and a paraplegic scientist. The purple-helmeted one bonds the Carnage symbiote to the scientist and is even possessed by it himself to battle the 'Superior Spider-Man' (actually Doctor Octopus' consciousness controlling Peter Parker's body - don't ask.)
I'm not sure how a five-issue limited series warrants an annual, but it at least reunites the Carnage symbiote with his original host, Cletus Kasady. It then leads straight into the 'Deadpool vs Carnage' series, which, despite my disdain for Deadpool, proved to be pretty amusing despite it being just a four-issue fight.
Carnage (2010) # 1-5 are collected in:
Hardcover:
Softcover:
Carnage, U.S.A. (2012) # 1-5 are collected in:
Hardcover:
Softcover:
Minimum Carnage: Alpha (2012) # 1, Scarlet Spider (2012) # 10-12, Venom (2011) # 26/27 and Minimum Carnage: Omega (2013) # 1 are collected in:
Softcover:
Superior Carnage (2013) # 1-5 are collected in:
Softcover:
Superior Carnage Annual # 1 and Deadpool vs Carnage (2014) # 1-4 are collected in:
Softcover:
