Art: Lan Medina, Karl Kesel, Cam Smith, Walden Wong
Colors: Chris Sotomayor
Letters: Joe Caramagna
Cover: Clayton Crain
Review: William R. Davis Jr.
Remember the days of foil covers, blood orgy supe books, Spider-Man clones, and Maximum Carnage. Ahhh the 90's, the decade that almost killed comics for everyone.
I recently picked up Scarlet Spider #1 from my local shop for a dollar. Those that know me can attest to the fact that I harbor more than a little spider bias. At the end of Scarlet Spider (Hated it!), there was a quick synopsis of the whole Spider-Man clone storyline that literally almost had me in tears. That must have been a memory that I blocked out to retain my sanity...some of the most absurd shit I have ever read in all honesty.
At the time I was at a local pub, and I gave it to an AM DJ that also runs trivia night at Flat Rock. He was thankful, but when I ran into him again later the man seemed visibly butt hurt. Stu told me he couldn't give that book away. So I'm not alone in my opinion on that one.
Continue rant. Maximum Carnage completely sucked. Mostly I wanted to write a review of Minimum Carnage to bash it and rile up Cody "Madman" Miller. This would almost assuredly instigate a huge argument on our ongoing Facebook thread. But fans of this humble blog, let me tell you, nothing equals the writers of the HCB going back and forth about a topic passionately. That's why we fucking write this thing week after week. It's all about the buzz.
So here we arrive at Minimum Carnage Alpha. The art was really good, but they had three different inkers on this book. Three. So there was a noticeable difference in the art towards the end. Not a huge deal though. This one had style for sure.
The story was actually really solid as well. There was the problem of the completely moronic dialogue for Carnage. I actually said to myself twice: "Are these people fucking serious?" But the story itself was compelling.
Carnage escapes from maximum security prison and Venom is sent to track him down. They find a connection to Houston, Texas and bring in the Scarlet Spider. While I can't say that I love team up books, especially one with two emo Spider-Man wannabes giving each other reach arounds between panels, the heroes played off each other well. I was a tad disappointed that they decided to call this book a "one shot", when it was basically just a setup issue for an ongoing series. The last great one shot I read, believe it or not, was Grodd of War in the Flashpoint series. If you haven't read the review where I ripped DC to shreds on Flashpoint check out the archives. The fact that I would give a book from Flashpoint a DAP is seriously astonishing, even to myself.
I hate to admit it, but this one tickled my nuts a little. It was just mysterious enough to keep me hooked. The story and the art both were well above average. So guess who has two thumbs and is going to continue to follow this series: This guy. You win Madman.
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