I actually haven't cracked the book open yet but I do want to talk about the cover art, not something I usually care much about but, something about this cover just looks off. I think it's the fact that it's a photo with a CG carnage
◊, for reference here are some other Spider-Man covers All
◊ from
◊ the somewhat
◊ controversial JMS Run.
◊ The other thing that bugs me is the font is different. I'm being nit picky I know but that's my nature.
So I just scanned the introduction and one thing to keep in mind is that this was an intended response to the dark age. One of the books I'm going to cover next was a response to the Dark Age of comics, and does it much better.
We open with Kasady tied up Hannibal Lecter style, but the guards don't have the sense to not banter back with him. Something about this art is starting to bother me.
◊ It's the faces again. Part of me wants to be completely unfair and compare to someone like Alex Ross, but since he paints for photorealism I decided against it. Instead lets look at the art for what it is. I'm not sure if the pink spots on his face are highlights or if the page bled. They're uneven and are also on the page opposite. Then there's her face. It's just wrong in a myriad of ways it's almost amazing.
Gotta love that she's rockin a mullet though. Here's another point (oh boy am I going to have to slow down, this is page 2) if the guy who gained his power from an alien suit that lived in his body is showing anomalies in his blood, BE AFRAID. Don't just trust that it's a B-12 deficiency. I realize that there are 2 possibilities here:
- Spider-Man never explained to the authorities what Carnage is or where his powers come from. This would be a terrible breach in responsibility for our Web-Head. Also confusing since the authorities had handled Venom before and would know about the weird alien creature that looked like a suit. You'd also think that considering the power Carnage displayed Spider-Man would make sure they were extra cautious about a return, Venom's returned from being isolated from his suit before.
- Spidey told them but they thought Carnage was just a gimmick suit providing no more power than the Punisher's teeshirt. This makes no sense since there's like footage of it webbing and turning to an ax. Not to mention the feats of super-human strength and agility he'd performed like shoving people through stone walls. Considering what a remorseless psychotic killer this guy is I'm surprised there was no "escape attempt" and gee golly I'm sorry but when the guards tried to stop him they accidentally killed him. So Officer Penderbrook is getting 3 weeks paid suspension and psychological evaluations in Tahiti.
So surprise, the anamoly is the Carnage symbiote. Not a b-12 deficiency. So BAM Carnage is on the loose and.. What's wrong with your faaaaaaa-I mean trap muscle?
◊ Seriously on his right side his trap muscle (the one that's between your neck and shoulder) looks weirdly deformed. What's weirder is it looks like it's bulging, but take that position, see how it stretches your trap out and makes it smaller as compared to contracting or flexing it, now if his arm had been angled forwa-
I so shouldn't do this while drinking coffee. So he kills ladydoc off panel and goes slaughtering through the insane asylum. He meets Shriek some crazy lady who likes the screams of pain. She thinks his tentacles are sexy. OH YEAH. Aww they cut away to some post funeral scene, fuck I was hoping for some nightmare fetish sex scenes. So we have horrible art telling us about Harry's death because he'd been the green goblin. And the art here is awful who ever's doing this issue cannot do the human face. Seriously.
◊ Oh and they're talking about why smoking's bad and MJ should stop.
So Carnage runs into Doppleganger who's a 8limbed spiderman with venom teeth. Who's apparently a space duplicate of Spider-Man. So shriek adopts the 8 limbed monster guy.
Spider-man goes out for chinese food as peter, hears there's super villains on the loose and dashes out. Big fight ensues between Spider-Man Shriek and Doppleganger, he's hanging on against the double assault of the long range striker and the up close brawler. He takes her out with thefinger poke of doom.
◊ So Shriek is Kevin Nash in drag? Sexy. The two villains swing off with Doppleganger worried about the injured Shriek.
I'd hoped to do 3 issues in this one post and we're only 1 issue in. I'm going to speed things up a bit to save time and space, this is a 15 issue
So Spider-Man has shattered ribs, he's laying in an alley way gasping in pain and some hoods set upon him. At the same time Carnage is threatening JJ Jameson... mmmm Jameson... into helping him track down Venom. Cloak and Dagger make the save, and I gotta say I really don't care about cloak and dagger and they're pretty big parts of the plot. So Cloak for those of you who don't know is some guy with a big cloak who can suck people into his EBON VOID. Dagger is some blonde white lady who shoots pure light energy. I think they were both former runaways at some point. They can also teleport together. So Cloak kicks out the thugs he sucked in they run away scarred for life off to arkham asylum they wonder if Spider-man is dead and teleport him to a church instead of a hospital.
So Shriek and Doppleganger blitz the trio of heroes and try an airborn strike. Cloak rolls for initiative gets it then makes the saving throw to teleport them away. So shriek hits into cloak and it creates the super echo of pain in side him.
So the fight breaks out Carnage joins in and it goes really against the heroes. Dagger gets hurt and the villains ditch the fight. Opps pages stuck, Dagger's dead. We see hobgoblin hanging out out of sight watching. Cloak has his vader NOOOOOOOOOOOO moment and a page of Venom killing muggers in San Fran.
I think I'm ending this post on issue 2, I'll try to do 3 issues a day when I have time so we can have this series done in under a week.
I'm kinda harping on the stupid but so far this hasn't been that bad really, stupid but not offensively so, and nothing so far that would ruin a story just things to make you go: okkkayyyyy but this is leading somewhere right? The art is kinda horrid though and I think it only gets worse. I might do a discussion on what I like in comic book art just so you guys know where I'm coming from.
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