It’s crossover time in Scarlet Spider, where our favorite wall crawler teams up with Venom to take on Carnage…and the Micronauts, for some insane reason. I’m not going to review the entire crossover, just the issues of Scarlet Spider that are involved. But I’ll provide recaps to make sure everyone is up to speed. This review will focus entirely on Scarlet Spider #10, the second part of the crossover. It’s a pretty good story, hampered only by the general silliness of the plot itself. It’s just my own personal taste, but I don’t particularly enjoy some of comics more fantastical elements. Especially when writers can’t modernize those elements and make them work with modern day comic reading sensibilities.

Scarlet Spider #10

This is basically my way of saying that I just don’t think it works when street-level or military characters are suddenly thrust into a magical micro land full of wild, random characters. But such is Minimum Carnage.

Comic Rating: 3/5: Alright.

There’s nothing particularly special about this issue or this crossover so far. I like the interactions between Scarlet Spider and Venom, and there’s a…minor sense of menace when it comes to Carnage. I’ve always liked Carnage. I wasn’t reading comics yet when his most famous story, Maximum Carnage,came out in the 90s, but I’ve read an issue or two here or there. And there was this palpable terror in the comic. Carnage is a serial killer given extreme super powers, and Maximum Carnage was all about him cutting free and just killing at random in the streets of New York City. People were terrified, the hospitals were overflowing with the injured and the superheroes were pushed to their limit. The Joker always has some kind of game or plan in the works when he kills people. But Carnage just killed indiscriminately, and few have the power to stop him.

Time, of course, has dulled Carnage’s menace. But there are hints and shadows of it in this series so far, not to mention the fact that Carnage has been treated like a pretty important character in recent years. Minimum Carnage comes on the heels of two separate Carnage mini series, one in which he took over an entire town and captured the Avengers. So Carnage has been on a pretty good streak recently, but this new series kind of goes off the rails…

Still, it’s readable. And it’s nice to see Kaine interacting with some other people from the Marvel Universe.

Join me after the jump for a full synopsis and more review!

So let’s get to recapping, to make sure everybody is up to speed.

First of all, there’s Venom and Carnage. Both are alien symbiotes, goo-like creatures that bond with human hosts, granting them a wide variety of powers and abilities. Venom has had a number of different hosts over the years, but nowadays he’s bonded with Flash Thompson, the bully from Peter Parker’s high school years. Flash is no longer a bully, and instead is a combat veteran who lost his legs in Iraq. Using the symbiote, Flash can walk again, and the government has found a way to control the alien, to keep it in line. Flash is now Agent Venom, a duly sworn secret agent and soldier.

Carnage remains bonded to serial killer Cletus Kasady, and like I said, he’s just come off a pair of stories where he’s been killing and causing trouble on a pretty big scale.

In Minimum Carnage: Alpha, the first part of the series, Carnage was broken out of a Colorado prison by a mysterious new benefactor. Agent Venom was called in to respond, since the symbiotes have a history. Carnage slaughtered his way out of the prison and went on the road. The only clue Venom has is a fleeting security camera video of something very tiny helping Carnage. So he calls on a reporter friend, Katy Kiernan, who once wrote a newspaper article about miniaturization in Texas. Houston, to be specific.

Which brings us to Scarlet Spider, who is helping out at a fire scene, where he discovers inside that a woman was slaughter and dismembered. There’s one survivor, who freaks out at the sight of the crimson hero. But Scarlet rescues him anyway. Once in the hospital, the victim reveals that the killers were searching for this wife, Dr. Ketola, who works in miniaturization at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. And this is where things get weird, as we’re told about Dr. Philip Prometheus and his invention, the Prometheus Pit. Really? The guy’s last name was ‘Prometheus’? Please. I know you wanted a cool name for your scientific gizmo, but who’s going to believe that ‘Prometheus’ is a legitimate last name?

Anyway, Kiernan the reporter is already in Houston bugging Dr. Ketola about the Pit, which Kiernan accuses they want to use to plunder the resources of the Microverse, which is one of those old, sci-fi Marvel concepts. This is where the story goes off the rails, because Marvel has never found a way to modernize the Microverse. It still feels like a dated, 70s throwback. The Microverse is an entire world that exists at the microscopic level, with people and monsters and everything. It’s basically an alien world that exists within our own, down on the molecular level. The Prometheus Pit is capable of shrinking people down and transporting them to the Microverse.

Carnage attacks the Space Center to get to the Pit. Scarlet Spider arrives and the two battle briefly before Carnage reveals his mysterious benefactors.

Where exactly was he hiding them?

A team of tiny super villains, each more ridiculous than the last. Suddenly the menace of Carnage is halved by the fact that he’s carting around these tiny little Thumbelinas. And they all have stupid names that you forget instantly. This is almost comical. They look stupid, they have stupid names and the whole existence of a Macguffin called a ‘Prometheus Pit’ is stupid. Carnage is menacing because he’s a serial killer with super powers, who will kill you just as look at you. Now he’s wrapped up in this silly sci-fi garbage. It lacks menace. Carnage kidnaps the reporter and they all disappear into the Prometheus Pit, down into the Microverse. Which is when Agent Venom shows up to confront Scarlet Spider.

Which brings us to Scarlet Spider #10.

The Stabby and Shooty Show!

The two back off from killing each other and introduce themselves rather angrily, though they both know the other. Venom recognizes Scarlet Spider from the Spider Island story from last year, and Kaine knows Venom from the past. Kaine is especially pissed, dropping F-bombs like they were punctuation. He feels guilty about everyone in the Space Center getting killed because he couldn’t stop Carnage.

Then, all of a sudden, Flash loses control and the symbiote reverts to typical Venom, complete with muscles, giant, tooth-lined mouth and long, dripping tongue. I guess he loses control from time to time.

We cut to Carnage and his new mini friends in the Microverse, which looks like an alien planet, for all intents and purposes. Carnage tells his reporter prisoner that she gets to live so that she can bear witness to his slaughter, which is a very flimsy reason to keep this woman alive, if you ask me. Granted, Carnage is insane, but still. She can’t exactly report on anything if she’s in the Microverse and is your prisoner, dumbass. Some of the tiny people are disturbed at how insane Carnage is, while another one talks mysteriously with a hooded figure about something called “The Redeemer”, which is one of the unzoned planets.

But who really cares? Honestly? Does anybody care about the Microverse? And $10 bucks says the hooded figure is Dr. Prometheus.

Far more interesting is the battle between Scarlet Spider and Venom.

Toasty!

It’s a pretty intense fight, with some nice visuals by regular artist Khoi Pham. I’m still not all that impressed with Pham’s work, but it’s solid enough. He’s no Ryan Stegman, but that guy got the promotion to the main Spider-Man series. Can’t blame him for moving on.

During the fight, the symbiote recognizes the general Peter Pakerness of Kaine, and tries to leave Flash for him, to take Kaine as a new host. But through sheer force of will, Flash calls the symbiote back and regains control. What this whole fight was about, who knows? I’m sure if I was reading Venom I’d better understand how the symbiote can just go out of control like that. Kaine is just as confused as I am.

You tell him, Red!

Before Kaine can kill Venom, they find a survivor in the wreckage. It’s Dr. Ketola, who is pretty shaken up, but she gets the two heroes up to speed. She explains what the Microverse is, what the Prometheus Pit does and tells them that Carnage kidnapped the reporter and shrank down. Venom is ready to ride to the rescue and save the day! Scarlet Spider is not.

“Letterman is on in 30.”

What follows is a funny little scene where Scarlet Spider basically tells Venom to go stuff it. Carnage is gone and out of their hair, and Kaine doesn’t care if he murders everyone in the Microverse, as long as he’s not killing people in Houston. Venom tries to convince Scarlet that Carnage will eventually escape back out through the Prometheus Pit, but Scarlet doesn’t believe him or care. He leaves, because Carnage is no longer his problem.

It’s a funny little scene, giving us a really good glimpse at Kaine as a person. I definitely like the anti-hero aspects of Scarlet Spider. They’re a real selling point for the book.

Dr. Ketola fixes the Prometheus Pit to send Venom into the Microverse, though she warns that their calibrations are not so specific that she can send Venom to Carnage’s exact location. He doesn’t care. He has to go after Carnage. And he won’t be alone. Scarlet Spider has had a change of heart, even though he still thinks this is idiotic. Venom and Scarlet Spider dive into the Prometheus Pit and shrink down into the Microverse.

Venom wakes up first, finding himself in a strange, mystical and colorful forest. He’s soon attacked by pink pixie creatures, who don’t like his symbiote. Venom is randomly saved by the Micronauts.

“Oh boy, the Micronauts!” – said no person, ever

The Micronauts are the heroes of the Microverse, and had their own comic back in the day. They, likewise, have not updated well to the modern age. They seem to know who Venom is, and announce that The Redeemer wants him. Venom agrees, reluctantly, to go with them.

Though what the heck is Bug doing there? I know Bug was originally a Micronaut, but I thought he’d been re-established as living in the normal world as a space hero with the Guardians of the Galaxy? Are there two different Bugs now? Who are seemingly exactly the same? That’s utterly confusing.

Anyway, Scarlet Spider wakes up elsewhere, in a rocky part of the world, with a mysterious cloaked and bandaged figure. Kaine asks what the hell is going on, but the mysterious man is as cryptic and full of half-answers as you’d expect anyone to be in his position. Eventually he gets around to telling Scarlet Spider that he’s preparing to die…because there’s a giant monster bearing down on them!

Because that thing was so inconspicuous

I have to admit, that line made me laugh.

I’ve gone on record before as expressing – to some extent – a dislike when street level heroes get mixed up in adventures beyond their scope. It’s a personal preference. Like the idea of Spider-Man battling gods on an alien planet. It’s a matter of perspective and character. That sort of thing can be made palpable with a focus on Spider-Man’s humanity, and how Queens-born Peter Parker is in way over his head. But still, I’m just not a fan of that kind of story. And that’s exactly what we get here. Scarlet Spider and Venom off on what is essentially an alien world, battling alien monsters and interacting with alien heroes. It does not interest me.

When I saw the first promotions for Minimum Carnage, I think they showed a little tiny Carnage. And I thought that he’d find a way to shrink himself down and terrorize a city. Can you imagine the terror of a bunch of ant-sized Carnages on a killing spree in Houston? It would be a plague!

Instead, it’s just going to be Carnage killing aliens, with no sense of being tiny at all, since he’s going to be the same size as everybody else in the Microverse. So I’m really let down by the very premise of this series. Carnage is scary because he’s an alien presence set upon our human world. In the Microverse, he’s just one of the aliens. So this story has already robbed the the villain of his menace, and now it’s separated the heroes. The brief scenes between Scarlet Spider and Venom were fun, but now the two of them are going to be interacting with strange alien people, none of whom we’ll ever see again after this story. So all the character build-up that could be spent between the two of them will be wasted on other, pointless characters.

So yeah, there’s a lot to complain about with this Minimum Carnage story, but a lot of it could just be seen as personal nitpicking. It’s a solid tale, and the team up between the heroes was well written. Hopefully Minimum Carnage will surprise me before the end. Otherwise, I’ll be glad to be rid of it.