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Post by pinkfloydsound17 on Mar 7, 2016 17:29:10 GMT -5
How does everyone here feel about our two main Marvel symbiotes, Venom and Carnage? It always seems like older collectors tend to hate them, while others from the 90's love them. Personally, I think both characters are great visually.
Also, which story arcs/single issues are your favourite for each? I like the #298-301 initial Venom story when he is first introduced but have yet to find much more than that that was really groundbreaking. Of course, everyone likes to have their opinion on the whole Maximum Carnage which I don't find as terrible as some people say. It perhaps is a bit long and all over the place at times but it is readable and entertaining. Demogoblin and Shriek though are two very terrible characters that I think take away from its potential. If it just involved Carnage running around with Venom and Spidey teaming up to try and stop him, it would have likely been a lot shorter and perhaps better written. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2016 18:47:28 GMT -5
Favorite Carnage Books/Stories
Spider-Man/Batman #1 ... of where our two heroes battles the Joker and Carnage
Amazing Spider-Man #430-431
Maximum Carnage with Venom
Favorite Venon Books/Stories
Ultimate Spider-Man #33-39 | By Brian Michael Bendis & Mark Bagley
Web of Spider-Man #31-32
The Amazing Spider-Man #293-294
The Amazing Spider-Man #380
Spectacular Spider-Man #131-132 | By J.M. DeMatteis & Mike Zeck
Spectacular Spider-Man #107-110 | By Peter David & Rich Buckler
I'm a big fan of these characters!
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Post by Phil Maurice on Mar 7, 2016 18:51:57 GMT -5
I liked the Michelinie/McFarlane Venom in the early 300s of ASM. I had followed the evolution of the symbiote from Secret Wars through Web of Spider-Man, and liked the idea of a new enemy who could thwart Spider-Man's spider-sense. The fact that he knew Peter's best-kept secrets added a level of danger that was quite compelling.
I had less affection for Carnage. I suppose I felt about him the way I felt about Harry Osborn as The Green Goblin - a great character significantly diminished.
I had the good fortune to meet Mark Bagley at the time he was doing Carnage in ASM. He signed my books and was the very definition of a pro in every sense. That experience greatly influences/mitigates my opinion of those stories.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 7, 2016 19:45:28 GMT -5
I think they deserve just one comment from me-Yuch!!
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Mar 7, 2016 20:11:51 GMT -5
I liked Venom for interjecting some horror back into Spider-man. It's been in short supply since Ditko left - although Romita Jr.'s Hobgoblin design was a nice throw-back. When he works, Venom is almost an EC callback - both ghoulish and blackly funny. Comics could use more of that.
But Spider-man is essentially earthbound, and his thematic core is about the possibilities of science and human invention. So Venom's "I COME FROM SPACE" origin doesn't work AT ALL in the Spider-Milieu, and should probably be retconned liked the Tinkerer/Aliens story from Amazing Spider-Man # 2. Props to Bendis and the Ultimate Spider-Team for coming up with a Venom that actually works as a Spider-Character.
Carnage is idiotic, one of the worst mainstream characters ever. I doubt that it's possible to even write a workable Spider-man story based around an "I'm SO CRAZY STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB Joker-lite serial killer. Spidey stories need to be about the morality of power - if you change the thematic core of the stories to much the character becomes unrecognizable and unusable. Carnage's ONLY motivation is "I'm so crazy and these damn '90s kids need gallons of blood or their OCD kicks in and they go play Sega" and since his lack of depth is the only defining characteristic to him writers can't really add any kind of worthwhile or intelligent motivation, as Roger Stern did to the Vulture or Dan Slott did to Doc Oc. And he - unlike Venom - is treated completely seriously by the writers. Pathetic.
And he's from space, which STILL doesn't work for Spider-stories.
Kudos to Bendis, (again) for killing this waste-of-space, lowest common denominator character off. May he stay dead forever.
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Post by Batflunkie on Mar 7, 2016 20:15:12 GMT -5
The only incarnation of Venom that I cared for was the more recent one with Flash as a black ops operative turned Space Knight
Also, a lot of early Image comics seemed to utilize Symbiotes as a focal point, namely Wildstar and Wetworks
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 7, 2016 20:32:33 GMT -5
I've never had the remotest interest in either of them.
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Post by Spike-X on Mar 8, 2016 3:04:31 GMT -5
Nor I.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2016 4:35:45 GMT -5
The initial story of separating the symbiote from Peter was interesting, the finding of the new host and the creation of Venom was ok, but it should have ended there. It wasn't a good enough idea or villain to keep going back tot he well with. And Cletus Kasady was one walking cliche heaped upon another to capitalize on the serial killer craze of the time with nothing original or interesting to offer me.
So I think they got 1 good story, one ok story and a whole lot of meh to terrible stories out of the idea. If they had stopped at ASM #300, I think I would have liked the concept a whole lot better. After that it was diminishing returns on something that wasn't that great to begin with.
-M
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Post by crazyoldhermit on Mar 8, 2016 5:02:50 GMT -5
When I was a kid they were the absolute coolest.
Now? Not so much. Or rather, I care about things beyond simple one-dimensional coolness.
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Post by dupersuper on Mar 8, 2016 6:38:25 GMT -5
Venom started out as a cool idea in Secret Wars, then got all 90s Xtreme and silly, though Flash being able to control him is interesting. Carnage started out 90s Xtreme and, from what I know, has stayed there. Though I admit he may be used very well in awesome stories that I've never read because he seems ridiculous (and not in a good way).
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 8, 2016 6:47:12 GMT -5
II'm with pinkflouyd17 : it's mostly a generational thing. Venom appeared after I had stopped reading Spider-man and I never could see anything in him but a derivative character with little originality or interest past the first story. The symbiote costume was a good idea, but Venom himself got redundant pretty quickly... kind of like if someone else had been transformed into Cap Wolf in Captain America and had kept running around with a shield for twenty more years.
Carnage was all right, I suppose, in that "derivative character inspired by another derivative character" way. Luckily he's been used a lot less.
Flash Thompson as Venom is really pushing it with the cannibalistic and incestuous storytelling : not only does yet another supporting character get superpowers, but he has to also be fused with a pre-existing derivative villain.
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Post by DE Sinclair on Mar 8, 2016 10:15:02 GMT -5
The symbiote costume that turned into Venom was one of the few worthwhile, lasting things to come out of Secret Wars. The stories where Spidey discovered what the costume was and fought against it were good. The first few Venom stories were pretty good. Then they decided that if some was good, then a crap-ton must be fabulous. And if that was fabulous, than a junior-symbiotic psychotic spin off must be even better. Except it wasn't. Now I'm sick of Venom and never liked Carnage.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 8, 2016 10:57:21 GMT -5
Then they decided that if some was good, then a crap-ton must be fabulous. That is the most accurate indictment of Big Two editorial policy I've seen to date! |
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Crimebuster
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Making comics!
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Post by Crimebuster on Mar 8, 2016 11:25:53 GMT -5
To echo everyone else, the original symbiote/venom stories were okay. Everything since has been eight kinds of crap on a stick. Carnage, give me a break. Terrible.
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