Oh wow, totally forgot to mention this, but during the Marvel sale I grabbed Axis Carnage as well.
Anyone who enjoys Carnage, or the Symbiotes in general, read this book. Heck, read this book if you love 90s tropes being parodied.
This book is filled with so many 90s Venom comic easter eggs, that even if you hate the character, you'll enjoy it.
So the backstory, apparently Dr Doom and the Scarlet Witch did some magic, and turned some villains and some heroes evil/good, don't know the details, because I didn't read Axis, yet.
So Carnage now has the "disgusting" desire to be a hero and do good, while still being himself. Sound familiar? Well it should, because Venom went through something similar in the 90s, you know back when heroes had to be violent psychopaths.
There are loads of hints and things that remind you of the 90s Venom series, Carnage even sings his own modified version of the Spider-Man theme (just like Venom back then), the opening to the fist book is incredibly similar to Venom's back then, as in thugs somehow think that it's a good idea to attack the nearly invincible mass murdering monster that's been active and in the news for years. Carnage sucks at telling right from wrong, just like Venom back then, oh and his mind is very child like.
At times he comes across as a bit of a toned down Deadpool.
He's up against a new Sin Eater, just like Venom was in one of his solo stories, the events are even referenced here, Carnage retells his childhood again, and this time even admits that he keeps remembering it differently "so I just say what sounds right". Interestingly, this does feature elements that were added in another Venom mini from the 90s (Carnage Unlimited), and not just that, but uses the exact same character designs and cloths, hell for a moment I thought it was just reusing a panel from there.
Basically, Carnage wants to be a hero, and tries his best based on classic tropes and stuff he knows from TV. He even goes and kidnaps a ruthless TV reporter so she can teach him how to be a hero.
Oh yeah, just as an aside, Carnage is now clearly better at Wolverine or Deadpool at surviving stuff or healing, at one point he gets his head blown off with a shotgun and just imminently regrows it like nothing happened, while before he at least had the decency to be knocked out for a few seconds.
Here are a few of the highlights of the first issue
http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/4925615.htmlThe woman in the last pages is the ruthless reporter. And as you can see, this new Sin Eater is kinda the real deal this time, which he even states claiming that the others are just impostors that prevented him from taking his rightful place or some such thing.
