Spidey Friday Night Fights: Maximum Carnage Part Two

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”

It’s Friday, and that means it’s time for Spidey Friday Night Fights, where we’re continuing our look at Maximum Carnage from 1993.  Since this is a continuation of last week’s coverage we’re going to skip the the build-up, the back story, and the Fight Card – and just jump right in to the action and bad dialogue.

Last week when we left off, Team Spidey routinely had their butts handed to them by the Carnage Family – mainly due to a lack of teamwork and coordination.  Can they change that around this week?

We’ll be focusing on Parts Six through Ten this week, and next week with Maximum Carnage Part Three we’ll wrap everything up.

Strap in, Spider-Fans.  What lies ahead is packed with violence, odd character appearances that give new meaning to “out of nowhere” and a kill count that rivals the first half of a season of ’24.’

Let’s get to it!

ROUND SIX – DING!

For Round Six we delve into Web of Spider-Man #102 (‘Sinking Fast’) and it’s Terry Kavanagh & Alex Saviuk’s turn back at bat, as it were.

With the city tearing itself apart, and Black Cat, Cloak and Venom breaking off from Spidey to do their own thing against the Carnage Family, the bad guys are having a field day.  And so is Morbius, who is busy tearing into some street toughs before Venom recruits him into Team Spi… err Team Venom.

Meanwhile, Spidey takes a break to bandage himself up – thus allowing a lot of inner monologue to catch anyone up on the story in case they came in late to the party.

This issue gives us a huge fight in a dance club (where Mary Jane just happens to be – convenient!) when Team Spi… err Team Venom corners the Carnage Family just as they’re getting into their whole “kill everyone in sight” bit.  It’s a pretty brutal back in forth and you’ve got a lot of heavy hitters just kicking the crap out of one another all over the place.   That’s pretty much the meat of Maximum Carnage – a series of giant fights strung together by thin story threads.  I would say it’s an early example of decompression, with fourteen issues telling a story that could be told in four or five, but we’ve got way too much dialogue here for it to be considered decompression.  And unfortunately, most of its bad!

Remember what I called this folks – it’s the ‘Tango & Cash’ of Spidey fights.  It’s not the smartest thing written but it’s damn sure fun to look at!  In fact there is so much action packed into these fights that you can get a headache trying to follow it all.  So you’re definitely getting your money’s worth.  Or more correctly you were getting your money’s worth in 1993!

ROUND SEVEN – DING!

And now we head back to Amazing Spider-Man #379 (‘The Gathering Storm’) where Dave Michelinie and Mark Bagley are getting ready to throw Deathlok into the fray.  Wait – what?

Yes, Deathlok.  The character had his own fairly popular ongoing from 1991 to 1994 and so editorial felt that maybe throwing him into the mix would boost his own book some.  His entrance is completely out of left field.  Morbius suddenly showing up made sense – Deathlok?  Yeah that was stretching it.

Anyhoo!  Team Spi… err Team Venom is busy trying to come up with a plan to tackle the Carnage Family properly while Morbius is digging up dirt on Shriek over at Ravencroft. But will he make it before the sun comes up?  Oh, the drama!

Carnage and his baddies have a dust-up with the New York Police Department’s ‘Extreme Emergency Team’ (everything was ‘Extreme’ back in the 90’s – marketing knew few other buzz words) but gets a hand from Carrion, who finally makes himself known to Carnage’s Crew.  And he jumps in just in time for Deathlok to ‘activate’ and make a straight line towards a throw down with that bad guys.

Now back in the day I was actually a fan of Deathlok’s solo title.  It was off-beat and different, despite being a part of that horrific “everyone needs to have a lot of guns” phase of the early 1990’s.  Unfortunately for us this fight starts off kick-ass and ends up way to fast with a face-palm, leaving Deathlok short circuited against a billboard.

Meanwhile, at Four Freedoms Plaza (which is undergoing reconstruction during Maximum Carnage) Team Spidey gets their hands on the sonic cannon that Reed Richards designed specifically to target symbiotes.  And even more importantly Cloak finds Firestar and brings her aboard Team Spidey, right out of the frickin’ blue.

Onwards and upwards, True Believers!

ROUND EIGHT – DING!

Next up we dare to dive into the pages of Spider-Man #36 (‘Hate is in the Air’) and Terry Kavanagh is right back at it, this time with Tom Lyle.  Team Spidey, with new member Firestar in tow, is shaking down Old Man Jameson for info at the Bugle while Carnage is – well doing what he does most, killing people.

And Firestar’s not sure Team Spidey needs to resort to killing Carnage the way some members of Team Spidey believe.  Again – the drama!

We’re treated to a quick Molten Man vs. Crazy New Yorkers scene and get a glimpse of Morbius getting his beauty sleep while Team Spidey and the Carnage Family start trying to kill one another all over Brooklyn.  And Team Spidey finally gets Carnage and his pals on the ropes with a more coordinated and focused attack – at last!

This is really Firestar’s time to shine as she and Venom hit Carnage at the same time to weaken his symbiote.  But conscience forces Spidey to stop Venom before he can eat Cletus’s brain (God I can’t believe I actually just typed that) and that gives Shriek enough time to ‘tough love’ her man back to his maniacal symbiote self.

“But George!” you breathlessly exclaim.  “What about poor Deathlok?”

Well fortunately for Deathlok, Iron Fist just happened to be walking by.  No, seriously.  That’s exactly what happened.  Iron Fist managed to save Deathlok from the dangerous billboard.  We’ll see more of them later, don’t worry.

It’s all coming together to make as much sense as a Salvador Dali painting.

ROUND NINE – DING!

Off we go back to Spectacular Spider-Man #202 (‘The Turning Point’) where J.M. DeMatteis & Sal Buscema (Yay!) are continuing the (… wait for it) carnage that’s now spilled into Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Things take a severe turn for the worse for Team Spidey this time, and the doubts and conflicting motives of the group start to bubble over.  Firestar’s finally pouring it all on Carnage, with Venom egging her on to kill Cletus while Spider-Man is trying to stop her.

Again – drama!

Eventually Spidey wins out and Firestar stops cooking Carnage.  And Team Spidey splinters.  Venom loses it and goes after Firestar but then knocks Spidey into the middle of next week when he tries to stop him.

So here’s the rundown: Spidey’s down, Black Cat’s down, Morbius is down, Firestar’s down, Cloak is… err… somewhere. This leaves Venom to face Carnage and Shriek alone, and with Shriek’s powers he’s quickly overcome.  And Cletus and his ‘wife’ commence with the whoopin’s.  All seems grave!  All seems lost!  But wait – who’s that masked man coming to give Spider-Man a hand?

It’s… Captain America.  You guessed it – right out of nowhere.

ROUND TEN – DING!

For the last round this week we turn back to the pages of Web of Spider-Man, issue #103 (‘Sin City’) by Terry Kavanagh & Alex Saviuk.  The Carnage Family is in the middle of a full-court press of Evil in Downtown New York, while Captain America takes Team Spidey (sans Venom) back to Avengers Headquarters for some milk & cookies.  Bear in mind this is the giant white Avenger building and not Avengers mansion.

The writing really leaves you scratching a hole in your head if you’re actually trying to follow the story and figure things out.  While at the Avemgers compound, Cap and his super buddies figure out that someone’s trying to hack into the Avengers computer banks looking for info on Carnage and his pals.  Who would be daring enough for that?  Why, Deathlok and Iron Fist, of course!  I smell a sleepover in the future!

Elsewhere, Cloak, Black Cat and Morbius are busy trying to track down the bad guys and wind up having a side-party with Carrion, Demogoblin and the Doppleganger.  They get a last-minute save from Nightwatch, who was a straight-up Spawn ripoff.

People generally don’t remember Nightwatch from the early 90’s.  And that’s a good thing cause he was pretty forgettable.  Nevertheless, he’s part of Team Spidey now.

But the Black Cat’s had enough, and while Nightwatch, Cloak and Morbius go after the villains she decides she’s had enough for one night and heads home.

Thankfully Team Spidey finally gets together with Iron Fist and Deathlok, so while one member bows out – two more take her place.  Spidey makes a quick segue to beat up some prisoners and then the whole team’s off to find Carnage and Shriek, who are torturing Venom inside their new base at… the Statue of Liberty.

And that’s where we stop for now!  Next week we’ll close out this entire mega-battle with the last four rounds in Maximum Carnage Part Three.  Ha-cha!  But now that we’re done for tonight, let’s get our decision by the judges…

DECISION: DRAW

Agreed, yeah.  There’s so much back and forth between the two teams.  They take turns crumbling and re-focusing and not much is really gained or lost.  The Carnage Family still has the edge at this point though since they’re basically ransacking New York and killing people at will.

Alright, as we do every on every Spidey Friday Night Fight let’s check in with our fight analysts Ben Grimm and Shang Chi back at the studio.  Ben – a little bit better effort tonight from Team Spidey but clearly still not there.  You’re take?

“Well yeah, it’s hard ta kick th’ other side’s teeth in when yer too busy fightin’ amongst one another.

And honestly this can happen to th’ best of ’em, from the Fantastic Four to the Avengers and… well damn, the X-Men call it ‘Tuesday,’ know what I’m sayin’?  Normally as heroes ya can usually expect th’ bad guys to start fightin’ amongst themselves almost ten times outta ten.  I remember back in th’ Secret Wars the baddies couldn’t get focused enough to make a good run at us early on, what with Doom and Kang goin’ at each other right at th’ onset.

Lack o’ communication’s a killer in just about every facet o’ life an’ the superhero biz is no exception.  Team Spidey proves that again an’ again here, with some o’ the team wantin’ to deep-six Carnage n’ Shriek and others, namely Spidey n’ Firestar, against goin’ that far.  And with good reason!  Cuz once ya start killin’, well… it can be hard ta stop.  Ya make one exception an’ then th’ next time ya face somethin’ tough that ya might be able to beat without goin’ all Wolverine yer mind plays tricks on ya an’ suddenly killin’ one more won’t be so bad.  Next thing ya know, yer Frank Castle.

Then again, sometimes they don’ give ya much of a chance.  Take Wonder Woman in DC with that Maxwell Lord freak.  She asked him point blank, with her lasso o’ truth n’ all, what is it gonna take ta stop ya?  And his answer really didn’t her much choice at all.  It sucks, but sometimes ya gotta make that call.

So lessons learned here?  1.) Don’t go killin’ all willy-nilly, especially if th’ whole team ain’t on board with th’ idea, and 2.) Don’t have Venom on th’ team.  I mean that should just be obvious.  Just say no ta sociopathic brain eaters.

But that wasn’t th’ only thing holdin’ Team Spidey back an’ I am sure Shang Chi can give us some more examples.  Shang?”

“The death of a thousand cuts begins with one slice, Ben Grimm.

Team Spidey is learning this lesson in spades.  Rarely do they ever hit their enemy at full strength.  They make one stand here, another there, and each time someone’s off wounded, or the vampire needs his beauty sleep, or Venom’s busy trying to eat a brain, so on and so on.  When your strength is not at its peak focus is even more important, and Team Spidey found few moments of focus.

It is the same with dating.  If Shang Chi is trying to be tender with a woman and enjoy special time his focus must be complete and his strength must be absolute.  If Shang Chi’s hands are as the Octopus but his legs are like the Tiger then Shang Chi’s lady friend will be met with an unbalanced attack. But if Shang Chi’s hands are in communication with Shang Chi’s legs, and can coordinate and use strategy, then Shang Chi and his lady friend are in for an unforgettable time.

This is always the case though with Shang Chi, because Shang Chi delivers ten times out of ten.  Like John Shaft.

But with both Iron Fist and Captain America on Team Spidey now, the focus problems will cease.  And Carnage’s tiny army is about to be thrashed like a roaming bunch of dirty hippies.  Excelsior!”

Thanks, Ben.  Thanks, Shang.  Alright – next Friday we wrap up Maximum Carnage and tie everything off with an aesthetically pleasing bow.

–George Berryman!