Venom Comics Revisit MAXIMUM CARNAGE, With a Twist | Screen Rant
The pages of the Marvel's Venom have bled shades of a familiar hue, as penciller Mark Bagley returns to the age-old conflict of Venom vs Carnage, with a twist. The black alien symbiote will once again take the fight to his red, murderous offspring. But this time Eddie Brock's son Dylan has donned the Venom suit, while Eddie finds himself possessed by the alien symbiote once worn by his arch-enemy: serial killer Cletus Kasady, Carnage.
Longtime readers and Spider-Man fans may recognize Bagley's name as the artist who created Carnage in Amazing Spider-Man #361, and one of the chief artists behind the 1993 event Maximum Carnage, which featured an early team-up between the webslinger and Venom in what was perhaps the most famous of the Carnage story-arcs. Writer Donny Cates appears to have been working up to a fitting conclusion in the Venom Island story-arc, and an old-school Venom/Carnage beat-down, drawn by the man behind so many of their iconic conflicts, seems to be just what the doctor ordered.
While all appeared to be lost at the end of Venom #23, with the Venom symbiote looking to have been vaporized by a nuclear weapon, the next issue revealed all this to be a hallucination engineered by the vicious Carnage symbiote as it possessed the helpless Eddie. In true throwback fashion, the conclusion of Venom #24 depicted Dylan Brock, now utilizing the Venom symbiote in the form of a Tyrannosaurus Rex (dubbed the "V-Rex" in the editor's note), charging towards his father, now possessed by the Carnage symbiote (and also missing a hand). The original host of Carnage, Cletus Kasady, is dead now, having met his end at the hands of Venom himself during 2019's Absolute Carnage crossover, but it appears his symbiote has persevered, and is keening to take his revenge on Eddie. And he just might get his son in the bargain as well.
The stage is set for the conclusion of Venom Island to pay homage to the classic story-arcs of the '90s that cemented both characters as the popular, dynamic figures they have become in recent years, and envisioned by the artist who did much to endow them with their defining look. Bagley's slick, fluid pencils through the '90s in his work on Amazing Spider-Man and later in the '00s with Ultimate Spider-Man provided much of not only the spritely physicality we associate with the web-slinger today. However, perhaps his greatest contribution to world of popular comic art would be the amorphous liquidity tied to the Venom symbiote itself. Though his longtime work on Carnage, the emotionless jack-o-lantern face, the quivering, wiry tendrils and the quick, merciless brutality might not be far behind.
There's a certain cartoonish psychology that goes along with much of Bagley's work, making the partnership with Cates a serendipitous one, given Cates's proclivity towards embracing the more deranged, nightmare-esque side of the Venom. This new battle between the two symbiotes may be their most twisted however, as father and son will now battle for their lives against each other. Bagley's provided some spectacularly gruesome visuals in the past for such a match. Could we be in store for another wonder?
Venom #25 will be available on April 8th, 2020.