No! Dr. Connors found out that I’ve just been hanging from this webbing on my toes instead of finishing my paper on Boron!
I’ve always been a fan of Spiderman, one of my first comics was an issue with the Lizard. I bought it because I like monsters and Spiderman was in his black costume. I still have the comic, Spectacular Spiderman # 127, and I think the Lizard gets a divorce from his wife or something. I don’t know, maybe I’ll dig through a few thousand comics until I find it. Although I did shift my interest in comic books related to 80’s cartoons that I watched, I always enjoyed the webhead. Years later I was at a comic and toy convention at the Gibraltar Trade Center in Michigan. For some reason I brought some comics with me to trade, including the adaptation of the 1984 Godzilla movie and some Marvel Star Wars comics. I ended up trading these comics for the first three issues that featured the character Carnage. He was battling Venom and Spiderman on the cover and I thought it was the coolest shit I had seen in quite some time. That story arc wasn’t the best written ever but it did make me a big fan of Carnage. I think it was his backstory, a serial killer, or his look. Whatever the reason it the changed my taste in comics forever. At least at the time.
Pictured here is either Carnage or myself after a can of Four Loko.
It was the early 90’s, a time when circular groups of hacky sack players could be found on every street corner singing the latest Portishead hit. I went to the comic store to see what was new, maybe an issue of Spawn or Nomad. Instead I found a miniseries starring Carnage called Maximum Carnage! Now I could talk for hours about Maximum Carnage; it was a 14 issue comic series detailing the escape of Carnage from Ravencroft, which is like the Spiderman version of Arkham Asylum, and his team up with other supervillians. It was so great there was a Genesis and SNES videogame, and it was the only cartridge in red! I can’t tell you how many times I played it, it’s probably more than a hundred and less than the amount of ninjas in The Tick videogame from Genesis. But most importantly it led to three action figures based off the game, figures that started my interest in buying Marvel Comics figures. But that’s a story for another time, this is about Carnage.
Now you can buy your child an action figure based off of a fictional serial killer!
The first Carnage figure was made to capitalize on the Maximum Carnage comic storyline. Only three figures were made(Spiderman, Carnage, and Venom), figures that were later recycled into the Spiderman Animated toyline. I could write a series about that series, heh. The first Carnage featured really good sculpting and totally 90’s articulation. Also included was a pin(why?) and snap on weapons. One of them was a claw, another an axe, and the last symbiote tendrils. Something I’ve always liked is the option of adding pieces to the character, especially when they are character accurate. In this case they most certainly are, and they’re most welcome. There was a follow up version of Carnage that was pretty nice too, he had a removable head with his alter ego Cletus Kassidy underneath.
He’s a ginger? Huh.
Over the years there’s been a few other Carnage figures, mostly good, and the new one from the Spiderman Marvel Legends line looks to be another in a long line of respectable Carnage figures. Of course the only real way to make the character respectable is a top hat and coattails. He’s starting to pop up at toy stores, mostly Target, and it seems like he and every other figure excluding Superior Spiderman and Who Gives A Fuck Spiderman vanish from the store before I can leave the parking lot. Thank God I only buy Marvel Legends sometimes, Transformers are much easier to find in person. Black Cat is also a figure I’d like to buy, if only to have a decent version of her on my Marvel Legends shelf. I’d like to briefly mention her but I’m out of time! Maybe Friday? Is that a teaser? Check me out on Friday to find out!
You will be mine Car- I mean Spawn of Symbiotes.
newwavescott's Blog 