Revisiting “Maximum Carnage” Part 2
Part II: Found family
Welcome back to the raddest ‘90s retrospective series. It’s totally tubular. Carnage can…uh…eat my shorts? Okay. That’s enough of that. For those of you just joining, we spent last week discussing where the various Spider-Man titles were at in the lead up to the “Maximum Carnage” event that would encompass every title in the line. In this week’s edition, we’ll cover all of the major players involved in the story on the villainous side of things. Substack has a limit on the amount of images one can include in a post and still have it go out to subscribers, so I’m going to have to split this into two separate posts. I promise we’ll do the “heroes” next week. Yes, the quotes are very necessary as you’ll see next week.
The Villains
Carnage (Cletus Kasady)
Created by David Michelinie and Mark Bagley back in Amazing Spider-Man #361, Carnage provides an answer to an age old question: what if the Joker got superpowers from a parasitic space monster? That’s basically what Carnage is. Cletus Kasady (the human host) is an unrepentant serial killer who believes that societal norms are nonsense, and the only way to live life is through complete chaos and murdering at random without any rhyme or reason. He is not a nice guy. When he bonds to Venom’s mutated symbiotic offspring he becomes an even more powerful and stronger version of his “father” and acts on those newfound abilities by going on a murder spree. This is the absolute last person you ever want to gain great power. His symbiote is believed to have been killed at the end of that initial story, but we learn in Spider-Man Unlimited #1 that it is actually hibernating in his blood. After viciously slaughtering all of the guards and orderlies at the institution he’s in, he runs into his biggest fan who just happens to be locked up in the same facility.
Shriek (Frances Louise Barrison)
That fan just so happens to be Shriek. Created by Tom DeFalco and Ron Lim specifically for this event, Shriek is a mutant with the dual abilities of unleashing sonic blasts and to psychically tap into people’s minds to unleash their most violent impulses. You can see how this would be very appealing to someone like Carnage. In fact, it’s so appealing that he scoops her up on the spot and makes her his macabre bride. The two swing off into New York City with murder on their minds.
Doppelgänger
While Carnage and Shriek are swinging through town, the catch a glimpse of what they believe to be Spider-Man. Not wanting to pass up an opportunity to murder the guy responsible for Carnage getting locked up in the first place, they attempt to ambush him. Much to their surprise, it isn’t Spider-Man at all. It’s actually his evil Doppelgänger. Who or what is Doppelgänger? Created by Jim Starlin and Ron Lim in The Infinity War #1, Doppelgänger is a being of pure animalistic rage that has Spider-Man’s costume pattern as its own skin complete with six arms with claws and a mouthful of razor sharp teeth. He also has all of Spider-Man’s powers (except his webbing is razor sharp and capable of cutting people into pieces). The Infinity War comic saw evil duplicates made of all of the popular heroes at the time. All of those characters went away after the event wrapped except for Doppelgänger. He just looked too cool to not keep around. He takes a liking to Shriek and Carnage who decide to keep him as a child and/or pet. This causes a little bit of an issue because he used to be a different villain’s child/pet/partner/whatever.
Demogoblin
That previous master was Demogoblin. Demogoblin is your classic case of a demon who attached himself to the villain Hobgoblin (Jason Macendale) as part of a Faustian bargain to give him the power he craved to be able to kill Spider-Man. The demon eventually got sick of Macendale, so he separated from him and created his own goblin persona as Demogoblin. He’s basically the same as Hobgoblin except he rides a glider made of sentient Hellfire and is a literal demon from the pits of Limbo determined to purge the planet of sinners. The demon itself was created by Gerry Conway and Sal Buscema, but the Demogoblin persona was first created by Howard Mackie and Alex Saviuk. Demogoblin happens upon Carnage, Shriek, and Doppelgänger while tracking his former friend/partner/pet. After a brief fight, Demogoblin decides to join up with this completely messed up family on their righteous quest of murdering as many people as possible. Demogoblin justifies this by saying that all people are technically sinners, so he totally gets to kill whomever he chooses! Airtight logic.
Carrion (Malcolm McBride)
Of all the villains who make up Carnage’s deranged little family, Carrion is by far the most sympathetic. While the original Carrion was a clone of Miles Warren (the detestable Jackal), the version in this story is an individual named Malcolm McBride. Created by Gerry Conway and Sal Buscema, McBride was a fellow grad student of Peter Parker looking for an opportunity to one up him. He happened upon a virus created by Miles Warren that turned him into Carrion when exposed to it. As Carrion, any living thing he touches immediately decays and dies. As you might imagine, this leads to a very lonely and miserable life for McBride. In this event, he basically just tags along with Carnage and his murder family because they accept him for who he is. So sweet. Well, they accept him because he’s really good at murdering people which is their favorite activity. Less sweet.
This twisted little group comprises the antagonists of the story. Usually in a massive event such as this, the villain has some sort of epic master plan that the heroes must discover and then come up with an intricate way to thwart them. “Maximum Carnage” is a little bit different. The only plan the villains have here is to commit mass murder. That’s it. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. They just really enjoy killing innocent people, and they have the power necessary to do so on a nearly apocalyptic scale. Add in the fact that Shriek is slowly infecting the minds of the entire population of New York City to drive them to murder as well, and you have quite the atrocity being set in motion. Who are the heroes stepping up to stop these monsters? We’ll examine that next week, but sometimes it takes a monster to stop a monster.