Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage Paperback – January 1, 2006

I was into X titles and the Avengers titles in the 90s, it was my brother who collected Spidey titles. However, this one caught my eye as it had Firestar( New warriors fan!) and also Captain America. Cloak and Dagger were also favorites of mine, though at the time they didn’t have a series.The 14 part series is a great read! Venom working as an anti-hero was the highlight of the storyline. Also really enjoyed all of the moral and ethical perspectives in the series. Plenty of action and fight scenes also. One of the best parts was when Venom decided to go and kill Carnage and took several heroes with him. Spidey stood his ground and vowed not to kill having several characters on his side. Don’t want to ruin the surprise, but a hero shockingly chooses Venom’s side.I read it over and over as a kid, and as an adult purchased this for my own collection.

The first time that I read Maximum Carnage, in my opinion this was the most difficult Spiderman's fight (until that date...). It was really a hard fight with a lot of enemies and murders (not so common in 90's...), and this was the first time that we could see Spiderman and Venom fighting side by side in a "big" story, involving Captain America and other superheroes too.. Now I had the pleasure of reading again this fabulous story and I can say that I had a different point of view when I compared it with my first time. Reading again, and of course I am too older than in 90's, I realized how good this story was, because of the emphasis in how difficult is for a person simply to "kill", independent of the situation. In many times, Spiderman decided to kill Carnage (because he is an unstoppable killer) and in the last time, he changed his mind. This is a truly real conflict in a normal person's mind, like Peter's. For some heroes like Wolverine and Punisher it's easy to kill (and I love this...), because they were soldiers in the past, but Parker was a simply student, plagued by your uncle's dead. And this is funnest part of comic books... the different point of view of the superheroes, their purposes and the way that each one can walk.. So, Maximum Carnage is really a great story because it put characters like Spiderman and Venon in totally opposite sides with the same goal. And of course you can see the deadliest enemy of Spiderman in action. I recommend to all Spiderman fans (new and old...)

First off I like to say im a big Spiderman and Venom fan and this saga ment alot to me. A long time ago when I was a kid back in 1993-94 I never had the opportunity to finish this saga because the stores I use to get comic books from didn't order them each month there for I missed out on alot of things that happen in this saga so when I found out there was a paperback version I jumped to the chance of finally finishing the story. It was every thing I thought it would be it had alot of action Carnage definitely painted the town red (alot of people died) and it was cool to see Venom in action because around that time Venom became so popular he even had his own comic books (Venom Lethal Protector). I know some fans may not like this saga because the story might not have been all that in depth but it made sense that it wasn't that in depth because when you read the book when Carnage broke out of prison he really didnt have that much of a plan except to go on a murderous rampage across New York city he even said that he had no plan which in my opinion show just how much of a powerful lunatic he really was and even without a plan he still gave Spiderman, Venom and the rest of New York hell. He does such a good job at getting on the readers nerves that you would be rooting for Venom to kill him and be booing Spiderman for having morals and no matter what he (Carnage) does Spiderman still wants to take him into custody. Overall fun read if you like Spiderman and Venom team ups just dont look for a real in depth story only pick this up if you like action. I only gave it five stars because it brought back good childhood memories what can I say im kind of bias when it comes to Spiderman.