Welcome to the latest installment of your breath of snark free air!

Enjoy!

REALLY COOL COMIC MOMENT

As you can see by the cover, the Maximum Carnage storyline had been going on for awhile when this issue occured.

Spider-Man had formed an uneasy alliance with the villain Venom, and the two were fighting Carnage and his crew all over New York, with the help of Firestar and Cloak (who thought Dagger was dead at the time).

Spider-Man was not in good shape at the time this issue came out. He was routinely given reasons to doubt himself, and especially, his morals.

So finally, in this issue, Peter Parker breaks.

After being badly hurt by Carnage, Spider-Man decides that his "no killing" rule is outdated, and he tells Firestar, who looks to Spider-Man for the answers, to use her microwave powers to KILL Carnage.

Venom is loving it, Firestar is hating it, Carnage is not liking it much either.

Firestar pours it on, not feeling good about this at all, when finally, Spider-Man tells her, NO! STOP! THIS IS WRONG! And she does so, but she is spent, so she and Spider-Man are taken out by Carnage easily.

Venom then gets his behind handed to him by Carnage and Shreik, and they take off with Venom, to torture him for kicks.

Not a good time for Spider-Man.

As he slowly awakens from his stupor, with his thoughts racing, "Why can't anything good happen? Why is everything so EVIL?"...he is approached by a figure.

Then, the last page of the story, BIG splash page of Captain America standing above Spider-Man, saying something along the lines of, "Hi, you look like you could use a hand."

And at that point, you know everything is going to be all right.

Super cool scene - well done, JM DeMatteis!

COVER HOMAGE

One cool point to the first person to tell me which cover this Hawk and Dove cover is homaging.

SNARK FREE THEME DAY

Today's theme is "I'm really ____!" "Well, DUH!"

In other words, times when a hero's supporting cast found out his secret identity BEFORE being told...most of the time, this was done retroactively ("I ALWAYS knew it").

1. Iris Allen. On their wedding night, Barry talked in his sleep, and revealed that he was the Flash! So when, a year or so later, he actually came out and admitted it to her, Iris already knew.

2. Mary Jane Watson. In a pretty major retcon, Mary Jane Watson saw Peter Parker (as Spider-Man) change from her window when they were teens. So she knew he was Spider-Man right from the get-go. This does not exactly jibe with her appearances before this was revealed, but it really wasn't SO out of whack.

3. May Parker. When May died in Amazing Spider-Man #400, she revealed that she, too, had known Peter was Spider-Man for quite a long time. This jibed even less so than Mary Jane. However, when Norman Osborn revealed that this Aunt May was an actress paid just to mess with Peter's mind, the original Aunt May came back. She, too, eventually found out that Peter was Spider-Man, but it was news to her.

4. Ben Urich. In a recent Pulse, Ben Urich revealed that he had known Peter was Spider-Man for quite some time. In fact, Ben treated it as almost an insult that Peter would think he WOULDN'T know, as the two had worked side by side as both Ben and Peter and Ben and Spider-Man.

5. Pete Ross. Pete found out about Superboy's identity when they were teens together, however, he did not reveal the truth to Clark. In fact, he also used all his abilities to make sure noone ELSE found out. Later, when they were adults, Clark copped to it, but Pete already knew.

Can anyone think of any other examples?

COOL COMIC THINGS

Does anyone remember when the Dire Wraiths were a big thing in Marvel comics?

I mean, think about this for a moment - a Rom the Space Knight villain was not only appearing in other Marvel titles, but they played IMPORTANT roles in many Marvel titles, including Marvel's most popular title, Uncanny X-Men!

The Dire Wraiths were intergalactic bad guys who could kill people and absorb their appearance.

This ability was a major feature in an X-Men storyline involving Rogue and her split personality of Carol Danvers. Meanwhile, the Wraiths fought the Avengers, they fought the Hulk...they were all over the place!

Can you even imagine, nowadays, like, a character from Narutu or Halo or something like that not only becoming a PART of the Marvel Universe, but being accepted to the point of having storylines in NON Rom titles, playing important parts in those other book's stories?!?!

Comics are really unpredictable.

SNARK FREE CHALLENGE

It took her a long time to come to it, but I think you folks can do better. Come up with a cooler sounding codename for Kitty Pryde than Shadowcat!

Well, that's it for this installment of Snark Free Corner. Hope you had fun!