This is "From a Different Point of View," a feature where I discuss a comic book series with other people. Ever since the pandemic began, I've been doing twice-weekly reader chats about notable comic book crossovers, storylines or miniseries. We started with Secret Wars and then we did Knightfall and now we're starting with Maximum Carnage!
Each time around, I'll share a chunk of our discussion.
When last we checked in on Maximum Carnage, we were discussing Spider-Man #35, Maximum Carnage Part 4, "Team Venom," by Howard Mackie, Tom Lyle and Scott Hanna with letters by Rick Parker and colors by Ericka Moran and Kevin Tinsley.
Carnage has escaped from custody and gone on a rampage in Manhattan, along with Shriek and Doppelganger. Venom has just arrived from New York City. Meanwhile, Spider-Man is rattled from an earlier battle where he tried to stop the villains with Cloak and Dagger and Dagger was seemingly killed! Mary Jane tries to convince Peter to give being Spider-Man a rest during this situation, but Peter can't do that and he heads back out to hunt down Carnage. He encounters the Demogoblin instead and only barely fights him off, but reinjures his ribs (which he hurt earlier in the crossover). Spider-Man then heads home, but Venom attacks Carnage and his crew and gets beaten badly. An injured Venom arrives at Peter and Mary Jane's apartment and passes out. Mary Jane storms off, offended that Spider-Man let him in. Spider-Man needs someone to turn to, and rather than going to the Avengers or the Fantastic Four, he turns to Black Cat. She then storms out on Spider-Man when he shows an unwillingness to kill Carnage.
Where did Black Cat go? And what about the Demogoblin? Where is he?
Flavio Sette: : Speaking of the Parkers...
Brian Cronin: : it's quite a scene, with lots of close-ups of eyes.
Chriscoke: : That's confusing. I'm pretty sure Peter's parents were dead when the series started.
Writerboy: : Mary talks about Harry like she knew him.
Flavio Sette: : “Sit down, Mary Jane, dear. Let me tell you a story about this one summer when we were young and Mary, May and I worked at a hotel up in the Hamptons”.
Writerboy: : Booooooooooooooooooooooooo
Brian Cronin: : "Oh, the lube we used, Mary Jane."
Flavio Sette: : I will not stop making references to Trouble. It’s my duty in this life to remind people Marvel published this.
Flavio Sette: : "May loved it when I wore the Mickey Mouse costume to bed, didn't you?"
Chriscoke: : Mary does know Harry. He was behind her creation.
Writerboy: : I still have nightmares about the "Old and busted/New hotness" ads they ran
Sean Whitmore: : By the way, how awkward is it to switch tacks from "Poor dead Harry" to "BY THE WAY, how's Peter?"
Flavio Sette: : Yeah!
Writerboy: : (seven years after Men in Black)
Flavio Sette: : In hindsight, it does look like this was the Richard robot trying to change the subject to Peter so he can maybe figure out Spider-Man secret identity. But if you don’t know about that, it just looks like he went, “Speaking of painful deaths, where’s Peter?”
Brian Cronin: : There is about a 0% chance that they were robots trying to find his secret identity at this point.
Sean Whitmore: : But remember, the robots don't know they're robots at this point
Sean Whitmore: : I mean, yeah, what Brian said too
Flavio Sette: : True, Brian, but yeah, in a retconny sorta way it does make sense.
Tom A.: : I guess that "Richard" lost a lot of social skills while in that prison camp.
Brian Cronin: : Yeah, I think that's likely what led Fingeroth down that path, Flavio.
Chriscoke: : Robots who were part of a plan of Harry's, who already knew Spider-Man's secret identity.
Brian Cronin: : He looked at what they had written so far and tried to figure out a direction out of it.
Tom A.: : I can understand the robot retcon, nobody cares about Peter's parents and them being around added nothing and just made things confusing in a soap opera way.
Tom A.: : Well, nobody cares about Peter's parents except Sony studios that is.
Sean Whitmore: : The biggest hail mary of the robot-parents reveal was that whole "They truly believed they were the Parkers up until they heard the reveal" nonsense.
Flavio Sette: : There was bound to be something up with them.
Writerboy: : Harry obviously talked Chameleon into it just to screw with Peter
Tom A.: : Who thought they were super important and should dedicate tons of plot and screentime to.
Brian Cronin: : Yeah, that was Harry's involvement in it. He suggested the Parkers because he knew it would mess with Peter.
Flavio Sette: : Speaking of Tom, I recently read an early draft of Spider-Man 2 that revolved around Peter's parents and how they were scientists who were murdered by Doctor Octopus.
Brian Cronin: : But yes, the whole thing was just a total mess.
Chriscoke: : Ultimate Spider-Man also made Peter's dad a big plot point.
Brian Cronin: : And a big, big factor in Michelinie leaving the series.
Flavio Sette: : So yeah, Sony was obsessed with the Parkers as far back as 2002.
Brian Cronin: : As he was tired of being led around without knowing what the direction was on the book.
Chriscoke: : I like Michelinie a lot, but I think he long overstayed his time on Spider-Man.
Flavio Sette: : That Spider-Man 2 draft was definitely drawing from Ultimate Spider-man (I think)
Writerboy: : Thinking back to his last ish, yeah, I woulda left after that, too
Chriscoke: : It's not necessarily his fault, I get.
Brian Cronin: : "Introduce Peter's parents." "Okay, so what's their deal?" "We'll figure that out later."
Tom A.: : Peter's parents hadn't shown up in USM yet by 2002 though.
Sean Whitmore: : Which one was Micheline's last issue? Because the robot parent reveal was DeMatteis, right?
Brian Cronin: : I can't imagine having to write characters without knowing what the point of it all was.
Flavio Sette: : But I believe they had been referenced as great scientists by that point.
Flavio Sette: : I could be wrong.
Tom A.: : Like I said previously, the only real positive was clearing up the plot hole of the Red Skull killing his parents even though he should have been in suspended animation at the time, which could have been done in a Handbook.
Chriscoke: : The Clone Saga will double down on the approach. "And now we need a skeleton in a Spider-Man costume."
Flavio Sette: : I think USM #1 had a reference to Peter's dad being the one who came up with the webbing.
Brian Cronin: : Michelinie's final story arc was the robot reveal.
Brian Cronin: : In retrospect, yeah, he probably should have just let DeMatteis write that arc.
Flavio Sette: : Yeah, the whole "make it up as we go along and stretch it out to try an' milk the drama for all it's worth" approach does not a great story make, usually.
Sean Whitmore: : Oh, that was him? The "gotcha" moment felt very JMD.
Flavio Sette: : It does, doesn't it?
Brian Cronin: : Then again, it had a foil cover, so he probably made some last minute bank on that.
Flavio Sette: : And I mean that in a good way.
Brian Cronin: : Well, he might have written that in as a courtesy to the incoming writer.
Writerboy: : The X-Men office was doing the same thing
Flavio Sette: : Let's hope so, Brian!
Sean Whitmore: : Micheline got a lot of gimmick covers out of his ASM run
Sean Whitmore: : Though Bagley got quite a few more
Flavio Sette: : Yeah, that approach was used by almost everyone at Marvel at the time, Writerboy.
Writerboy: : "Okay, so in Bishop's future the X-Men were all murdered by a traitor in their ranks."
Tom A.: : "Who or what's Onslaught?" "Don't worry about it, just have the Juggernaut get beaten up, readers will love it!"
Writerboy: : "Okay, who was it?"
Writerboy: : "How the fuck should I know?"
Flavio Sette: : Yep.
Brian Cronin: : He had a funny bit when he took over Action Comics after this.
Brian Cronin: : And he was irked that the other three titles had all had foil covers
Brian Cronin: : So they just sort of abruptly gave Action a foil cover for no reason.
Sean Whitmore: : Were the other 3 Superman covers part of an event?
Flavio Sette: : Black Cat’s costume looks like it’s painted on. It’s weird to think that Jim Balent’s Catwoman design is more practical than this.
Writerboy: : Generated plenty of sidebars for Wizard, though.
Chriscoke: : There's the "Hades" line
Brian Cronin: : Yeah, Sean, but when you have four connected books.
Brian Cronin: : Obviously someone decides on which book get to be the "main part" of the event.
Chriscoke: : Hey, Shriek has sound blasts. Maybe she can stop Carnage.
Writerboy: : Anyway, why would an institution for super-villains give them reading material about supervillains?
Brian Cronin: : And thus the one that gets the special cover.
Tom A.: : It's weird how Black Cat gets over her grudge against Venom pretty quickly.
Brian Cronin: : So Action Comics #695 got a foil for no reason.
Brian Cronin: : All of the character bits in this crossover have been weird so far, Tom.
Brian Cronin: : Like the Carnage Family bonding instantly.
Sean Whitmore: : Demogoblin especially
Writerboy: : I like the idea that Demogoblin has been delivering this huge rant the whole time and Carnage and Shriek just haven't been paying attention to him
Flavio Sette: : That Action Comics #695 foil cover looks pretty interesting, though.
Sean Whitmore: : "You wanna kill people? Join us?" "Or...I could just kill you and then other people."
Flavio Sette: : It does have that going for it.
Brian Cronin: : "We can't say hell, but we can say 'Sometimes you have to stroke the devil to save the righteous.'"
Tom A.: : Yeah, you'd think that Demogoblin would consider Carnage and the others to be the worst sinners of all.
Chriscoke: : They put far more effort into introducing Demogoblin than any other character. Everyone else just kind of has bumped into each other.
Writerboy: : Wait, never mind, he's completing Carnage's though.
Chriscoke: : "Stroke the devil"?
Brian Cronin: : Exactly.
Writerboy: : Don't say "stroke" in that outfit, Felicia.
Brian Cronin: : It makes no sense except to sound sort of dirty.
Chriscoke: : He has to say "Hades" instead of "Hell", but he can say "Hellfire"
Sean Whitmore: : Peter's getting way out of hand with the "teaming up with Venom means condoning him" mindset.
Flavio Sette: : Funny that Black Cat jumps straight to “Let’s kill Carnage”.
Sean Whitmore: : He ALREADY teamed up with Venom once to do this EXACT thing.
Sean Whitmore: : And it WORKED. (Temporarily)
Chriscoke: : And he teamed up with Venom the last time they fought Carnage. Did he not pay attention to his own exposition.
Tom A.: : At least nowadays Venom and Spider-Man team-ups go much more smoothly from both sides.
Brian Cronin: : Yeah, we're very much in "Characters take positions because we need to have them take these positions for the sake of the plot" territory.
Brian Cronin: : Which, to be fair, is writing in a nutshell.
Brian Cronin: : But you have to be smoother about it.
Sean Whitmore: : Black Cat will also switch from being pro-end justify means to anti once Peter leaves the group.
Writerboy: : There is this little thing called "justification" that seems to get skipped.
Flavio Sette: : I guess it does make sense taking that into account, Sean.
Flavio Sette: : Where it doesn't make sense for her character arc for her to go from "I refuse to kill anyone" to "Let's kill Carnage" to "I refuse to kill anyone".
Flavio Sette: : It does make more sense to just have her go from "Let's kill Carnage" to "I refuse to kill anyone".
Flavio Sette: : So her arc is less of a 360 degrees "back to where we started from" type arc.
Sean Whitmore: : For a cat-themed character, we see Black Cat leap down from a roof and fall on her ass twice in this issue.
Sean Whitmore: : And I'm not totally sure why she tripped in the apartment with Venom