Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Gerry Conway
Artist: Mike Perkins
Colourist: Andy Troy
Editor: Nick Lowe
Release date: OUT NOW!!!
Price: $3.99

Cletus Cassidy/Carnage the super-serial killer is one of the most horrifying villains in comics, and by page three the brutal murder of diner customers reminds us exactly why. As a villain Carnage is closer in charm to Leatherface than Hannibal Lecter.

In Carnage #1 the FBI wants Carnage, and his old love interest Manuela Calderon, with the help of Col. John Jameson, as bait to lure out the monster. Carnage is not the only alien symbiote-carrying dude around and original Venom now Toxin/Eddie Brock is back and helping the FBI. He explains their relationship: Toxin “split off from Carnage. Making Toxin Venom’s grandkid. And making me kinda my own granddad.” He’s now under government control like now-Venom/Flash Thompson. When the Toxin–Carnage fight happens we’ll be ready to rumble.

Mike Del Mundo’s amazing cover hints at what lies beneath. And Perkins’s art flows smoothly and his figures are graceful, having a Howard Chaykin feel to it, high praise indeed.

Carnage #1 is satisfying, true to the character and but over too quickly. A Carnage comic should be a horror movie, and so it is. At a time when most Bronze Age comic book writers are in the wind, Gerry Conway (the man who killed Gwen Stacy (that’s the Reviews Editor cheering in the background, he wants to shake Gerry’s hand, Gwen Stacy needed to go) shows he still has it.

Reviewer: Joe Lovece
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker