The Batlord

I don't know if this is my favorite cover of this series or if it's the one with Carnage crossing the Delaware. Either way... awesome.

With the Avengers now out of commission, we are introduced to Mercury Team, a special forces group made up of American soldiers controlling catatonic alien symbiotes. They're not nearly as powerful as Carnage or Venom, but they also don't have the danger of being bonded to their symbiotes and losing control. For the most part, their other halves mainly give them the ability to make better use of traditional weaponry, but the guy who controls the symbiotic dog is pretty bitchin'.




And then of course there's the return of Dr. Tanis Nieves, still sporting her new symbiote, Scorn, from Carnage. She's now under US control, and being trained as an agent. Since her symbiote was "born" in a cybernetic prosthetic arm, it is part machine, and gives Nieves the ability to bond with other technology. She isn't entirely pleased with being Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole, but appears to have accepted her new lot in life if only because she's too numb to really deal with what's happened.




I kind of love her. Her arc in Carnage was definitely the most interesting thing about that series. She started as an idealist intent on helping even the most damaged of individuals, but was disillusioned by her experience in the mind of Carnage and witnessing her former patient Shriek's relapse into a murderous psychopath, and not entirely because of her bonding to her symbiote. Now the former doctor is playing the role of assassin, willingly throwing away her Hippocratic oath. If I don't quite consider her a hero, it's not so much because of her symbiote making her a Venom-style anti-hero. She's fully in control of her sanity, but while she is following her conscience to an extent, she's seems to be going along with the flow more than anything. I think that's pretty interesting, as I imagine that's how many would react to becoming a "superhero"; she doesn't quite know what to do with herself at the moment, but has a vague notion that she should make like Superman, and letting the government point her in a direction is as good a plan as any. I don't know how much of a role she's going to be playing in the Marvel universe, but I'd definitely be happy to see them develop her further. She's had only two appearances after this series, one in Venom #15, and again in Superior Carnage #5, which was released in November 2013, so she's been inactive for almost a year. Since she's been associated with Carnage in three separate series, maybe she'll make an appearance in AXIS: Carnage. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Aside from Mercury team, Spider-Man has made contact with a resistance movement operating out of some guy's private zoo. Yeah, you read that right. So, what with an imminent special forces strike, partisans, and a deadline of morning on the following day before the Air Force turns the entire town into a fireball, this is setting up a warzone that will engulf the rest of the series.

But Carnage hasn't been idle. He doesn't so much seem to be preparing for war, as he is devising new ways to torture his captives. His current little game is that he's decided to "adopt" two children.




And that Spider-Pet is Doppleganger. It's like a four-armed, monster version of Spider-Man. He's sort of like Carnage's dog. Anyway, Kasady is unfortunately not particularly impressed with the loyalty of their mother. So he orders her to kill her husband while the children watch, or else he will make her watch as he kills the children. The only problem is that the father is one of the resistance, so he gives them some... equipment...




Kasady really is turning in one of my new favorite Comic Book Psycho performances. His sadism is low key. Rather than turning his hands into axes and racking up as high a body count as possible, he's concerning himself mostly with spreading misery in more insidious, psychologically damaging ways. Hell, he only wears the suit for a few pages in the beginning of he book. There are more shots of the townspeople and the Avengers wearing the symbiote than him, and that's the rule for most of the series. Seriously though, if anyone knows a better Carnage story then I need to know.

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