Three Teams Conclude Carnage: Black, White, and Blood #4

Carnage: Black, White, and Blood #4 by Ryan Stegman, Joe Bennett, Mattia Iacono, Declan Shalvey, Stephen Mooney, Ed Brisson, Scott Hepburn, Andres Mossa, and Joe Sabino.

Carnage Beyond – Ryan Stegman, Joe Bennett, Mattia Iacono

Early in writer Stegman’s follow-up to the penultimate Venom Beyond arc, an alternate universe version of Dylan Brock’s mother and Eddie Brock’s ex-wife, Anne Weying, says “I know this is confusing.” This is a beyond parody understatement for the clumsily written, laborious story here that features not only an alternate universe, but alternate selves, off-screen twists, and an overreliance on continuity from a different, now concluded book. What is a reader, even one familiar with how Venom ended, supposed to make of the ending here if, like the other entries in this collection, the implication is that it’s not canon? The paradoxical state the story tries to strike between real with regards to Dylan’s assumption of the Venom moniker and alternative with regards to almost everything else is dizzying.

Even if canonicity is graciously discarded on the reader’s behalf, the hurried story beats and static dialogue dramatically undermine the dynamic, densely detailed efforts of Bennett and Iacono who deliver a wonderful Thing-esque, sinewy take on Carnage that, even with an off-model Dylan-Venom (No chains! They were the whole point!), would’ve been better off somewhere else. Confusing and inessential.

Skin Deep – Declan Shalvey, Stephen Mooney

Shalvey and Mooney’s story opens with Cletus Kasady, positioned as a hero, brutally murdering a seemingly unarmed, scantily clad woman in a New York alley and throughout its pained narrative steps, it makes no attempt to either improve or iterate on the barebones idea of Carnage as a monster. Needlessly misogynistic, comically obvious, visually dense and overwhelming, and vapid, this is the kind of story that would be better left in the ‘90s with the version of Carnage that debuted there, if at all. Dismal.

The End of Humanity – Ed Brisson, Scott Hepburn, Andres Mossa

A kind of westernized post-apocalypse story, Brisson and Hepburn’s take is the best of this issue, cutting to the quick of the temptation and impulsivity that drive someone like Carnage.

As a group of scraggly survivors explore the haunts of the now-demolished Avengers tower, Mossa’s watercolor-esque red tinge gives everything a sense of unnatural wrongness, a persistent tone that heralds Carnage’s eventual killing spree appropriately, and one that partners with Hepburn’s unrefined but suggestive art well enough to dismiss the strange dialogue tics of the characters that Brisson forces before a well deserved, tantalizing finale. Simple, but effective.