Absolute Carnage: Immortal Hulk and Other Tales

Absolute Carnage

by Al Ewing, Peter David, Ed Brisson

The effects of Absolute Carnage are felt across the Marvel Universe! The late Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross was once the Red Hulk - and briefly bonded to the Venom symbiote! Now, Ross' corpse has been unearthed, though why and by whom remain unclear. But with Ross' gamma-infused body possibly in nefarious hands, Bruce Banner intends to fi nd out! During its fi rst visit to New York City, the same symbiote briefl y bonded to a human host that wasn't Peter Parker or Eddie Brock! Now, years later, this mystery man will meet his destiny...at the hands of Carnage! And former Ghost Rider Alejandra Jones is next on the lethal killer's hit list! Danny Ketch must ride again, but can he keep her out of Carnage's clutches?

COLLECTING: ABSOLUTE CARNAGE: IMMORTAL HULK #1 ABSOLUTE CARNAGE: SYMBIOTE SPIDERMAN #1 and ABSOLUTE CARNAGE: SYMBIOTE OF VENGEANCE #1

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Horror, Spider Man, Graphic Novels Comics

112 pages, Paperback

Published January 28, 2020

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm pretty sure that the original intention of tie-in comic books to bigger events, was a vehicle used to try and get readers to try out different books, and Al Ewing's Absolute Carnage: Immortal Hulk works perfectly as such a vehicle, with a contemplative and practical Bruce Banner spending most of the book within in his own mind... damn, do I need to start reading the Immortal Hulk!

Not to be outshone bad-ass workhorse Peter David yet again just drops a nice piece of scripting in Absolute Carnage: Symbiote Spider-Man (2019) #1, where he expands the story of the first person Venom ever symbioted after Parker! As ever for me the Ghost Rider book Absolute Carnage: Symbiote Of Vengeance (2019) #1, was more a miss than a hit. 7 out of 12 overall, equal to a Three Star read.

2020 read

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book collects three one-shots, all tied in to the Absolute Carnage event.

The first is a kind of prequel to the event under the Symbiote Spider-Man title. Those of you who have been reading comics as long as I have may remember the Venom symbiote taking over a random tourist and using his body to get away from the Baxter Building waaayyy back in the '80s. This story tells the tale of what that random tourist has been up to in the years since that happened and it's awesome. It did hurt that it had one of my favourite goofy villains in it. #WhiteRabbit4Eva. 5 stars

The second story is a Ghost Rider tale, featuring three Ghost Riders: Johnny Blaze, Danny Ketch and Alejandra Jones. Despite the fact that this story is probably the most essential to the overall Absolute Carnage event I found it the least compelling and the ending made very little sense. 3 stars

The last story (and the one they decided to name this collection after) is an Immortal Hulk tale. It takes place mostly inside Bruce Banner's fractured psyche and is just as relevant to the current story-arc in the Hulk's own book as it is to the AC event. I found the story a bit unessential to either book, to be honest, but the artwork was absolutely stunning, so I'm giving this one, and this collection as a whole, 4 stars.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

While these are completely unessential tie-ins to Absolute Carnage, they are great stories on their own.

Absolute Carnage: Immortal Hulk by Al Ewing and Felipe Andrade - ★★★★
I hate Andrade's pencilhead art but Ewing's story mostly taking place in Banner's head was great. This was definitely more of an Immortal Hulk story than a Carnage one.

Absolute Carnage: Symbiote Spider-Man by Peter David and Francesco Mobili - ★★★★
This spins out of Spectacular Spider-Man story from the 80's. The symbiote once took over a tourist when Peter Parker was sleeping during the Black costume days. Kudos to Peter David for remembering this even happened. What follows is a dark tale of a life gone wrong. Not what I expected from a story whose main villain was the White Rabbit.

Absolute Carnage: Spirit of Vengeance by Ed Brisson and Juan Frigeri - ★★★
This one hooks in the most with Absolute Carnage as Carnage heads south of the border to go after the female Ghost Rider and 90's Ghost Rider, Danny Ketch, goes to help her out. Frigeri's art is the best of the three books in this.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The remaining Absolute Carnage one-shots are collected in this volume, mostly because there was nowhere else for them to go. There’s no real connective thread, but that doesn’t stop this being pretty damn good overall.

The Immortal Hulk one-shot is written by Al Ewing, the writer of Immortal Hulk itself, so it’s no surprise that this plays well with the ongoing plot of that book as well as the main Absolute Carnage story as well. It’s dark, gritty, and downright disturbing, which is exactly what the marrying of these two books should be. It’s almost an essential tie-in given the events in the main series, to be honest. The art from Filipe Andrade is a little spindly, but that's part of Andrade's charm.

Next is Symbiote Of Vengeance, which brings back Alejandra Blaze, the female Ghost Rider of a few years ago who hasn’t been seen since. This is a nice little Ghost Rider story, and it sets up some stuff that writer Ed Brisson is going to use in his new Ghost Rider series, but it is a bit of a shame how it all shakes out overall. The threat of Carnage is almost incidental to the story here, and even he says he has better things to do. The art by Juan Frigeri is great, but this is probably the weakest of the three, to be honest.

And finally, Peter David slots a new story into Symbiote Spider-Man history as we focus on a character that bonded with the Venom symbiote for less than a day and didn’t even have a name until this issue. David does what he does best, crafting a complete story in one issue that will surprise readers with the turn it takes. It’s another unessential tie-in, but the strength of the storytelling makes it well worth a read regardless. The artwork’s by Francesco Mobili, who's another of Marvel's stable of random fill-in artists, but his style's definitely one to watch. It's far better than Greg Land who pencils the main Symbiote Spider-Man stories at the very least.

A collection of unrelated one-shots doesn’t really have any right being this good, but here we are. Sometimes random collections can surprise you.

[AJ Kallas · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are the tie-ins that matters the least to the overall story. But they are easily the best besides the Venom or Spider-Man titles.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not terrible, but not exactly essential reading, either. The Hulk story wasn't bad and ties in fairly well to the current run. There's also a good Peter David story about an incidental character from Amazing Spider-Man who once briefly carried the symbiote and has thus been targeted by Carnage. The third story, about a couple of secondary Ghost Riders, is pretty forgettable. There's really nothing to tie these together--talk about a mishmash.

[Ma'Belle · Rating 3 out of 5]

4 stars for Ewing's Immortal Hulk script, though I didn't care for the art as much
3 stars for the Spider-Man story
1 star for the Ghostrider story. Yikes! Reading that reminded me of the extreme range of quality that's going to be published at any given point alongside titles in the same world at the other end of the quality spectrum.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad read, but as is the case with many of the big Marvel Crossover events, it didn't really feel necessary. But it didn't come across as strictly a cash grab either. We had an okay Immortal Hulk story, an unusual but not bad Symbiote Spider-man story, and then a Ghost Rider story which was probably my favorite of the volume.

[Todd Glaeser · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this for the immortal Hulk story but found the whole book incredibly underwhelming. Definitely not required reading.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had read the Immortal Hulk one somewhere else already, and loved it. Symbiote Spider-Man was good, and Symbiote of Vengeance looked cool, at least.

[Brian Garthoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars.

Probably my favorite set of Absolute Carnage tie-ins, with the strongest being Symbiote Spider-Man. Symbiote of Vengeance provides some context for the new run of Ghost Rider, and Immortal Hulk is still cool but I think showing Bruce in an all black panel over and over and over again is a pretty big cop out in the art department.

Sidenote: the Absolute Carnage: Immortal Hulk issue is also in the Absolute Carnage: Miles Morales TPB, if you are looking to read/collect all of Absolute Carnage. But I would recommend this collection over the Miles book, hands down.

[Justin Partridge · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Getting involved with this is a MISTAKE. Ross is back in his grave- - that part’s over. So we’re DONE.

Betty and Jones are waiting in California, where WE need to be. We got WORK to do, remember?”

“I’m well aware. But that doesn’t mean we run off and let some space god END THE WORLD.

WE’RE ending the world. Our way.”

Did YOU remember Banner and company played a whole-ass co-starring role in Absolute Carnage? Enough so to justify a neat little side story exploring how the new system essentially VOTED IN LIKE SURVIVOR Venom in their most recent binding during that event?

Because I gotta tell ya, I sure as hell didn’t.

And while the story doesn’t really tell us anything new (but I do very much love the explicit mentioning of Betty and Rick Jones as new full cast members, along with once more fully acknowledging Banner and his system’s goal to “end the world” whatever that might mean; fucking candy, is what it is), again just SO SO struck at how much Ewing was fully committed to Trying Some Shit even amid this huge summer event.

Andrade and O’Halloran are another tremendous team to do that with too, they get the technicality of the tone and do some very fun things with the repeated angles of the “interview” but they also do this thing where all the mirrored surfaces we pass (and I’m sure this was in the script) just explode with all these Hulk related flashbacks and they feel like they are barely contained in their own frame, it’s so so cool. And very Immortal Hulk so that was even cooler to find that happening instead of just a usual bland tie-in.

The rest of the stories kinda top out at Fine™️. This is right in the middle of Deter Pavid’s whole “what other bullshit can I talk about in and around the Symbiote Suit era” and it’s nice to get an extra issue of Ed Brisson’s frankly underrated Ghost Rider run out of this event, but that’s really all I can muster up for ‘em sadly enough.

I’m wondering if this how the FF and “apocrypha” stuff is going to read when I eventually get around to it. The latter I might actually enjoy, but I like actively loooooathe Slott’s FF so WE WILL SEEEEEE. Stay tuned, True Believers! (Or don’t, I’m not your mom)

[Adam Fisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars.
Three stories here:
Immortal Hulk - If you read the main story, you know that Hulk bonds with Venom, a very important moment for the battle against Carnage. This story is how that comes to be...

Symbiote Spider-Man - During the time of the transfer between Peter and Eddie bonding the Symbiote WAY BACK when it first showed up, the symbiote bonded with a man very briefly. This is the tragic tale of this man, a judge who got dealt a bad deal when dealing with the White Rabbit coming to trial.

Spirit of Vengeance - Former Ghost Rider Alejandra Jones was briefly a holder of a symbiote, so Carnage must get her too. Current King of Hell Johnny Blaze sends former Ghost Rider Dan Ketch racing off to save her. While she still dies, Dan is able to stop Carnage (though not before we get to see a flaming Carnage cycle!), and Alejandra joins the other Spirits of Vengeance in their special area of hell.

Good short stories, some better than others. Not all essential for the AC storyline, but still good.
Recommend.

[Crazed8J8 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The order of these is awkward (read then in reverse, and integrate then with the larger crossover event).
Ghost Rider was kind of cool, good art, interesting story, good solo story.
Symbiote Spider-Man was sad, great art, but a depressing story,another good one-off.
Hulk tho, following on the heels of Absolute Carnage 3, i expected to be epic, but it fell flat. Too much in the head of Banner and not nearly enough action or plot development. The art was pretty weak as well.
Overall, I'll give this a 3.5 (rounding down because the rest of the event us so epic and this collection is the least integrated).

[Alex Sarll]

I read the typically brooding title story when it came out, and the wonky Ghost Rider issue in that book's collection. But now I've completed the set with the Symbiote Spider-Man piece, which was excellent, to the extent of being a shame that it's buried in a second-string tie-in to a rubbish crossover. Back in the original story of Spidey's symbiote costume, it briefly hijacked the body of a nameless tourist. Now, years later, we get the story of how one thing leads to another, and another, and that briefest brush with the superhuman world destroyed someone's life. It's like an Astro City story with all the underlying hope inverted, but every bit as powerful.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of one-shots showing how the Immortal Hulk, a tourist, and a pair of Ghost Riders dealt with having a bit of Carnage or Venom in their lives. Admittedly, I got it for the Hulk story since it does somewhat tie into Al Ewing's great Immortal Hulk series. However, the middle story by writer Peter David, picking up the story of a random tourist who wore the Venom symbiote for a night and didn't remember it, was probably the best of the bunch. The Ghost Rider tale was, to put it bluntly, a bit by-the-numbers and forgettable in the grand scheme of things.

[B · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Hulk story was a little too cute perhaps, but I may never forget Bruce Banner's request to be folded very small. The secondary characters in that book keep threatening to be even more interesting than one of the most interesting incarnations of the Hulk yet.

The Symbiote Spider-Man story was weeeeeird. There was really no connection between the events depicted in the olden-timey story and the vast majority of the book.

The Symbiote of Vengeance story was a fine farewell to a character that I only hazily remembered.

[James Bowman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three tie-ins with the Absolute Carnage storyline:
- The Immortal Hulk: Kind of feels like filler between issues of the ongoing Immortal Hulk comic, since not much actually happens, but as filler goes it's pretty good.
- Symbiote Spider-Man: The best of the three, this is a largely standalone story about how a normal, non-super person can have their life ruined by brushes with supervillains. Not cheery, but compelling.
- Ghost Rider: Nothing remarkable, but might have more appeal to fans of the then-current Ghost Rider arc. (B+)

[Rocky Sunico · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow, this book was a mess. One has to think that there was some degree of a plan or a reason to gather these disparate stories into one volume. A few of the stories felt particularly interesting but the rest of them - including the main Hulk piece - were very middle of the road.

The Hulk story was the main piece as the ending had to tie back into the main Absolute Carnage event. But that also meant it was an incomplete story with the big finale taking place in another book.

Oh these event tie-in books. I'm glad that I only got this on sale.

[Kris Ritchie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hulk: 4
Ghost Rider: 2.5
Symbiote Spider-man: 3

As one-shots from crossovers go, this is a mixed bag. They are also from all over the crossover (Symbiote near beginning, 5 issues later Ghost Rider, 20 issues later Immortal Hulk) so it is kind of hard to fit these in without a reading guide.

The Hulk one is great required reading for those following the Immortal Hulk storyline, but otherwise this volume is skippable unless you are wanting the preface to the Ghost Rider stuff..

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Real talk? This was pretty good. A few one-shots of varying quality and interest. As with any anthology, take your chances. I don't think you'll care much one way or another if you haven't read at least some of the main line of Absolute Carnage, though.

But, most importantly, it did its real job...it convinced me to read The Immortal Hulk.

[Fuuma · Rating 3 out of 5]

so I did really like how they did the Hulk issue and I enjoyed the thing with the Bunny and it was neat seeing the ghost riders but it took me nearly a year to finish and in that time I forgot a lot of what was going on with Banner and the ghost rider stuff also feels kinda wishy washy so I can't say it's a great issue but it's not bad. The Hulk alter stuff was very fun.

[Chuck Knudsen · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a part of the event Absolute Carnage, this is probably good, but as a standalone book I only came to for Hulk, it was pretty disappointing. Little connective tissue except Carnage, going around and killing anyone who has ever been Venom'd. meh

[Daniel Butcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe the best of the tie-in collections.

But it is still only three issues with varying quality.

Marvel easily could have dropped these issues in any of the collections with longer arcs and literally not print this unconnected potpourri volume.

[Travis Duke · Rating 2 out of 5]

A tie into the Absolute carnage and immortal hulk (and I guess Ghost rider). A few short stories that have immortal hulk and absolute carnage but they are not that great. The ghost rider story is better and more complete but it is just OK

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not current on absolute carnage and read for the hulk piece, these are true one shots that do barely anything to advance the plot. The hulk one you can skip.

[Santiago Fedorowicz · Rating 3 out of 5]

6

[Ron · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not sure what I read. The story was confusing and weird. It was very disjointed.

I wish I had not wasted time reading this.

[Youssef · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.8

[Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

2/5