A vicious serial killer named Cletus Kasady has had his body chemistry altered by an alien creature. Now, Kasady can transform into Carnage, who, along with his lethal living costume, lives for chaos and random acts of senseless, brutal murder!
Carnage has been returned to New York in chains, the subject of a daring attempt to reverse the effects of his metamorphosis. When the interference of a deranged scientist causes the experiment to go horribly wrong, Carnage is set loose upon the city once again!
Now it's up to Spider-Man to stop his deadliest foe before he unleashes carnage in New York!
Pretty good, but short. I knew this before I started, so I'm not holding that against it. My main gripe with this story is that Spidey's quips seem a bit intellectually immature and even repeat a few (I get it, Carnage has bad breath), but having listened to the audiobook, I'm unsure if this was a YA novel, and would believe it to be if not officially so. Another gripe, if you're used to the normal origins, the exposition going over the origins of the symbiote suit, venom, and carnage seem so alien compared to the more well known origins. That said, it's still an enjoyable listen. If you like Spidey, you will enjoy this.
This is a short but enjoyable Spider-Man story. I'm not as familiar with him as I am with Batman, so I enjoyed the bits of backstory that are spread throughout the story. Carnage seems to be a very worthy opponent for the web slinger, and I look forward to reading/listening to more like this. I listened to this as an audiobook, and while my attention drifted a few times and I had to rewind, for the most part I found narrator Tim Paige to be the right kind of voice for this title. If you want a little break from more serious drama, this one might be for you.
Context: I got this audiobook in an Audible sale a while back and am only getting around to listening to it now.
Thoughts: I love superhero stories--DC, Marvel, comics, TV shows, movies, etc. ALL OF IT. And I enjoyed being back in a superhero story with this one.
Alas, there were a couple things that didn't really work, mainly Spidey's internal thoughts and external dialogue/quips didn't really land for me and made him feel a bit immature. That said, the plot was interesting and very much in line with what you'd expect from this genre of story. (Don't trust the government, kids!)
Overall, not bad, but also not completelyyy satisfying to me; I'm not sure how long the details will stick with me, but the premise was cool. I did feel a strong urge to go read every Spiderman comic ever, so I count that as a win.