Ultimate Spider-Man: Carnage

[cyberghostface]

So a little introduction: Carnage was one of the characters Bendis had no interest in doing. He changed his mind after reading an article about what not to do with science and the result is a character that is Carnage in appearance only. Your mileage will vary but in my opinion this storyline includes what may be the single worst thing Bendis has ever done on the title. See for yourself.

As a heads up there's some disturbing imagery here that's not commonly found in a Spider-Man comic. 

#60...



As a refresher Curt appeared as the Lizard in 'Ultimate Marvel Team-Up'. There's not a whole lot you have to know beyond the usual stuff with the Lizard although here he's managed to keep the Lizard persona submerged. In addition way back during the 'Venom' arc he deduced that Peter Parker was Spider-Man but has agreed to keep it a secret.

Spider-Man gets injured after fighting the Gladiator and goes to Connors to get patched up.











#61...

Connors schedules a meeting with Peter.













The black guy is named Ben Reilly fwiw. Just Bendis's way of saying that he was never going to do an actual Scarlet Spider.



#62...

Hoo boy...



Ben thinks the experiment was stolen when the desiccated husk of a dead security guard is discovered outside. It doesn't take him and Curt long to figure out what was responsible.





The experiment meanwhile is on the loose and killing people, effectively working as a vampire of sorts by draining them with its tendrils. It eventually looks like the Carnage we all know and love.



Following Peter's memories, it heads towards his house.








Yep. If I were to do a "Top 10" for the worst things Bendis has ever done on the title killing off Gwen in such a fashion would rank at either #1 or close. Her absence left a huge hole in the title that was never filled even when she came 'back' later on.

#63...







Peter thinks of who could have killed Gwen when he sees Curt standing outside his window. Assuming the worst, Peter goes to attack him.








#64.

Peter tells Curt to go his lab and find a way to destroy the creature by the time he gets there or he's locking him in with it. Peter later returns alone and tells him what happened.











Connors turns himself into the police, saying he was responsible for the deaths.





#65...

Peter and MJ are cleaning out Gwen's locker.



MJ smacks Flash on the head which starts a big kerfuffle and they, along with Pete, Liz and Kong end up crashing into a nearby teacher. All of them are given detention.

In detention, MJ wants to know why Flash is behaving the way he is about Gwen and she finds out that he secretly liked her and is acting out because he never got a chance to know her. She presses on him to admit this and he runs out of the room. Kong tries to defend him, saying he's not really a bad guy.



Peter responds that he's "nothing". MJ asks him what he thinks about Spider-Man and he runs out as well, with MJ following him. (This prompts Liz to ask if the point of detention isn't to stay in detention.)

Comments

[cygnia]

WANGST WANGST REVOLUTION~!

[cyberghostface]

I can't really blame a 15 year old for being moody after one of his best friends is butchered by a monster that looks like his dad.

[silicondream]

And the great thing about Peter is that he can be massively angsty and moody and he'll still reflexively jump down to help anyone he sees, because he's just that good of a kid. It's like cosmic forces sucked the niceness out of almost every other Ultimate hero and stuck it all in him.

[thatnickguy]

Sweet merciful Kirby, I sometimes wish this place had a like button. Because you'd be getting a big 'ol thumbs up from me for this comment.

[balbanes]

Gwen dying was around the time I stopped reading USM. Killing her off so randomly felt like a rushed, stupid decision. Ah, well.

[mrstatham]

Eh, I get the feeling Bendis only did it because - much like bringing in Venom or Carnage to begin with - he maybe felt obligated to set things up in a similar manner to the books. At the very least, he realised his mistake later on; I don't care how ham-fisted it was, bringing her back also had precedent in the 616 books; I'm just glad it stuck as long as the UU was around.

[captainbellman]

And then they brought her back as Carnage. Dear, dear.

[silicondream]

Which I was actually fine with, once they actually established that it was Gwen. Although it kind of wrecked Peter's reasoning here that Carnage had no mind or soul...

[starwolf_oakley]

How wish they establish that it was Gwen, and not a copy. I don't want to get all "clones are people too" but was that a clone?

[silicondream]

Oh, I don't know whether they established that. They just showed that it had the personality and memories of Gwen; it wasn't just a monster wearing her face.

I mean, it's not actually possible to absorb all someone's memories by sucking out their DNA anyway, so as long as we're granting that, we might as well say it absorbed her soul too.

[cyberghostface]

It's kind of vague but there's a bit in Miles' title that has her remember dying and the nothingness after death. I guess the idea is Carnage 'absorbed' her and then Venom absorbed the Carnage bits leaving Gwen by herself again.

[silicondream]

Did Connors just throw that entire bloody cotton swab on a slide and start reading the DNA sequence off it via microscope? Comic science!

[donnblake]

Damn it, he's a Scientist, and the Microscope is a Science Tool! It does what he tells it to!

[scorntx]

All things considered, Gwen's death is pretty horrific. So, uh, props to Bagley for that I guess?

And Gwen's mother being too horrible a human being to even give a rat's ass about her kid's sudden, violent death.
... kind of wondering how someone that terrible actually managed to be around another human being long enough to reproduce.

Regarding Kong... that is kind of one of the failings of his... well, it's not really a character arc, but still...
He remains a bullying jerk after this, right up until the minute Flash makes that hideously offensive remark about Kitty, and all of a sudden he's a good guy.
Oh, well.

[cyberghostface]

I'm not sure what issues you read as Kong hadn't been a bullying jerk for a long time at this point. Only a few issues prior to this he was being friendly to Pete and MJ.

[silverhammerman]

So did Connors only ever appear in this storyline and the Team-Up issues? Because I really like the character and it seems like a bit of a waste, which is coming to be my impression of a lot of USM stuff.

[scorntx]

He also appears briefly at the end of the Venom arc (which is how he knows Peter is Spider-Man, by the by).
And he does reappear briefly in the Venom Wars arc as well, still in prison.

[empgonzo]

"Seems like a bit of a waste" can really apply to more than half of the Ultimate Universe as a whole.