Carnage #16 Review - Marvel Monday

He Is Risen

Written by: Gerry Conway

Art by: Mike Perkins, Andy Troy and Joe Sabino

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: January 24, 2017
Review by: Josh Vermillion

I’ll be honest, I never thought this series would make it to 16 issues. I expected 6, maybe 12 issues at the most. But Gerry Conway has weaved a long-form narrative that has kept me relatively interested from start to finish. If he can deliver an exciting finish, I think this book will go down as a surprise success in the eyes of its readers.

Unfortunately, the finish wasn’t exciting. After spending this entire arc trying to awaken Chthon, an elder God, it takes all of one issue and a newfound power that was never even hinted at from Jubilile to defeat him.

After seeing the damage Chthon can cause, Jubilile reveals that she knows how to defeat him through her connection to Carnage and therefore Chthon. It’s a very convoluted way of saying that she develops a power she didn’t know she had. She uses this power to absorb the psychic energy from everyone around her, and uses that energy to attack Chthon.

After lashing out and killing Claire Dixon, Cletus Kasady has the symbiote taken from him. We jump ahead to five days after the victory, and the group is ready to hit the road, and the Darkhold headed to the Children of the Midnight Sun.

If it wasn’t for Mike Perkins’ awesome visuals throughout this book, I would’ve been even more angry and confused at how this wrapped up. Perkins has made this whole series look like an indie horror comic, and it looks great. I’d love to see him get work on a bigger title, hopefully one with a more satisfying ending.

If you’re one of the few people that has been picking up this series from the start, you’re probably just as disappointed as I am. After such a long road to get to the ending, I wish it would’ve been an ending that made sense. On the bright side, maybe Perkins will get some better work out of this.

Bits and Pieces:

After being really interested in most of the series, the finale felt completely forced as Gerry Conway rushed to give us an ending. I haven’t read enough of Conway’s work to know if this is commonplace, or if this was something editorially. Luckily, Mike Perkins provided another great looking issue. I just hope something fun spins out of this series and answers some questions.

5.1/10