It’s Death Spiral Part 9 of 9 – the conclusion! Spider-Man is now Spider-Carnage, who almost kills MJ but she is saved by … Eddie Brock! Anti-Venom is here and … stands around! Venom saves Aunt Anna and May from Torment, who … dies without revealing anything? The Carnage symbiote is now on a cockroach. All of this, plus … Peter’s mystery cousin wants to visit 23 And Me???
(Where did this motif of the Carnage symbiote creating miniature spiders come from?)
CREDITS
Writer: Joe Kelly
Penciller: Ed McGuinness & Carlos Gomez with Francesco Manna
Inkers: Mark Farmer, Wade Von Grawbadger, Ed McGuinness, Carlos Gomez & Francesco Manna
Colorists: Marcio Menyz & Erick Arciniega
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
PREVIOUSLY IN VENOM …
Torment tries to kill Dylan. Spidey, Venom and Carnage show up but Torment gets away after killing Paul(1). Carnage is out for blood now that Torment tried to kill his son, but Dylan is hiding in the sewers, wearing MJ’s Jackpot bracelet. Spidey and Carnage catch up with Torment, but the Carnage symbiote leaves Eddie and bonds with Torment.
PREVIOUSLY IN AMAZING SPIDER-MAN…
Spidey fights Torment/Carnage while Eddie (dying without the Carnage symbiote) worries about Dylan, who is in the sewers with Venom. Spidey realizes that Torment is “all method” and won’t let the Carnage symbiote indiscriminately kill people. Flash takes Aunt Anna to meet Aunt May at FEAST while Venom takes Eddie to the hospital. Spidey catches T/C about to kill a random guy whom T/C says is Peter’s first cousin. Spidey saves this mysterious family member as T/C arrives at FEAST.
PREVIOUSLY IN CARNAGE VENOM(2) …
Torment/Carnage attack Aunt May and Aunt Anna at FEAST. May fights back with hot soup but is saved by Anti-Venom. T/C uses Shocker’s gauntlet on Anti-Venom, and they decide to separate – the Carnage symbiote will go after May and Anna, while Torment fights Anti-Venom. Eddie is in the hospital and sees on the news that symbiotes are attacking FEAST and leaves to go there. The Carnage symbiote kills random people, angering Torment, who turns his gauntlet on the symbiote. Spidey and Venom show up, but Torment knocks Venom out, and seriously wounds Spidey, who is saved by the Carnage symbiote, becoming Spider-Carnage.
SUMMARY
Peter tries to fight off the Carnage symbiote as Spider-Carnage fights Torment.
(“I’m infected with the Carnage symbiote, so I’m going to attack you with miniature spiders!)
Spider-Carnage rips the Shocker’s gauntlet off of Torment and is apparently about to kill him when Venom shows up and stops him.
(That looks like it hurt. It’s just a glove, it wasn’t bonded to his skin. It shouldn’t have ripped off any skin.)
The Carnage symbiote has taken over as Spider-Carnage attacks Venom and is about to kill them, but he is stopped by Eddie Brock, wearing Shocker’s gauntlet.
(Am I the only one who at first glance thought this was Flash?)
Inside Peter’s mind, he confronts the Carnage symbiote and proves that he is stronger than it, driving it out of himself.
(Aw, the poor Carnage symbiote, I feel bad for it.)
Anti-Venom helps Spidey up stand up, fulfilling his mandated appearance in this issue.
(“I have to go now, my planet needs me.” Anti-Venom is pulled up out of the panel.)
Torment is about to kill May and Anna but is stopped by Venom, who drags him up the side of a building, ripping his costume and showing half of his face.
(Ooh, that’s GOTTA hurt.)
Torment mocks Venom that if he’s put away he’ll eventually get out and kill Aunt May, traumatizing Peter. Venom responds by dropping Torment off the building to fall to his death.
(Ooh, *that’s* GOTTA hurt.)
In the aftermath, Peter and MJ console May and Anna, while Flash recuperates at home. Eddie is in prison for … reasons. Peter and MJ talk on the phone, with Peter trying to get her to admit if Torment died by accident or if she killed him. She doesn’t answer him either way.
(“So did you kill Torment or was it an accident?” “Peter, I’m going through a tunnel, I can’t hear you, I gotta go.”)
Meanwhile, the Carnage symbiote survived and is on a cockroach.
(What will happen with CarnageRoach/CarnageRat? Read Spider-Versity to find out!)
In the epilogue, the man that Torment/Carnage was trying to kill last issue whom he said was Peter’s first cousin – Mister Crane – is driving through Hudson Valley. He calls someone and tells them to make an appointment with a doctor for some genetic screening.
(Cousin Crane is evil, I tells ya … EVIL!)
TO BE CONTINUED!(3)
INITIAL RESPONSE
Well, Death Spiral is over. And while most of the issues were fairly enjoyable (even though I maintain that this entire thing read like a Venom/Carnage story instead of a Spider-Man story), this final issue was … a big disappointment.
Spidey is infected by the Carnage symbiote … and it’s resolved in less than half of the issue, quite easily.
The mystery of Torment … is never resolved. We don’t know who he was, his origin, why he was after Peter and Eddie, why he does his spiral motif, and now he’s dead.(4)
All in all, it’s a very disappointing ending.
WHAT I LIKED
While it lasted, I liked Spider-Carnage – both when Peter was struggling for control, and when the symbiote was in complete control. The Spider-Carnage/Torment fight was well done.
I liked Eddie showing up to save the day, even if he should have been dying in the hospital, since we have been told many times throughout this story that the symbiote was keeping him alive and he would die without it.
(“You’re welcome for saving your life … I’m dying here, by the way.”)
I liked how Peter was able to overwhelm the Carnage symbiote and expel it, even if it seemed right out of the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon.
(“You’re trying to take control of me by overwhelming me with negative emotions? You do know what I’ve been through in my life, right?”)
While I don’t like the idea of having MJ murder Torment, I do commend the issue for having the guts to do it. I fully expected to turn the page and see that Spidey/Anti-Venom/Eddie/someone had saved Torment after Venom dropped him.
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
Spidey being taken over by the Carnage symbiote should have been a big deal, and yet it happens in the final issue of this story, and it’s over in less than half of the issue. And Peter easily overwhelms the symbiote in his mindscape. In retrospect this didn’t like that big of a deal.
Anti-Venom literally does nothing in this issue. He helps Spidey stand up after he expels the Carnage symbiote. That’s it. He doesn’t fight anyone, he doesn’t save anyone. That’s it.
Torment. As I said earlier, the mystery of Torment was dangled before us for the previous 8 issues. Who is this person? (I fully expected someone from both Peter and Eddie’s past, not some unnamed person whom no one knows) Why are they after Peter’s and Eddie’s family? (would have been great to pick a character from the 90s who had a connection to both characters) Why the spiral motif? (a fan of Spirograph?) What is his origin? (“I was bitten by a radioactive spiral …”) We finally get to see Torment’s face and … it’s no one we know, no one recognizes him, and there’s no big reveal. And the worst part is that he’s killed, and we don’t learn anything. That’s so disappointing, and bad writing (it’s like getting to the end of And Then There Were None and finding out the killer is some random stranger who snuck onto the island and killed everyone instead of one of the main characters). When Torment was unveiled it should have been a big reveal, and yet it was more like this:
Tangent time! The reveal of Torment reminded me of the Howard Mackie ASM run. MJ had been presumed dead, kidnapped by some mysterious stranger whose face we never saw. It was this big mystery. And then in the final issue we find out … it’s just some guy we’d never heard of before (who didn’t even get a name) who latched onto Peter and MJ for … *reasons*. They weren’t anyone we knew, it was just some random mutant, and in the end they just wandered off and exploded with no real resolution. This final issue of DS felt like that reveal.
(This is literally the character’s entire History on the Marvel Wiki. And yet it’s more than we know about Torment.)
MJ killing Torment should be a *huge* deal, and yet, we know that anything that deals with this will happen in the Venom book, not ASM, and that’s disappointing. Is this the first person MJ has actually killed? I know she has physically attacked some Spidey-villains while married to Peter, and during her solo book. And she did shoot the Green Goblin in Marvel Knights. But her choosing to kill a villain should be a big deal for this book, and yet I have no hope that anything will be done about it here.
Eddie goes to jail … why? Is this because of things that he did in the Carnage series? I never read it so I don’t know what crimes Eddie committed there, or between the time he had was Venom and when he took on the Carnage symbiote. Yes, he bonded with the Carnage symbiote and killed some bad people, but there are dozens of people who have been taken over by symbiotes and weren’t responsible for their actions because the symbiote was in control. Isn’t he publicly known as Venom, a hero who worked for years with the Avengers and other heroes? This issue should explain exactly why he is going to jail. He tried to keep the Carnage symbiote bonded to himself to keep it from killing random people. If this is something from the Carnage series, or if it’s something I missed here, let me know.
(“Goodbye son, I’m going to prison for … reasons.” “Yeah, whatever dad, I’m off to be emo in my hoodie.”)
I mentioned this in a previous issue, but I really hate the trope in comics recently of heroes with a secret identity having their mask off in public and assuming their identity is safe because they’re on top of a building or someplace remote. There are cell phones, helicopters, drones, zoom lenses – it is so stupid for Peter to have his mask off here while talking to MJ on the phone. There is no reason for it except to show Peter’s face in this scene. I feel like this is bleed-over from the MCU where they find any reason for the hero to have their mask off so we can see the actor’s face.
(Back when Marvel actually cared about Spidey being unmasked in public, and there were actual consequences when it happened.)
I understand that the issue wants to remind us that Paul is dead, but it makes no sense to have his picture on the front page of the Bugle. Besides Peter, MJ and Dylan, does anyone else even know who he is? Does he have any friends, or interact with anyone else? (I guess Shay knows him since they all double-dated once) What about all of the other people killed by Torment in this story? Eddie’s father was killed, and I can guarantee he’s more well known by the public than Paul, even if just by association – he’s the father of Eddie Brock, who is known as Venom, who was just arrested. Everyone who reads this Bugle headline is looking at Paul and saying “Who?”
(Please let this be the last mention ever of this character in ASM ever. Have MJ mention him in Venom, that’s fine.)
The epilogue shows that it’s possible the whole purpose of Death Spiral – besides killing Paul – was to introduce Peter’s mystery cousin. If there’s one thing worse in fiction than a long lost friend from the hero’s childhood whom we’ve never heard about showing up out of the blue, it’s a relative we’ve never heard about before showing up out of the blue. I am not interested in Cousin Crane at all, but it’s likely this is part of a big reveal in issue 1000. Yawn.
LETTERS PAGE SHENANIGANS
So the secrets of Torment aren’t going to be revealed in the actual Death Spiral story, but in some random one-shot after DS is over?
Marvel, this is why your readers hate you.
WHAT THIS ISSUE MEANT OVERALL
Well, Death Spiral is over. What happened? Paul is dead, MJ killed someone, Eddie is in prison, and the Carnage symbiote is on a cockroach (and heading for Spider-Versity, I guess). And I feel like most of these things are going to be followed up on in other book and not in ASM.
GRADE
C-
This was a very disappointing ending to what had been a pretty good story. I was halfway through the issue and suspected they weren’t going to give us a satisfying ending, and unfortunately I was proven right.
NEXT TIME, IN AN ALL-NEW ISSUE OF AMAZING SPIDER-MAN …
(Spidey is angry … about how Death Spiral ended, I’m guessing.)
FOOTNOTES
(1) Paul, a character that was created in ASM and has been a thorn in the side of ASM readers for years … dies in another title.
(2) Once again, that issue definitely reads like it was meant to be an issue of the Carnage book. It was written by Charles Soule, not Al Ewing or Joe Kelly, and it focuses mostly on Carnage.
(3) It’s the final issue of Death Spiral, there should not be a continuation. This is the end!
(4) Yes, it’s a comic book, and Torment could still be alive. But he’s clearly intended to be dead here. He falls off a building, there’s a literal SKLATT, the authorities are there to clean up the bodies, and the Bugle says Torment is dead.
