The Return
The Good: This comic's existence is a great thing for me. When I finally got into american comics, I found out my favorite Spider-Man villain Carnage had been presumed dead for quite a while. I had almost given up hope when I heard the announcement of this series. And I'm a hardcore DC fan. Deadpool is pretty much the only Marvel comic I buy. Well that and the Icon Millarworld stuff. I just had to get this.
Crain's art is a great fit for this series. He does a great job at making everything look dark and just completely insane. And his super-super detailed art is an interesting departure from most comic art.
All the characters are well written. Spider-Man's personality and sense of humor were well captured.
It doesn't alienate new readers. It wasn't until I read other reviews that I found out the last time we saw Doppelganger was "Maximum Carnage" (Which I haven't read.) But Spider-Man's recap of the event was enough to bring you up to speed without being overly expositiony.
The slow realization of what Doppelganger is saying, and his desperation are both really well done, adding a great amount of tension to this story.
The Bad: Although Crain's art is very fitting, he tends to go overboard with the shadows, which sometimes makes it hard to tell what's going on.
For a comic called Carnage, he barely appears at all in this first issue.
The 2 new characters who show up out of the blue were a bit too random and left me confused for a bit.
Bimonthly title. UGH. It's going to be torture waiting 2 months for each issue.
No sign of Cletus Cassidy.
In Conclusion: 4/5
Look, if you're a fan of Carnage, there's no way you're not going to get this. It's a really good comic so far, it's just annoying that the wait is going to be so long. There's a lot of really awesome stuff here, and it looks really crazy, suiting the subject matter. It's overall pretty well put together, and a damn fine first issue to this miniseries. I'm a DC and I still highly recommend this.