Pseudo-horror set in a world with no women
I'm doing a bit of backtracking and picked up all 4 issues of Carnage USA since I had a week of no comics to get. Let me start by saying, despite all the hatred Carnage gets, I think he has potential to be ok. One of his strong suits is he has a striking visual design - which sadly isn't true of Clayton Crain's design of him.
The story, by Zeb Wells (Avenging Spider-Man, the bad issues of New Mutants), is a pretty generic one - imagine Maximum Carnage but replace the 90s with horror. Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly serviceable, but it's not particularly exciting. The series stars a collection of alpha-male Avengers (Captain America, Hawkeye, Thing, Wolverine, Spider-Man) and there isn't a woman to be seen in sight - which can only be a good thing considering how sexist some of Zeb Wells' previous work has been - investigating Carnage who has taken over a smalltown. The Avengers are pretty quickly taken over by symbiotes, except Spider-Man, and that's the whole issue. The issue ends with the suggestion that Venom, Anti-Venom and some of the 90s symbiote rejects are going to show up.
It's all pretty much just nothing at all special. The problem with Carnage USA is that it's distinctly average. For every one creepy scene of Carnage that seems ok there's about 15 pages of generic boring pseudo-horror set in a world with no women. As a set-up issue, this doesn't really make me want to continue reading - but since I have the next 3 issues I suppose I have to.
