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Venom Through The Ages Box Set


mtd20_2000

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Screen left or poster left? The one in his underpants is Savage Hulk as I understand it. I know nothing about him, aside from he looks awesome. The the beardy dude in the cape is the Maestro, who I also know nothing about except his level of awesome. I admittedly don't know much about no Hulks.

Edited by The Geohound
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Carnage holds up surprisingly well with modern releases though that's probably why he's so expensive now; since 90's crossover extravaganzas seem to be getting a nostalgia kick recently, maybe a new Cletus could make it in a Maximum Carnage 4-pack with Shriek, the Doppelganger, and Demo-Goblin? Heck, that event was such a catch-all of random characters, you could squeeze Morbius and Deathlok in there somehow alongside Carrion and Firestar.

Carnage has actually come up before in AskDSTs and panels; if we see him again, it's unlikely that he'd look anything like the first, because DST doesn't do all-over paint apps like that any more, because it's more expensive (since you have more pieces that are discarded as errors). I suppose it's possible that they might do a new one with sculpted pieces, but even then I'm not sure they'd be able to capture him. But you're right, he's so pricey still because he holds up so well.

Screen left or poster left? The one in his underpants is Savage Hulk as I understand it. I know nothing about him, aside from he looks awesome. The the beardy dude in the cape is the Maestro, who I also know nothing about except his level of awesome. I admittedly don't know much about no Hulks.

I don't know anything about Savage Hulk either, but the Maestro is an alt-future Hulk from Future Imperfect, which is one of the best Hulk stories you'll ever read (it's by Peter David and George Perez, after all).

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Was Carnage a different symbiote then Venom? I'm sorry I'm not well cultured in Spider-Man and would love if someone could explain the difference between the two.

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Was Carnage a different symbiote then Venom? I'm sorry I'm not well cultured in Spider-Man and would love if someone could explain the difference between the two.

in the 616 continuity, Carnage is the offspring of Venom, bonding to sociopath Cletus Kassady

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Was Carnage a different symbiote then Venom? I'm sorry I'm not well cultured in Spider-Man and would love if someone could explain the difference between the two.

in the 616 continuity, Carnage is the offspring of Venom, bonding to sociopath Cletus Kassady

Yeah, the symbiote came to break Eddie out of Ryker's Island (I think everyone believed the symbiote was destroyed when Peter fought Venom on that desert isle though I may be forgetting an appearance somewhere) and left behind some inky looking gunk on the broken bars that turned out to be his "spawn" (which was how Carnage was described as for a long time: "the spawn of Venom"). Said gunk joined up with Eddie's cellmate, serial killer Cletus Kasady, and became Carnage. This partially opened the door for Marvel to let Venom become more of an anti-hero, which is sort of what the symbiote has been used for ever since, even with Eddie out of the picture.

Carnage's symbiote is a weird thing as I'm not sure if it's still around as a separate consciousness; since it lives in his blood, they're rarely apart but I suppose it's possible that's been straightened out in a story I haven't read. The symbiote has "died" more than Venom's has but the blood thing's been established all the way back in the Amazing Spider-Man annual that served as the 3rd actual story with him. Cletus Kasady is still Carnage, even after being flown into space and ripped in half by the Sentry (as part of that character's huge oversell), but he doesn't really talk to his "other half" the way Eddie Brock would with the Venom symbiote. Carnage survived said mangling through some complicated means that I haven't actually read but seemed goofy when I flipped through his titular mini-series a few years back but he seemingly has only appeared in that and its follow-up Carnage U.S.A..

Character-wise, Carnage is different from Venom in that Kasady is far more evil and infinitely less sympathetic. Venom's huge popularity in the early 90's made Marvel want to use him more but past badguy solo titles, like The Joker book in the 70's and Deathstroke: the Terminator in the 90's, can be hard to work with; since they starred villains as the protagonists, it was hard to make compelling stories without conflicting with the character's baseline traits, nerfing them into less important threats (Deathstroke's book basically had every issue end with him being defeated), avoiding what readers wanted to see (The Joker not encountering Batman in his book), while also risking overexposure. There's also the idea that your respective villain's major opponent would look incompetent what with a major enemy running around killing people while they're nowhere to be seen. Marvel's solution to that was to emphasize Venom's bizarre code of honor relating to "innocents" to where he was more functional as a protagonist; in other words, he'd still try and kill Spider-Man but if an old lady was about to be hit by a bus, he'd swoop down to grab her as Eddie/the symbiote's beef was with Peter and Peter alone. They also moved him to San Francisco for awhile with Spidey appearing long enough to say he'd allow it, providing that Venom wouldn't be killing any of the other bad guys he encountered. To set that up, David Michelinie created Carnage who had all the unique threats that Venom offered (doesn't set off spider-sense, camo mode, incredibly strong, visually similar to an evil Spidey) with none of the moral setbacks, with the bonus being that Venom and Peter would have to team up.

There's some BTS comments about how Michilinie planned on killing Eddie Brock at one point, with Carnage stemming from that, but the above is what they went with. Carnage appears way less than Venom but, at one point, he was close to equal in popularity (maybe even exceeding Venom's at the time). He basically had his introductory story, the huge 14-part Maximum Carnage crossover, that Annual appearance, some one-shots and cameos, the time he attacked Ben Reilly (which we got as the Spider-Carnage minimate!)and then when the symbiote overwhelmed the Silver Surfer. After that, Eddie/Venom reabsorbed the symbiote for keeps (no clue why he didn't do that before) and then Cletus found another symbiote in Web-Spinners in one of that title's lesser storyarcs. After that it's mostly cameos until Sentry killed him and then those mini-series once he got better.

Eddie's symbiote is currently held by the government, after some time hanging out with Mac Gargan as both a new Venom and the Dark Avengers Spider-Man, where they gave it to Flash Thompson for use in what amounts to secret agent-type work. Carnage had that second mini-series but he'll be back in...

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Minimum Carnage!!

Which is a hilarious name/sight gag.

Hope that helped you out as much as it did me; most of that came from old memories while relaxing from real work.

Also, I'm slightly ashamed for forgetting we already have a Firestar minimate, though no one called me on it. *whew*. Anyway, she probably could use an update which could be finangled with some extra parts to make her 90's look with the jacket and big goggles that she had in those issues. Personally, I like the George Perez Avengers V.3 look but I'm way way off topic as it is.

I haven't read any of the current Venom book but I do like Tony Moore's costume design for it a lot. I'm really thrilled with how this set looks, especially since it has a truly outrageous sculpted tongue like how Erik Larsen used to draw Venom. I think there's something about how kept trying to see how crazy he could make it look though maybe someone was making a joke about the famous Wally Wood Powergirl story. I adore TTA sets so I hope both this and Hulk are big hits so we can get some more next year

Edited by lemonfreshviper22
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Lemon, that was very helpful and an interesting read. Thank you!

I was looking into an updated Firestar minimate the other day and really, she's not that out of date. The girl has really only had one main look to speak of, and the minimate is spot on, even if it is a bit old. Really it would probably be the same costume with some more muscle definition.

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I like her a bit more with the domino mask than the look we got, because I mostly associate her with the Spider-Man cartoon, but yeah it seems like all her different looks are pretty similar. The one weird thing with her old mate is that for some reason they didn't paint any skin tone where the collar opens on her chest block.

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Lemon, that was very helpful and an interesting read. Thank you!

I was looking into an updated Firestar minimate the other day and really, she's not that out of date. The girl has really only had one main look to speak of, and the minimate is spot on, even if it is a bit old. Really it would probably be the same costume with some more muscle definition.

That's about the limit they could go with on a new version of that look; I will cop to how the lack of detail on her legs being my main problem with her, besides...

I like her a bit more with the domino mask than the look we got, because I mostly associate her with the Spider-Man cartoon, but yeah it seems like all her different looks are pretty similar. The one weird thing with her old mate is that for some reason they didn't paint any skin tone where the collar opens on her chest block.

this. Always seemed like an old flub to me though it could stem from there being versions of her costume that have no open collar and that getting confused somehow on the way to production. Firestar's a character that's had a ridiculous number of minor changes to her costume whether it's the boots, gloves, mask, or the amount of skin shown and it kind of slips by because they're so minor. I'm not sure if that's a commentary on the skill of a subtle alteration or how Firestar isn't really high on the Marvel Q ratings but she's never had a terrible costume either. The 90's look isn't even really bad despite some cliche elements of the era (like the jacket). Perez made it look great for the time he drew it in Avengers V.3 before giving her this number

223559-182543-firestar_large.jpg

Which is yet another look with a minor variation; in this case, he gave her an alteration where the black space from the 'fire' in the suit's center opened up to show skin.

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That's about the limit they could go with on a new version of that look; I will cop to how the lack of detail on her legs being my main problem with her, besides...

While that black costume is cool and I would be totally okay with that, allow me to point out that much more recent mini mates have also lacked any leg detail whatsoever. Yeah, it's annoying, but it hasn't gone away.

Edited by TM2 Dinobot
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That's about the limit they could go with on a new version of that look; I will cop to how the lack of detail on her legs being my main problem with her, besides...

While that black costume is cool and I would be totally okay with that, allow me to point out that much more recent mini mates have also lacked any leg detail whatsoever. Yeah, it's annoying, but it hasn't gone away.

Yikes, I had never noticed before! You my friend have made one killer case, though it's come at the cost of reducing my fondness for the otherwise great 'Best of' Spidey :( Oh well, guess that's just how it is then. The look the old one has is the closest there is to a 'definitive' one so we're probably cool on Firestars for now.

Anyone picking up the Expendables pack in anticipation of arming Agent Venom out the wazoo? Punisher and him will definitely have no lack of gear now!

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