Minimum Carnage: Omega #1 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

At the end of this story, I have to say, I'm not really sure the story that Bunn and Yost wanted to tell.  We really got two stories, a Carnage story in issues #1 and #5 and a Microverse story in issues #2-#4.  In retrospect, I'm not entirely sure why they needed to be told together.

As I worried, we never really get to the bottom of the dispute between Marquis Radu and the Redeemer.  If this mini-series were a teenage comedy, the Microverse appears to have played the role of the obnoxious blond cheerleader dating the football-team captain; once he realizes that he's in love with the nerdy poor girl, she's quickly forgotten.  It's unfortunate, because I was really interested in the intrigue that Bunn and Yost had carefully crafted between Radu and the Redeemer.  If this mini-series was intended to serve as little more for an advertisement for a new "Micronauts" series, I would understand why we were left in a lurch.  Since it isn't, it simply feels sloppy.

In the end, the fact that the Microverse is so easily forgotten makes you wonder why this mini-series wasn't just a two-issue cross-over event between "Scarlet Spider" and "Venom."  Nothing about the resolution required the journey into the Microverse.  We instead could've just gotten Venom following Carnage to Houston in issue #1 and then joining forces with Kaine to stop him in issue #2, which is essentially what happens in the first and last issue of this mini-series.  But, even if it were just the second of a two-issue cross-over event, I think I'd still be disappointed in this issue.  Are we supposed to believe that Kaine accidentally failed to kill Cletus or are we supposed to believe that he just intending to lobotomize him?  It makes a big difference, honestly, and I don't understand why it was left so unclear?

In the end, I'm disappointed in this whole affair.  I'm also pretty sure that I'm done with "Venom" and I'm pretty glad to see us return to the regularly scheduled programming in "Scarlet Spider."  This cross-over event had potential, but, unfortunately, I just don't think it met it.

Minimum Carnage: Alpha #1 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

OK, I'm game.  This issue isn't perfect, resorting to a lot of exposition that I guess you have to have in these sorts of team-up events, where readers of one series might be unfamiliar with the protagonist from the other.  But, once they get past introducing Flash's whininess and Kaine's crankiness, Bunn and Yost manage to channel the creepiness of Carnage, reminding you what an unpredictable threat he is.

As the first issue in the cross-over event, this issue obviously raises some questions, like why the "tiny people" contacted Cletus and why they were seemingly stuck on Earth in the first place.  Perhaps the most interesting part of the issue is Flash's discomfort in the mere existence of Carnage.  The discovery that the symbiote has bonded with Cletus on a cellular level clearly shakes him, particularly since he's not exactly doing such a great job of control his own symbiote lately.  Kaine seems less fazed when confronting Carnage, having no reason to view him as anything other than a violent monster who needs to be stopped.  Their battle is fun, in a sick way, as Cletus comes to realize that Kaine, who tries to snap his neck and uses his claws to break free of Carnage's hold, isn't Spider-Man.  Cletus, of course, is in his usual form, and I loved him surprising the "tiny people" by revealing that the "clean start" he wants in the Microverse is just the ability to kill more people in a whole new universe.  That sounds like the sort of thing that would motivate Cletus.

I'm still not so sure that "Kaine and Venom take on the Microverse" was a story that needed to be told, but Bunn and Yost sell it enough that I'm interested to see where they go with it.