"Maximum Carnage" is a fourteen-part comic book storyline published in Marvel Comics's Spider-Man titles in 1993.

It featured Spider-Man and Venom teaming up to face Venom's offspring, Carnage.

Plot summaryEdit

The insane Cletus Kasady (Carnage) was jailed at Ravencroft Asylum. However, the stay was short-lived as he revealed that the Carnage symbiote had mutated his blood, and he could generate a copy of the symbiote. Kasady escaped, freeing other superhuman inmates and assembling a "family" of killers around him. They set their sights on New York. During the murderous onslaught that followed, Carnage recruited Shriek, Doppelganger, Demogoblin, and Carrion to do his bidding, terrorizing New York City with their twisted "family values." Hundreds of innocent people were murdered.

'Due to the laws of escalation, Spider-Man and Venom were forced to join together to stop Carnage and his followers. They required the assistance of such disparate heroes as Captain America, Black Cat, Nightwatch, Cloak and Dagger, Iron Fist, Deathlok, Morbius and Firestar, although there was a great deal of conflict within this group, both sides polarized between Venom's desire to stop Carnage for good and Spider-Man's refusal to allow any more lives to be lost.

However, both infighting between the villains and a successful rout from the heroes contributed to Carnage's defeat. Faking his death by covering a victim in a mock symbiote costume, he threw all of the heroes off his trail except for Spider-Man and Venom. The two tailed Carnage all over New York until they cornered him in a graveyard. Weak from days of combat, Spider-Man was saved from Carnage by Black Cat. Taking advantage of the Cat's return, Venom took on Carnage and tackled him into an electrical generator before disappearing from the scene, leaving Carnage to be incarcerated.

IssuesEdit

Maximum Carnage was span across many different Spider-Man issues and series, starting and ending in Spider-Man: Unlimited.

• Chapter I - Spider-Man Unlimited #1 - "Carnage Rising!"
• Chapter II - Web of Spider-Man #101 - "Dark Light"
• Chapter III - The Amazing Spider-Man #378 - "Demons on Broadway"
• Chapter IV - Spider-Man #35 - "Team Venom"
• Chapter V - Spectacular Spider-Man #201 - "Over The Line!"
• Chapter VI - Web of Spider-Man #102 - "Sinking Fast"
• Chapter VII - The Amazing Spider-Man #379 - "The Gathering Storm"
• Chapter VIII - Spider-Man #36 - "Hate is in the Air"
• Chapter IX - Spectacular Spider-Man #202 - "The Turning Point"
• Chapter X - Web of Spider-Man #103 - "Sin City"
• Chapter XI - The Amazing Spider-Man #380 - "Soldiers of Hope"
• Chapter XII - Spider-Man #37 - "The Light!"
• Chapter XIII - Spectacular Spider-Man #203 - "War of the Heart!"
• Chapter XIV - Spider-Man Unlimited #2 - "The Hatred, The Horror & The Hero!"