Writer: Ram V
Artist: Francesco Manna
Color Artist: Erick Arciniega
Cover Artist: Kendrick “Kunkka” Lim
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: StoryBabbler
Carnage is traveling the cosmos – with a new serial killer as a companion in tow – in search of specific targets. The evil crimson symbiote went to Niflheim to track Malekith the Accursed for his codex of the Venom symbiote. All to help the alien fiend get closer to a new height of power. See what the mad symbiote has planned in Carnage #9!
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Review:
Last time, Carnage and Kenneth departed Niflheim with Malekith’s codex of the Venom symbiote and were left going somewhere and now we find out that they’ve landed in Nidavellir, home of the Dwarves. The comic does some recap to show the state the realm is in and how it fell into such disrepair, thanks in no small part to Donny Cates’ Thor run and the God of Hammers story arc. But now Carnage has come to the Dwarves and it doesn’t look good for them.
Quick spoiler but the comic doesn’t really spend that much time on Carnage fighting Norse Dwarves or anything. You get just one page and that’s it. What you see in the preview images is really all you get in terms of action with Carnage in the comic. However, Carnage and Kenneth Neely are at Nidavellir for a bigger reason than murdering Dwarves. They’re there for one specific Dwarf: Drorin Runehewer. A Dwarven forgemaster who was imprisoned by his own brother the king for very heretical views.
From there, the rest of Carnage’s portions of the comic are mostly exposition laid on top of interactions between Carnage and Drorin. Aside from that, the comic finally comes back to Niflheim with Detective Jonathan Shayde and Cletus Kasady’s bodiless voice mocking him for failing to prevent Carnage from reaching Malekith. Sadly, you don’t get much with Det. Shayde and Kasady in the comic. It doesn’t show you how he got free from Hela’s undead skeletons, just that he’s out and about. While there’s not much, what readers do get is to see a new development in Det. Shayde as he’s renewed with more brutal drive than before. So, there’s that.
Honestly, these last two issues have been pretty slow-paced with few interesting things actually happening in them. However, what’s the most confusing to come out of this issue is what Carnage’s main plan is right now. It’s not confusing because of how crazy, creative, and mind-boggling it is, rather for how mundane it almost feels. You’ll see in the SPOILERS section.
SPOILERS:
The big reveal about what Carnage has been planning all this time is to remake the weapon All-Black the Necrosword, that’s right, Gorr the God Butcher’s weapon. Essentially, Carnage has been chasing down Gorr’s sloppy seconds, or really his leftovers since he and the weapon have been gone a while. But this time Carnage is going to modify the weapon to be a little bit more red, figuratively and I’m sure literally. On the one hand, this makes sense since it was retconned by Donny Cates to be the first weapon made by Knull. On the other hand, it feels like such a letdown since this reviewer expected something a little more wild than that. But we’ll see where Ram V takes this.
Final Thoughts:
Carnage #9 continues where the story left off in the previous issue with Carnage and Kenneth Neely arriving on Nidavellir for someone in particular. The comic finally reveals just what the Canrage symbiote has in store for its piece of the Venom symbiote codex. Before that reveal, the comic feels a little slow and lacking momentum in the action and dialogue interactions. Hopefully the next issue turns the excitement back up.