Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Frederico Vincentini
Colors: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: VC’s Cory Petit

Release date October 9, 2019
Review by D. Brown (WolfCypher)

I had such high hopes for Miles Morales in this event. I came into this event expecting Miles to be one of the most central characters to be featured in this grand story. The cover of Absolute Carnage #2 even shows Miles swinging alongside Venom, and this was a cover revealed several months before its release.

To learn that he would only be regulated to a tie-in was disappointing, but I still stayed optimistic. I figured a Miles/Spidey and Scorpion book could still work. Until it wasn’t that at all. The Scorpion came and left so quickly, and what we got, the story coupled with its hit-and-miss dialogue, left me asking “why?” We got two issues into this thing, and it deflated my enthusiasm for more of these extra side chapters to Absolute Carnage. I was more than ready to just get this one over with.

Little has changed from the previous installments, really. The art, by Frederico Vincentini, is the best thing this comic has going for it by its third issue. There is a sharp, kinetic style that makes looking at this book an easy task, though I’m still not a fan of the direction they took Miles as a symbiote doppelganger. Saladin continues to write the symbiote controlled characters that pop up in this act as almost zombie-esque caricatures incapable of saying anything other than a few words, predominantly KILL!, but thankfully all of his other characters are capable of having exchanges and inner dialogue that makes for worth-reading narration. I wasn’t expecting Miles to make the decision he does by the end of this book, so it was nice to be taken by surprise by this issue, but knowing that we shouldn’t be getting another issue of Absolute Carnage: Miles Morales, is it safe to assume this will continue in the main event book, and more importantly, that it’ll play out a lot better there than it has here?

I didn’t dislike this installment as much as the previous two. That said, by the end of this issue, I was relieved to be finished with this one. This month sees the conclusion of a lot of these tie-ins, yet still, Marvel happens to be releasing a few more one-shots to spiral into the event. I want to digest every ounce of this event, but I really hope what we have left to explore from Absolute Carnage’s shoots to be a higher caliber than Saladin’s Miles.

Final Thoughts

Miles turns things around for himself in the conclusion of his Absolute Carnage tie-in limited, and the story as whole finishes with an issue that is a step up from the quality I’ve seen from the first and second issue. If you’ve made it this far, you probably have decided to see this through to the end. Incidentally, for the rest of you, this one teeters between a “wait and read as a trade”, to a “pass completely”.

5.9/10