A collection of one-shots showing how the Immortal Hulk, a tourist, and a pair of Ghost Riders dealt with having a bit of Carnage or Venom in their lives. Admittedly, I got it for the Hulk story since it does somewhat tie into Al Ewing's great Immortal Hulk series. However, the middle story by writer Peter David, picking up the story of a random tourist who wore the Venom symbiote for a night and didn't remember it, was probably the best of the bunch. The Ghost Rider tale was, to put it bluntly,...

I had read the Immortal Hulk one somewhere else already, and loved it. Symbiote Spider-Man was good, and Symbiote of Vengeance looked cool, at least.

I read the typically brooding title story when it came out, and the wonky Ghost Rider issue in that book's collection. But now I've completed the set with the Symbiote Spider-Man piece, which was excellent, to the extent of being a shame that it's buried in a second-string tie-in to a rubbish crossover. Back in the original story of Spidey's symbiote costume, it briefly hijacked the body of a nameless tourist. Now, years later, we get the story of how one thing leads to another, and another, and...

Real talk? This was pretty good. A few one-shots of varying quality and interest. As with any anthology, take your chances. I don't think you'll care much one way or another if you haven't read at least some of the main line of Absolute Carnage, though.But, most importantly, it did its real job...it convinced me to read The Immortal Hulk.

While these are completely unessential tie-ins to Absolute Carnage, they are great stories on their own.Absolute Carnage: Immortal Hulk by Al Ewing and Felipe Andrade - ★★★★I hate Andrade's pencilhead art but Ewing's story mostly taking place in Banner's head was great. This was definitely more of an Immortal Hulk story than a Carnage one.Absolute Carnage: Symbiote Spider-Man by Peter David and Francesco Mobili - ★★★★This spins out of Spectacular Spider-Man story from the 80's. The symbiote once...

The remaining Absolute Carnage one-shots are collected in this volume, mostly because there was nowhere else for them to go. There’s no real connective thread, but that doesn’t stop this being pretty damn good overall.The Immortal Hulk one-shot is written by Al Ewing, the writer of Immortal Hulk itself, so it’s no surprise that this plays well with the ongoing plot of that book as well as the main Absolute Carnage story as well. It’s dark, gritty, and downright disturbing, which is exactly what

Not terrible, but not exactly essential reading, either. The Hulk story wasn't bad and ties in fairly well to the current run. There's also a good Peter David story about an incidental character from Amazing Spider-Man who once briefly carried the symbiote and has thus been targeted by Carnage. The third story, about a couple of secondary Ghost Riders, is pretty forgettable. There's really nothing to tie these together--talk about a mishmash.

This book collects three one-shots, all tied in to the Absolute Carnage event.The first is a kind of prequel to the event under the Symbiote Spider-Man title. Those of you who have been reading comics as long as I have may remember the Venom symbiote taking over a random tourist and using his body to get away from the Baxter Building waaayyy back in the '80s. This story tells the tale of what that random tourist has been up to in the years since that happened and it's awesome. It did hurt that i...

I'm pretty sure that the original intention of tie-in comic books to bigger events, was a vehicle used to try and get readers to try out different books, and Al Ewing's Absolute Carnage: Immortal Hulk works perfectly as such a vehicle, with a contemplative and practical Bruce Banner spending most of the book within in his own mind... damn, do I need to start reading the Immortal Hulk!Not to be outshone bad-ass workhorse Peter David yet again just drops a nice piece of scripting in Absolute Carna...

4 stars for Ewing's Immortal Hulk script, though I didn't care for the art as much3 stars for the Spider-Man story1 star for the Ghostrider story. Yikes! Reading that reminded me of the extreme range of quality that's going to be published at any given point alongside titles in the same world at the other end of the quality spectrum.

These are the tie-ins that matters the least to the overall story. But they are easily the best besides the Venom or Spider-Man titles.

I read this for the immortal Hulk story but found the whole book incredibly underwhelming. Definitely not required reading.

Hulk: 4Ghost Rider: 2.5Symbiote Spider-man: 3As one-shots from crossovers go, this is a mixed bag. They are also from all over the crossover (Symbiote near beginning, 5 issues later Ghost Rider, 20 issues later Immortal Hulk) so it is kind of hard to fit these in without a reading guide.The Hulk one is great required reading for those following the Immortal Hulk storyline, but otherwise this volume is skippable unless you are wanting the preface to the Ghost Rider stuff..

3 1/2 stars. Probably my favorite set of Absolute Carnage tie-ins, with the strongest being Symbiote Spider-Man. Symbiote of Vengeance provides some context for the new run of Ghost Rider, and Immortal Hulk is still cool but I think showing Bruce in an all black panel over and over and over again is a pretty big cop out in the art department. Sidenote: the Absolute Carnage: Immortal Hulk issue is also in the Absolute Carnage: Miles Morales TPB, if you are looking to read/collect all of Absolute

The order of these is awkward (read then in reverse, and integrate then with the larger crossover event).Ghost Rider was kind of cool, good art, interesting story, good solo story.Symbiote Spider-Man was sad, great art, but a depressing story,another good one-off.Hulk tho, following on the heels of Absolute Carnage 3, i expected to be epic, but it fell flat. Too much in the head of Banner and not nearly enough action or plot development. The art was pretty weak as well. Overall, I'll give this a...

Wow, this book was a mess. One has to think that there was some degree of a plan or a reason to gather these disparate stories into one volume. A few of the stories felt particularly interesting but the rest of them - including the main Hulk piece - were very middle of the road. The Hulk story was the main piece as the ending had to tie back into the main Absolute Carnage event. But that also meant it was an incomplete story with the big finale taking place in another book. Oh these event tie-in...

Maybe the best of the tie-in collections.But it is still only three issues with varying quality.Marvel easily could have dropped these issues in any of the collections with longer arcs and literally not print this unconnected potpourri volume.

3.5 Stars.Three stories here:Immortal Hulk - If you read the main story, you know that Hulk bonds with Venom, a very important moment for the battle against Carnage. This story is how that comes to be...Symbiote Spider-Man - During the time of the transfer between Peter and Eddie bonding the Symbiote WAY BACK when it first showed up, the symbiote bonded with a man very briefly. This is the tragic tale of this man, a judge who got dealt a bad deal when dealing with the White Rabbit coming to tria...

The Hulk story was a little too cute perhaps, but I may never forget Bruce Banner's request to be (view spoiler)[folded very small (hide spoiler)]. The secondary characters in that book keep threatening to be even more interesting than one of the most interesting incarnations of the Hulk yet.The Symbiote Spider-Man story was weeeeeird. There was really no connection between the events depicted in the olden-timey story and the vast majority of the book.The Symbiote of Vengeance story was a fine f...

Three tie-ins with the Absolute Carnage storyline:- The Immortal Hulk: Kind of feels like filler between issues of the ongoing Immortal Hulk comic, since not much actually happens, but as filler goes it's pretty good.- Symbiote Spider-Man: The best of the three, this is a largely standalone story about how a normal, non-super person can have their life ruined by brushes with supervillains. Not cheery, but compelling.- Ghost Rider: Nothing remarkable, but might have more appeal to fans of the the...