I've long known the basic gist of the Venom and Carnage storylines in Spider-Man, but hadn't read most of the stories myself, including the origin of Carnage. This book did the job of filling in that gap of fictional history for me! For the most part it's a well-drawn book -- Bagley's clean, super-flexible Spider-Man is the version of the character I tend to think of. The writing by David Michelinie is more than solid, but Peter David's fantastic Venom-on-trial story makes those stories seem dull by comparison.

Spidey fans should dig this for the historical value but overall there are better collections out there. ( )