SCREAM? At Times, I Wanted To.
Writer: Clay McLeod Chapman
Artist: Chris Mooneyham
One of my very first AMAZING SPIDER-MAN comics was the first appearance of Venom, and at the time I thought he was an alright character, but, you know, nothing special. A few years later came Carnage, another one I was there for the introduction of but, again, wasn’t too impressed with. I don’t know what it was about the characters, maybe the way they just seemed too powerful, but I’ve never been big on the symbiotes in Marvel comics.
Then came the long period where I wasn’t reading comics at all, so when Scream was introduced in the pages of VENOM: LETHAL PROTECTOR #4 in May 1993, along with her “siblings”, Lasher, Phage, Riot, and Agony, I missed it.
Fast forward 27 years later and I read the ABSOLUTE CARNAGE storyline where, among other things, the Scream character is resurrected. Leaving behind the bones of former host Donna Diego, Scream bonds with Patricia Robertson and is coerced into hunting other previous symbiote-hosts for the symbiote god Knull.
But when Patricia convinced the Scream symbiote to resist Knull’s influence, the host sacrificed herself to save a girl named Andi Benton, to whom the symbiote Mania had previously bonded. Reveling in the power of another symbiote, Andi embraces the new bonding with Scream.
Which leads us here, to SCREAM Vol. 1: Curse of Carnage.
The first arc spans the first five issues of what was supposed to be a monthly title until COVID-19 hit and shut down the comic book publishing industry for a while. The title was then meant to become a digital-only, or digital-first, series before being cancelled with issue #6.
Written by Clay McLeod Chapman with art by Chris Mooneyham, SCREAM Vol. 1 never gets past the origin story, so we’ll never know what plans were in store for this title or what potential it could have realized. Having read this first volume, however, I stand by my previous assertion that I just don’t care much about the symbiotes.
Going back to research the Scream character and its connection to Andi Benton, I was surprised to find they had previously bonded and that Andi had also been previously bonded to the Mania symbiote because this entire arc reads as if it’s Andi’s first introduction to the world of symbiotes. SCREAM Vol. 1 has several pages of confusion on Andi’s part as she wanders from place to place in a strange New York City I don’t recognize from any Marvel comics. There’s a sense of isolation and being on the outside that Andi feels, which may have been the writer’s intention all along, but it’s still an unsettling feeling, having spent over 30 years at this point reading Marvel comics. This is not the fictional version of New York City I’m familiar with.
Andi winds up in a homeless shelter called F.E.A.S.T. which, seeing it was run by May Parker of all people, my patience had run thin already and I decided I didn’t care what the acronym stood for.
May tells Andi she’s welcome there as long as she needs, but on her first night, the symbiote lashes out, trying to protect Andi from invaders sent by “mother”.
And this is the gist of these 5 issues. Mother, an ancient symbiote living at the bottom of the river, is returning for her offspring, namely Scream. Scream insists it doesn’t need Mother, that Andi is all the family it needs.
Andi, meanwhile, is just along for the ride, seemingly confused and shocked by the entire symbiote experience, wanting nothing more than to have a place she feels is “home”, and a family, since hers is long gone (her mother was gone when Andi was a kid, but it’s never explained in this arc what happened to her, while Andi’s father was killed years earlier).
There is a very strange and often nonsensical interlude where Mother is shown battling Thor thousands of years earlier and Thor being called Grendel, but I didn’t understand the purpose of this part of the story other than to fill space and maybe Mooneyham want to draw Thor.
Meanwhile, back in the main narrative of SCREAM Vol. 1 … look, really it’s just several issues of Mother saying to Scream “ditch the host, come be part of me again and when Knull finally comes to Earth, you will be one of the special ones” and Scream saying, repeatedly, “Nah, I’m good.”
Overall I felt the story was alright, but shouldn’t have taken 5 issues to tell.
As for Mooneyham’s art … I didn’t hate it, but reading SCREAM Vol. 1 digitally (thanks to Marvel Unlimited), the guided reading affected the flow of the art in places and I wasn’t able to get the full scope of the panel as a whole as I read, only before or after I was done with the page.
Also, his characters didn’t always have enough distinctness about them, especially between Andi and one of the cops; I thought in one scene at the end that the cop WAS Andi.
The Scream symbiote itself, however, was often just an incomprehensible mess of red and yellow. There were several times I couldn’t make heads or tails out of what was supposed to be going on in the panels where Scream was in action. And don’t get me wrong, I could never be a comic book artist, and I have tremendous respect for what they’re able to do. But still, this book, story and art both, further solidified my opinion on the symbiotes in the Marvel Universe.
Would I have kept up with the series had it continued? Sure, on the Marvel Unlimited app where, for $5 a month I get to read all the Marvel comics I can stand. Physically? I wouldn’t have collected this series physically. If, however, you are someone who DOES like symbiote stories, SCREAM Vol. 1 might be your thing. Just know going in that the origin story is all you’re getting.
