The Spectacular Spider-Man #201

Part five of the fourteen-chapter "Maximum Carnage" saga, this 1993 issue of The Spectacular Spider-Man drops readers into an uneasy alliance as Spider-Man and Venom charge together against a very dangerous threat. Sal Buscema's cover captures the tension perfectly — a ferocious Carnage dominates the foreground, lashing out with razor-sharp symbiote tendrils at a fallen Black Cat, while Spider-Man and a snarling Venom converge from behind. The cover's own teaser — "Spidey and Venom — Together?!" and "There's more than one way… to kill the Cat!" — makes it clear that J. M. DeMatteis and Buscema have something genuinely gripping in store.