I hope everyone enjoyed my April Fool’s joke! With that out of the way, I wanted to address some things that Betty did in “Venom” issue 15. The issue came out today so be warned that there are spoilers under the cut!
Before we get to “Venom” issue 15, let’s set the stage with some backstory.
In “Venom” issue 8, the reader is shown a letter Flash’s father wrote to him before he passed away. Read the narration box below..
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You could imagine my laughter when I read this issue. If Flash doesn’t marry Betty it will be the biggest mistake of his life? Tell that to Ned Leeds! It worked out well for him! I’ve only used those panels, but the rest of the issue has many more examples of Flash’s father gushing over Betty Brant and how awesome she is. He repeats a few more times that his dying wish is for Betty and Flash to get married.
How ridiculous! Betty was the one who passed on the letter to Flash. At the time I had joked that Betty probably wrote the letter herself.
The joke got less funny when “Venom” issue 9 came out.
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So the long letter where Betty is praised and Flash is encouraged to marry her was written by Betty. Sure, she only wrote down the words of Flash’s dad, but isn’t that a big conflict of interest? She wrote the letter where she is praised? Isn’t that suspicious? Could she have changed a few of the words?
In “Venom” issue 10, Jack O’Lantern shows up at the funeral for Flash’s father but tells Betty he’s an old army buddy.
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This isn’t one of the worst things that Betty has ever done, but it sure is insensitive. Flash clearly doesn’t want to go with this guy…oh and by the way…HE JUST BURIED HIS FATHER. He needs support…not to be sent off to support another guy. As the girlfriend Betty should have respected Flash’s wishes…ON THE DAY OF HIS FATHER’S FUNERAL.
Cut to “Venom” issue 12, which I made a post about at the time of it’s release. Flash wants to “protect” Betty by getting her out of his life. He breaks up with her over the phone. At this point they haven’t seen each other since the funeral. I bet she wishes she hadn’t sent him away now.
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I can’t really say anything bad about Betty in that scene. Flash is the guy who dumps her over the phone which is pretty sleazy.
By “Venom” issue 13, the “Betty/Flash” phone calls have gotten less friendly.
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In fairness to Betty, she was dumped over the phone and probably wants more of an explanation.
However, as Flash stated it was a private number which she wasn’t suppose to have and he wanted to be left alone. I imagine by the way the scene is presented that this wasn’t the first time she called and probably wasn’t leaving Flash alone.
According to pages in “Venom” issue 15 that I didn’t scan here, Betty also called Flash’s place of employment.
Now to the main event….
Today “Venom” issue 15 came out and Flash has returned to New York to face the music.
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Where to begin?
* First off, Betty is waiting in an ex-boyfriend’s house again uninvited. This is becoming a nasty habit for her. When I first read this issue I had to do a double take to make sure that this was Flash’s apartment and not Betty’s.
* She chastises Flash for being bad at lying? This is the girl who lied to her husband on a regular basis. Heck, if you want to talk about being bad at lying, Betty would cheat on Ned IN FRONT OF NED’S PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT. That’s bad lying!
* I always find the whole “turning your back to the person and starting your conversation with a story instead of a hello” to be a weird creepy thing…ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU BREAK INTO THEIR APARTMENT.
* The Betty/Flash continuity guy in me was trying to figure out which reconciliation of theirs could have involved a trip to Aspen. Perhaps it happened during that weird period when they were “dating/not dating” in the Mackie run? The only other place I think it fits would be when they reconciled before “Big Time” (since we don’t know the circumstances of that one). However, their conversation indicates that it is probably an older event.
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Betty is dictating terms of the conversation….to the guy whose home she came into uninvited. To the guy who just got back into town and walked into the door not ready for this.
In fairness to Betty, he did break up with her without seeing her in person.
However, no conversation has even gone well when one party tells another that they aren’t allowed to talk or present their case.
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Betty and Flash are already broken up. They’ve been broken up for two issues (plus all those point 1, point 2 etc books). She’s giving him a breakup speech even though they are over…therefore there is no reason for her to say “The man you are isn’t enough for me”. You don’t say that to someone struggling with a drinking problem and someone WHO JUST BURIED THEIR FATHER. You are kicking him when he’s down.
She is partially justified…but she’s being excessive in her “revenge”.
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Betty that isn’t how breakups work at all…
Saying someone “isn’t man enough” for you is a low blow…ESPECIALLY WHEN HE IS STRUGGLING WITH A DRINKING PROBLEM AND JUST BURIED HIS DRUNK FATHER.
Some of this is Betty getting closure on their relationship. Stuff like this is just trying to hurt Flash because he hurt her.
Who is man enough for you Betty? Peter wasn’t so you started dating Ned. Then Ned wasn’t so you cheated on him with two different men.
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For Flash’s sake I hope you are right!
To sum this scene up…
Flash broke up with Betty under cowardly circumstances. Betty responded by ambushing him in his apartment and kicking him while he was down to basically tell him “I get the last word on this relationship”. She did this knowing Flash just buried his father and that his drinking problem has taken a turn for the worse. Betty knows what it’s like to lose a parent.
I feel like Betty was owed a talk…but I don’t feel like she had a proportionate reaction. I was hesitant about using this scene for a “Bertone Hates Betty” because I feel like Betty was partially justified. I was encouraged by friends and further rereads to put finger to keyboard though. What do you all think? Did Flash have it coming? Should Betty have gone easy on him?
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Betty was out of line. It was fine to express hurt, disappointment and even anger. To say that Flash hadn’t respected her or treated her fairly or that she wanted to be the one to break up? Also ok, and she has the right to that. But when she said “he wasn’t man enough for her”, that wasn’t even the worst thing she said. Comparing herself to Flash’s mother and how she was abused by Flash’s father was far far more egregious. Even not knowing of Flash’s activities as Venom, Betty hasn’t seen anything as bad as the nightmares of Flash’s youth and his father.Flash did not beat her. He did not fly into drunken rages or say anything verbally abusive that we saw. Nothing on the level of his father at all.
Yes, he was preoccupied with his work and personal issues. And he broke up with her because he couldn’t handle a relationship with all else that was in his life. Happens all the time in reality too.The way he did it was hurtful, but that’s not a crime and that didn’t merit her comparing him to his criminally abusive father which is the most painful and cheap emotional wound she could inflict on him. She had the right to be angry and hurt, but not to paint Flash as a drunken failure especially when she knew his father had just died and how low his self-esteem and morale is right now. This was shockingly petty and immature on her part. I am hopeful it was just a moment of emotion, and she apologizes once the sharpness of her pain wears off.
And Betty just wanted the last word.
@#13
Wow, you’re right. I’d entirely forgotten. That sums up poor Sha Shan’s plight in a nutshell — no one stops to take HER into consideration.
@#11
Are you kidding? Flash should be trying to make up for what he did to Sha Shan!
Betty Brant, horrible person, yadda, yadda… here’s hoping Flash has better luck with Valkyrie.
To Bertone & Cubman…thanks for the intel re: the leg thing:)
And now Betty can finally do what she’s always wanted from the very beginning: HOOK UP WITH PETER!!! I believe that her love for him never left the building because I thank that she made a huge mistake when she broke up with him. She and Mary Jane are in the same boat because they want Peter back in their respective lives once again!!!
When Betty starts paying for all the s*** she put Peter Parker through, then I’ll worry about how Flash has treated her. I still don’t think that much of Flash.
Betty’s denseness about normal human feelings and behavior is probably why she was able to put up with Jameson all those years.
@Spec,
He’s using fake legs at the moment.
@Jack,
Both Wacker and Rick Remender (writer of Venom) have read the articles. I know a few people recommended them to Slott, but I don’t know if Slott read them.
Whhat i find funny is that betty reacted quite the same way when Ned died, even going as far as joining a murderous, brain washing cult. She, better than anyone, should understand how the grief can make you do stupid things…
Eh, Flash kind of had this coming after what he did to his Betty and the rest of his family…granted, he was saving the world, but they don’t know that.
@#2 He’s now a member of the Secret Avengers and they got him some artificial legs to use.
I think someone at Marvel has been reading Bertone’s Betty series. There are too many of Betty’s character beats being struck here for this to be a coincidence. I seem to remember even Wacker saying he thought the Bertone Hates Betty series was a hoot, so maybe…?
P.S. Didn’t Flash break up with Betty this last time because the symbiote was manipulating him? Not that it matters, I guess. Can you imagine what would happen if [i]Betty[/i] ever got a symbiote? Nah, that would probably start her down a road where she’d be irrecoverable as an ASM cast character.
Don’t read this title regularly though have read Spidey since the early 70s and am well aware of the Betty/Flash dynamic….and I certainly don’t want to appear dense, but in some of these panels Flash seems to have legs which bend properly at the knee when the majority of the time he is non-Venomy he has no legs and sits in a wheelchair.does he have venomy legs at present, artificial/bionic….and if so why does he relegate himself to a wheelchair at all……..am I missing something? Incidentally, Betster is an epic negative character of pyschotic proportions, though she is partially justified here….
BURN THE WITCH!