OK folks, we have Venom and his amazing coterie in this issue! Get ready for Eddie, Flash, Mania, and everyone’s favorite Venom-relate villain, the Looter! Plus, just because fans demanded it, we’ll throw in a little Spidey and Black Cat action. So get ready, you valiant vigilante virtuosos, I’m taking a vacation from ASM and serving as the Venom vanguard poster today!
As an added bonus, you’ll find out what an evil Nazi skeleton covered in bees has to do with this!
The Devil in the Details
Story Title: Venom Inc. Part 1 – Alpha
Writer: Dan Slott and Mike Costa
Penciler: Ryan Stegman
Colorist: Bryan Reber
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramanga
Cover Artist: Ryan Stegman and Bryan Reber
Editor: Nick Lowe
Published: Dec. 6, 2017
How This Is Going to Work
I have a confession to make. I am not a Venom fan. I’m not a Venom hater either. I was all onboard back in the old Michelinie days. Well, until Lethal Protector, which in my youthful ignorance I bought. Since then, my keeping up with symbiotes has not been something I’ve done other than to definitively settle once and for all who created Venom. So, Shaun and Neil are going to carry this crossover through. Neil wants to review some Costa. Shaun wants a crack at Slott. So Neil is stealing Shaun’s Venom reviews and Shaun is Venomizing my ASM reviews. Me? I’m going to sit back and let the Venom Masters take me through to the end.
The Story – Pay Attention, This Will Be on the Test
Some Venom-esque hero is swinging through the streets. Apparently her name is Andi (and also a big deal to Venom fans judging by Neil and Shaun’s reactions), but she goes by Mania when she dons the living long johns and is operating with Flash Thompson’s approval. Some group that is prepared to deal with symbiotes attacks her with a two-way blast of sonics and fire, leaving Andi hurt and the symbiote captured.
Meanwhile, super villain masterminds Ringer and Tumbler are breaking into a museum. Spider-Man stops the robbery, but gets his rear handed to him when the Black Cat shows up and drops what must be the heaviest work of art ever on him. Seriously, Spider-Man has lifted a small tank before, but can’t get this thing off of him.
Flash informs Peter that he needs Spider-Man’s help in getting Venom back, so Peter acts like he can’t do anything, but slips a tracer on him.
Eddie Brock, who is Venom again if you haven’t been paying attention, almost kills the Looter. Eddie realizes that he is losing control, so he runs over to his local Alechemax to get some special Venom juice that will help him. They are trying a new batch and decided to make enough of it to work on about a thousand Venoms (hmmm, that’s not suspicious). Flash breaks in and the symbiote doesn’t know who to go to.
Spider-Man tries to help by dumping a vat onto the both of them thinking that it will kill the symbiote but not hurt Eddie or Flash. All it actually does is leave Venom on Eddie and turn Flash into Anti-Venom.
Meanwhile, the Looter is drowning his sorrows at a bar, presumably the Bar with No Name, or whatever replaced it after the events in Star Lord a few months ago. A guy comes up, spits in his face and turns the Looter in to Venom-Looter!
What Passed:
The artwork is very nice in this book. There are many call backs to Todd McFarland’s style, especially when Eddie Brock is featured and in the webbing that Mania is spinning.
The scene where the symbiote is splitting itself between Flash and Eddie grabbed my attention. I didn’t know if it would choose one or the other, split into two Venoms, or merge both of them into one Double Venom. The art was awesome and the panel was well written.
Onomatopoeia of the Issue
On a scale of 1 (POW) to 10 (BLRKBQRKPQRBLNB), this rates a 7. Mostly just because I felt it was a great call to sound out the symbiote phlegm.
What Failed:
Most scenes with Spider-Man. This was obviously a storyline set up around events that have transpired in the Venom storyline and Spider-Man, while key to the origin of the symbiote storyline and early Venom stories, is really a nothing character in the current story. I’ll backtrack a bit and say that there is nothing wrong with the fact that the symbiote character has evolved past its origins. My only issue is that I am reading and buying this to read about Spidey, so the story from that angle falls a little flat. Spider-Man is as forced to be in this issue as most other characters were in the early Marvel Team-Up issues.
Analysis:
If I was a Venom fan, a show down between Flash and Eddie would probably be right up my alley. It is also not hard to see that after the big Venoms fight, we’ll get to see them work together to take on the Venom Inc. I think that will be awesome, if I was a Venom fan, that is. This issue, while not worth $5 for me, does seem to do a good job setting up the story and laying out what is to come. It’s a shame that Spider-Man has to be in this story just to sell. This same issue could have easily been written without him. What he did to further the plot was to drop a vat of Venom juice on Flash, which could easily have happened by just having Flash get slammed into the vat during his fight with Eddie. Then again, without Spider-Man, this issue would not have the sale numbers it has (well, it would at least have one less).
Alchemax’s involvement is a nice touch. I love that they are becoming the Roxxon corporation of the today. I hope that they start appearing in other character’s books. The fact that they made such a large batch of the venom controlling juice leads me to believe that they are indeed behind this whole Venom Inc. thing.
Too bad Peter doesn’t know someone who is super good at developing tech for all things sonic. If only…
WHAT A WASTE – So Venom Inc. (I assume that is the name of the group that is stealing symbiotes and then spitting symbiote sputum on others to get them to join their cause) is turning people like the Looter into symbiote henchmen. All I had to do was mention this story to my son Grant (you remember him, the creator of the highly acclaimed Carnage Swarm character – “every bee has its own Carnage face!”) for him to say, “The Looter? They should have used Swarm! Venom Swarm – every bee spits out its own Venom loogie!” Now I would pay $5 for the next issue for that!
Extra Credit:
Which C rate villain do YOU think should be added to the Venom Inc. roster?
Final Grade:
C+
Looks like a good start for a Venom story and the art was great. Plus it gave me a great conversation with my son about Venom Swarm. Otherwise, for my personal tastes (which we know is dubious at best), it would be a D.
Your Turn:
What grade do YOU give it? Just post the grade. Add your own commentary if you want to expand upon it.
What’s Next?
‘Nuff Said!
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I wonder if it will turn out that Venom-Looter just happens to be sitting on a bar stool right next to Clash. (At first I accidentally typed “Venom-Loogie.”)
@Neil Bogenrieder That’s a very good question! I think part of Swarms charm (if you can call it that) is his Nazi-ness. I think his Nazi-ness is strong enough that it overpowers the political affiliations of the symbiote and might even leave a bit of Nazi residue. But, when the Carnage symbiote inevitably gets pulled off him and creates the Anti-Carnage suit, I think that costume will have strong communist sympathies and might could turn it’s next host into a communist (Captain Soviet maybe?)
I guess since Shaun and I will be switching places and I won’t be reviewing ASM for a bit, I should drop my two cents.
Eh.
Stegman’s art was fantastic, but great art doesn’t get me hyped for a crossover. Pepe Larraz isn’t hyping me up for No Surrender, and the same applies here.
This issue felt very rushed in delivering all of the major story beats. Andi getting sideswiped and getting her suit stolen was okay to get things rolling (I am still a little upset she’s not a major player in this one), but introducing Agent Anti-Venom this early seemed like a bad call. This should be an end-of-act-one twist, act two at the latest.
And judging by what little I’ve seen of 2016 Venom, I can’t exactly say I’m looking forward to Lee “Sasuke” Price as our villain, just because he seems to be unnecessarily edgy for the sake of being edgy.
Grade? Eh, I’ll play middleman to Mohammed and Mark and give this a straight C.
@Grant- So if Carnage Swarm is a Nazi Skeleton, would Venom Swarm be from Communist Russia? Or is just the same host with different Symbiotes?
I found the issue to be pretty mediocre all around (excluding the artwork of course). This did little to make me excited for the rest of the story.
The best part of this issue was Flash giving Eddie crap for being such a poor host to Venom. Venom has because a whiny clingy girlfriend archetype under Costa’s writing and Eddie’s tutelage.
Thought I would hate the issue a lot more, I agree with the C+ grade.
@ Mohammed – Completely missed out on that one! My son was too young and I was out of comics at that time. I did a quick Google search and found that there were some online versions of it. Maybe I’ll check it out if this cross-over series grabs my attention. Maybe we can create a cheat code that allows us to play Clash. That should solve any symbiote problems!
@Mark Alford – You won’t find it on Marvel Unlimited, it a Spider-Man game by Activision featuring of course Spider-Man, other characters in the Marvel Comics universe, including Mary Jane, Venom, and Black Cat.
The plot is the city is infected by Symbiotes and you make good and evil choices when fighting them, in which you could end up as a hero with/without Mary Jane or a leader of the symbiotes taking over the world and having Black Cat by your side.
@ Grant – I’d pay $10 for an extra large issue of Carnage Swarm vs. Venom Swarm. Marvel take my money!
@ Mohammed – Like I said, I haven’t kept up with the symbiote stories, so I don’t know if it follows “Web of Shadow” or not. Maybe I’ll give it a look over at Marvel Unlimited if it is in it.
I really got a kick out of the Eddie Brock art. It looked just like McFarland.
Really sad Venom Swarm wasn’t a thing……yet. I’m going to hold out hope!
If not for the art by Stegman. I would give it a C-/D grade so the C+ you gave sounds write for this issue.
and isn’t this just a retelling of “Web Of Shadow” just with a few details changed.