Venom #159 Review

For a post-Christmas gift, I thought nothing more appropriate than switching places with Shaun and reviewing one of the less-than-satisfactory comics on Marvel’s payroll. (It’s not America, but it’s up there.)

Venom #159

“Venom Inc Part 3”   

Story: Dan Slott and Mike Costa

Writer: Mike Costa

Pencils: Gerardo Sandoval

Inks: Gerardo Sandoval

Colors: Daniel Curiel

Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles

Recap:

Peter is an obnoxious ass whose only goal right now is to kill Venom. Flash proves to be the only redeeming character in this whole mess. Also, Lee “Sasuke” Price has the Mania symbiote and is using it to somehow to cut other supervillains on the edge. (Including Black Cat and her criminal gang)

Plot:

In a park, Eddie Brock (Remember kids, Flash cut off every trace of the Symbiote) attempts to reconnect to it and somehow manages to find a tiny strand of 

the Symbiote, following it. (Because screw it, Slott and Costa can’t be asked to read each other’s books.)

Meanwhile, in the important part of the book, Spider-Man and Agent Anti-Venom are fighting the Symbiote-infected gang that used to belong to Black Cat. Anti-Venom wipes the floor with the gang, and Black Cat and Flash kiss, which destroys the Symbiote loogie and frees her. As the Venom gang (I shouldn’t be saying that, but whatever floats the writer’s boat I guess) corners our heroes, Felicia makes her getaway.

I forgot this is still Eddie’s comic, though, since he’s still showing up and is wandering around looking for the Symbiote. The Symbiote escapes from Bobbi’s apartment (The broken mirror probably explains why she breaks up with him) and goes through the sewers to reunite with him.

Our issue ends with Flash and Peter getting incapacitated (Though they don’t actually show it happen, aka a violation of show-don’t-tell) and them chained up by the Venom gang.

Thoughts:

I suppose I should discuss my own relationship with Venom before I talk about this issue.

While I am not the biggest Venom fan on the Crawlspace (I’m fairly certain that Shaun takes that place by a longshot) I have a very large amount of respect for him as one of Peter’s most famous rogues, and one that has had arguably some of the greatest impacts on his title. However, I feel that he went off the rails during his “Lethal Protector” phase and always worked better as a dark foil for Peter. (I’m also not exactly the biggest fan of Bendis’ Klyntar retcon, hence why I re-retconned the Symbiotes back to the Planet of the Symbiotes storyline during Days of Deception.)

However, using Flash Thompson as a new host after Dark Reign was probably the best opportunity to make a heroic Venom, showing a good person struggling to contain the Symbiote’s inner impulses rather than just succumbing to its urges. And, while I’m not the biggest fan of the Klyntar retcon, I can’t deny that it allowed for good character development and a genuine partnership between Flash and the Symbiote.

I’m also a fairly big supporter of Mania as a sidekick. During Flash’s tenure on the Thunderbolts, as well as the Guardians of the Galaxy (And, by consequence, his Spaceknight career) she was stuck in limbo for the longest time. From what I can gather, Cullen Bunn has been trying to get a Mania mini-series ever since Flash lost his own solo title, but was never successful.

So, imagine my surprise when Marvel (The 2017 Marvel, not the good Marvel) decided to basically kill Mania off and replace Flash (Who had gone through a six-year character development) with the epitome of edginess known as Lee Price and eventually regress back to Eddie Brock. And by surprise, I mean lack of surprise and total apathy.

I’ve been itching to air my grievances with Mike Costa, and lo and behold, Shaun provided me with the perfect opportunity. After having ruined the Transformers relaunch after All Hail Megatron, and wasting infinite opportunity with Web Warriors, Costa took the worst possible option in terms of how they could have used Venom after Spaceknight. And here, he takes every opportunity to avoid writing the character he brought back. Eddie does almost nothing in this issue aside from… walking down dark alleys looking for the Symbiote. Heck, the Symbiote does more in this issue than him, and actively takes the initiative to find him.

I know Shaun praised Flash last issue for being the MVP, but here he’s absolutely bland and unimportant. All of the characters in this issue (Down to the bit characters like Melter and Scorpion) feel the same and read the same as the next random character. It hurts when each character feels exactly identical and has a lack of identity. What hurts comic dialogue is that characters don’t have actors, per se; they don’t have any voice outside of the words printed on the screen. It’s a problem that Web Warriors and The Transformers shared, and it probably won’t go away before Venom Inc ends.

As for art, Gerardo Sandoval has his own… unique style when it comes to pencils. And with that style comes some trade-offs; however, he still usually manages to create something that’s pretty to look at. Here, however, he’s no Ryan Stegman. Whatever happened, my deepest condolences. The only characters that look reasonably decent are Spider-Man and Agent Anti-Venom, but that’s only when they’re stationary and not in heavy action scenes. (Though his rendition of the Venomized 8-Ball is pretty cool.) I’m not exactly looking forward to Venom #160 if Sandoval keeps on this track; normally I like him, but Venom Inc has done something to him.

Venom Inc so far has proven to be a disaster of minute proportions, but it has the unfortunate potential to be of epic proportions. I’m not exactly proud to be reviewing the crossover (And neither are Shaun and Mark, as far as I’m aware) but I do thank the crossover for allowing me the opportunity to take pot shots at somebody other than Slott for a change.

Final Grade: D-