This time out I will address perhaps the single most controversial aspect of ASM #300. The reveal of Venom’s identity as a complete stranger!
Mistaken Mystery
In this instalment we’re going to look over these two criticisms I laid out back in part 1.
- Brock was a previously unknown character who is unconnected to Peter Parker’s life in or out of his costume.
- The reveal of Brock as Venom is a bad resolution to the mystery story seeded in issues leading to ASM #300
In the parts 3-4 I laid out that readers’ expectations for Venom come ASM #300 were at odds with Michelinie’s apparent original intentions for the character and story. Namely that he was intended first and foremost as a as a super villain stalker as opposed to a ‘dark reflection’ or evil counterpart to Spider-Man.
First of all, you really need to keep that latter point in mind because it is critical to really understanding Venom as a character and how he was written in ASM #300; in particular when it comes to the reveal of his identity.
Second of all, misreading Venom as a dark reflection wasn’t the only way in which readers got the wrong end of the stick.
To be blunt, I strongly feel the readers following ASM (and possibly Web of Spider-Man) at the time of ASM #300’s publication believed that they were reading a ‘Guess who this villain is’ style mystery story.
Except they weren’t.
In fact David Michelinie had never intended to make Venom’s identity a legitimate mystery of that kind, and arguably never wrote a mystery story surrounding his identity on the first place. At the same time I think the decision to make Venom an unknown character was a very deliberate decision.
Weird as this might be to say, whilst it was intentional for the readers to not know who Venom was (which to say, literally mysterious) it wasn’t strictly speaking a ‘mystery story’. A mystery story is a story built centrally or in large part around the conceit of there being some unknown piece of information that the story spends important scenes developing and chasing, with the climax being the ultimate revelation of said mystery.
A great Spider-Man centric example would be three part mini-series Hobgoblin Lives. In that story the identity of the original Hobgoblin is thrown into question when the climax of issue #1 establishes that the man we originally believed to be the Hobgoblin, Ned Leeds, in fact couldn’t have been the real culprit. We then see the real Hobgoblin revealed as alive and well. Issue #2 then starts throwing out suspects and clues with various scenes dedicated to hinting at the different directions the mystery might be resolved. Finally issue #3 gives us all the answers with the climax of that issue (and so the entire story) finally putting the last pieces of the puzzle together and revealing the culprit to be Roderick Kingsley.
That is a mystery story. In fact a mystery story in comic books doesn’t strictly speaking need its own dedicated arc like that. It could play out as a subplot across many issues where the main plot is concerned with something else and even have the revelation dovetail with other events of a story or story arc. An example of mystery storyline playing out across the subplots of multiple issues would be the original Green Goblin or Hobgoblin mysteries (though their executions were flawed). And an example of a mystery being resolved by dovetailing with another larger storyline would be the revelation of the Jackal’s identity as Miles Warren during the 1970s Clone Saga. Chiefly the 1970s Clone Saga was an emotional character piece storyline ruminating upon grief but there was nevertheless a mystery story going on within it the resolution of which was a crucial moment in the over arching plot.
Rather than being an example of these types of stories executed poorly, I propose that the mystery of Venom’s identity was never truly intended as this type of story in the first place but nevertheless needed to conceal Brock’s identity due to the central premise behind the character.
Long Game Plans
As I said above, understanding Brock was a super villain stalker is critical to wrapping your head around this.
Using the ‘Venom as stalker lens’ let’s look at some of the issues leading up to ASM #300 and the wider context surrounding them.
To begin with we have to recognize that David Michelinie is a writer who has stated he typically plans his stories well in advance. There is numerous evidence for this but two particular examples come to mind.
Back when he’d hoped to stay on ASM and write Amazing Spider-Man #400 he’d intended for the issue to be the death of Eddie Brock, bookending the fact that the character truly debuted in ASM #300. He had planned for this even though his last issue of the series was ASM #388 published roughly one year before ASM #400 would’ve been released.
Often comic book stories for big franchises like Spider-Man (where there are multiple monthly titles) are plotted out around a year in advance. In fact during the early days of the Clone Saga the story was planned to be resolved in ASM #400 and if you look back at the stories immediately following ASM #388 you can tell quite clearly that the writers were laying the ground work for that storyline. This wouldn’t meant that Michelinie had in his head an idea for what he would do in ASM #400 awhile before he even got to the planning stages for the year leading up to ASM #400. That’s how far in advance Michelinie used to plot his stories.
An even more obvious example of this long game plotting can be observed with the other big villain Michelinie debuted, Carnage.
In Amazing Spider-Man #344 (published in 1991) we first meet Cletus Kasady, and in the very next issue we see a tiny piece of Venom’s symbiote start to drip onto his hand.
This was all set up for Amazing Spider-Man #361 (published in 1992) where Spidey faces off against Carnage, though the character had appeared in a subplot beginning in ASM #359.
Is this really a mystery?
Together these facts heavily indicate that rather than merely executing a mystery story incompetently (as has usually been the criticism) Michelinie never intended for Venom’s identity to have ever been the subject of a true ‘Guess who this villain is’ style mystery story (or any kind of legitimate mystery story in fact) and for Venom to have always been a genuinely never before seen character.
This is backed up when you consider that in most mystery stories suspects, clues and potential answers are given to the readers ahead of time to increase suspense and tease the possible resolution. In Spider-Man stories even mystery stories that were not executed as well as they could have been did that. The classic Green Goblin mystery only gave a true named introduction to Norman Osborn two issues before the big reveal (though he had appeared as a nameless background character before then) but even back in those 1960s stories potential suspects were still hinted at and thrown out.
David Michelinie was even able to build up a mystery and throw in clues and red herrings during with the infamous storyline involving the return of Spider-Man’s parents. He was able to do that even though the story’s originator, then spider editor Danny Fingeroth, never pinned down the endgame of that plotline meaning Michelinie was trying developing potential clues to a mystery with no hard resolution in sight.
And yet between Web #18 and ASM #300 at no point was there ever even a tease or a hint as to who precisely Venom might be. We simply had a mysterious stalker in two Web issues, then over a year later another tease of someone who had the symbiote and then two more issues later we got the full Monty.
Structurally that isn’t really a mystery storyline but at first glance it does superficially look like one. After all if someone unseen is attacking and stalking Spider-Man then naturally readers will wonder who it is and expect it to be someone they know, will come to know or at the very least be someone of significance in some fashion. No doubt this was the subject of letters Michelinie and editorial received and yet the storyline unfolded with no clues and a complete unknown unveiled as the culprit.
Furthermore when Venom’s face is finally revealed in ASM #300 it is done without much fanfare and is shown to the readers exclusively.
Typically you would expect the readers to learn the mystery man’s identity alongside the titular character, but here we not only see who he is sans Spider-Man’s presence but the reveal is not presented as a moment of true shock or impact. That would be mystery story writing 101 but there isn’t so much as a splash page or even a particularly big panel for the first time you lay eyes on Venom unmasked.
After this initial reveal the story even depicts the (at that point) unknown and unnamed individual as he continued to stalk Spider-Man and plot against him.
Whilst these scenes might shed more light onto the type of personality the symbiote’s new host has, they are just outright illogical as mystery story writing and further devalue the impact of the character’s identity, especially since in these scenes readers didn’t even know his name yet in spite of getting a lot of face time with him.
In fact when we do learn his name the story presents itself as the true blue introduction to the character, going on to give a potted biography of Brock.
Presenting the character this way and divulging this information really doesn’t make sense so many pages after we first see the character. Not unless we were never really reading a mystery story to begin with and Brock was deliberately intended to be a stranger from the start.
Potential incompetence?
Alternatively I suppose David Michelinie is simply an incompetent mystery story writer; or incompetent writer in general.
However, when you consider his long game plotting on Spider-Man before and after ASM #300, the former accusation becomes rather difficult to believe. In truth when you inspect every appearance of Brock/Venom leading up to the scene where he actually learn his name the idea that any given professional writer who’s been working for as long as Michelinie had been could be that incompetent is honestly much more ridiculous than presuming they weren’t doing that type of story in the first place.
I know a lot of people within fandom don’t hold Michelinie in high esteem at all, but anyone taking a step back and truly considering his work on Spider-Man and other titles fairly really couldn’t honestly believe him to be that amateurish. Even his worst work on Spider-Man titles doesn’t display such a raw lack of awareness as people presume him on in ASM #300.
It is after all presuming the co-creator of Scott Lang and Taskmaster, the co-writer of the greatest Iron Man run of all time, and veteran of over a decade’s worth of comic book writing, was so incompetent that he built a story around the identity of a character with zero prior connection with anything in the series. And then didn’t even bother giving us his name or motivations until we’d spent three scenes up close and personal with him.
Even the infamous revelation of the fifth Green Goblin as a shape shifting clone of absolutely nobody (way back in 2000) wasn’t as incompetent as that because it at least withheld the non-reveal until the climax of the story. And that story was written as more or less a deliberate insult towards the readership.
Hell, the mystery surrounding Peter’s tone deaf Country singing neighbour the Lonesome Pinky (during Denny O’Neil’s much derided ASM run) wasn’t as poorly written as detractors accuse the mystery within ASM #300 as being.
It just doesn’t add up that Michelinie could with all the planning time he had not so much drop the ball, but throw it out the window after puncturing it on purpose.
Realism and practicalities
However, even accepting Michelinie had always intended Brock to be an unknown to the readers and have his name revealed long after we’d seen his face…wasn’t it nevertheless dramatically unsatisfying?
Wouldn’t it have been much more impactful for Venom to have indeed been revealed as someone from Peter’s life, or at least someone the readers were familiar with?
For example over the years fans have suggested Peter’s photographic rival at the Daily Bugle Lance Bannon as a substitute for Brock as Venom’s alter ego; ironically Spider-Man 3’s version of Brock more closely resembles Bannon than his comic book counterpart.
To address that we first should put ASM #300 into context.
It was released less than a year after the highly controversial resolution to the Hobgoblin mystery in ASM #289. That issue wrapped up four years worth of mystery and intrigue surrounding a highly popular new villain by ultimately revealing him to be Bugle reporter (and sometimes rival to Peter) Ned Leeds.
The resolution was divisive for fans, some feeling the resolution was too predictable (Ned wasn’t the first Bugle staffer gone bad), others feeling it made sense but was unsatisfying since there was no showdown or direct confrontation between the Hobgoblin and Spidey. The mystery had begun under Roger Stern’s iconic run on Amazing Spider-Man and had continued for around four years, through more than one staff changeover in the Spider-Man office. In fact the resolution of the mystery was the subject of much contention and internal disagreements between certain individuals working in the Spider-Man books during that time.
In such a context it is not unreasonable that Michelinie and then brand new editor Jim Salicrup possibly felt that it’d be a mistake to emphasize yet another mystery villain plotline so soon (or at least for any significant length of time), mostly because it would’ve been far too repetitive or risked backlash from the readers.
This was possibly a more critical concern in light of Marvel changing their editor-in-chief, the sea change generated from Spider-Man’s marriage, the recent dark and controversial Kraven’s Last Hunt storyline, and the apparent turbulence behind the scenes in the Spider-Man offices in the years and months preceding Venom’s debut. It was a time period where stable, reliable stories were needed and kicking off another mystery villain subplot so soon after the last one went very much against that aspiration.
More poignantly though, Venom being an unknown individual makes a lot of sense in light of his original intentions as a super villain stalker.
Realistically whenever Spider-Man uncovers someone’s true identity it is unlikely that he would know who they are given just how many people live in New York city, let alone its frequent visits by aliens, mystical entities or other such beings. This is something even acknowledged in the original Stan Lee/Steve Ditko run of Spider-Man on more than one occasion.
In ASM #9 Spider-Man unmasks Electro (who’s identity and origin had already been unveiled to the readers much earlier in the issue) and quips that were this a movie he’d gasp at the villain’s identity, but he in fact has no idea who he is.
While there can be some similarities observed between Venom’s identity and Crime Master’s, their function within the respective stories are rather different.
Crime Master’s identity serves to act as an outright subversion of the mystery villain trope. But for Venom the anonymity surrounding his identity is more connected with his concept being centrally founded upon the notion that he is a stalker; specifically a kind of celebrity stalker.
Many celebrities (such as Mary Jane, who had numerous stalkers during Michelinie’s run) seldom know who their stalkers are and they’re usually just random people off the street with an obsession and/or major beef with their intended victims. The latter is often over an imagined slight or otherwise simply not warranted under any circumstance.
For Spider-Man in particular this would be particularly true of most stalkers he’d realistically acquire. Given the countless people he’s interacted with over the years, the various instances of collateral damage he’s been a part of and the sheer number of enemies he has acquired from his years as a crime fighter statistically it’s actually less likely that he’d have significant knowledge of his stalker.
In being a stranger to the readers Brock emphasised the constant presence of danger in Spider-Man’s life and his active need for a secret identity. He showed the readers that Spider-Man doesn’t endure potential risk just from common criminals, crime lords and super villains, but also from unknown and seemingly random ordinary people tangential or outright illogical axes to grind against him. In fact the anonymity and unfamiliarity of Eddie Brock could be said to render him more disturbing in the role of a stalker in Spider-Man’s life.
He isn’t an old enemy looking to pay Spidey back for foiling his plans or sending him to jail. He isn’t even a friend or family member of someone Spider-Man has defeated out for revenge. He is simply some guy Spider-Man has never met who’s life fell apart because of Spider-Man inadvertent actions. Or at least that’s how he sees it.
The ‘inadvertent’ aspect of the story is further enforced through tying Venom’s origin into an established event the readers would’ve been familiar with. This served to highlight the unintended consequences of Spidey’s actions that he (and by extension the readers) wouldn’t normally think about.
This core concept was present in Michelinie’s original female rendition of the character as well. That and the eventual origin we got played with the idea of someone getting hurt due to the unintended consequences of Spidey’s actions. Said ‘victim’ then made Spidey the object of their scorn, mostly due to their own issues resulting from their misfortune.
When realism goes too far
Now there is a problem with this line of argument that I have to admit to.
In ASM #300 itself (as depicted above) Peter recognizes Brock, even exclaiming his name in surprise. This does unfortunately damage the idea of him being a true unknown to Peter and the readers.
In truth this fact is what truly hurts ASM #300 and the most legitimate case of problematic writing on Michelinie’s part.
As one commenter on part 1 of this series put it:
I can’t entirely disagree with that.
However, I maintain that Michelinie absolutely intended for Brock to be an unknown character from day 1, this being part of the central point of the character.
For years I was at a loss as to why this scene played out the way it did. That was until I actually asked David Michelinie himself.
Please bear in mind that I chose my words carefully so as to be polite and thus increase my chances of a response:
ME: Mr Michelinie early on in Amazing Spider-Man #300 we first see Venom’s true face but don’t get his name or motives.
We then see his actions during the issue which lead to a pivotal scene in which he reveals his face to Spider-Man. Spidey then reacts in shock since he recognizes the face and readers learn Venom’s real name is Eddie Brock, followed by his origin.
To me personally the scene seems intended as a shocking reveal, sort of like when the Green Goblin was finally revealed to be Norman Osborn back in Stan Lee and John Romita’s run.
However the readers had never heard of Brock before ASM #300 so the ‘shock’ and reveal in the scene to me seems a little odd.
With this in mind I would like to please ask why you opted to play the scene in this way, specifically why you opted to have Spider-Man know who Brock was despite the readers being unaware of who he was.
It’s just something I’ve always been curious about.
DAVID MICHELINIE: Actually…that was never intended to be a shocking reveal–to the READERS. But then, I wasn’t writing the readers, I was writing Peter Parker. He was surprised because he was aware of Eddie Brock as a fellow journalist, as indicated by Spider-Man’s thought balloon (“Looks familiar! Like–”) followed by Brock’s dialogue (“Ah, you’ve seen my picture in the Daily Globe!”). At which point both Peter AND the readers know Brock’s/Venom’s identity, learning at the same time. Eddie then goes on to explain–to everyone–how he and the alien symbiote became one. It’s just the way the story was structured.
To an extent, this somewhat resolves and one of the major criticisms of ASM #300.
That big ‘shocking reveal’ that seemingly doesn’t make sense because Brock isn’t known to the readers was not in fact supposed to be a big shocking moment, but a dramatic set up for an introduction.
Spider-Man’s reacts the way he did because having worked out Brock’s backstory in advance Michelinie evidently felt it’d be unrealistic for Spider-Man to not recognize him.
If we take Brock’s word at face value, he had a pedigree within news circles and it had reached new heights during the Sin Eater case, which had happened less than a year ago in-universe. Peter as someone who had worked in those circles for years, worked for the rival to Brock’s paper for years and even worked at that paper not too many years earlier (in-universe) realistically would have recognized Brock.
Whilst realistic from the in-universe perspective of Spider-Man, the scene is an example (perhaps the prime example) of how Venom’s character was not communicated as well as he could have been.
The scene, especially when taken in isolation, absolutely plays as the culmination of ‘the mystery’. It seems like it is a big revelation and supposed to be a real shocker.
In reality it was never meant to be that. It was merely meant to hype up Brock and segway into his backstory, whilst also maintaining the realism of the characters.
Nevertheless, whether it’s the particular dialogue used, the pacing employed or the angles and layouts of the art but it all (mostly) comes across in a manner which would make sense in a different type of story than what is intended.
In fairness Spider-Man’s exclamation of Brock’s identity is presented when he is off panel and Brock is front and centre. This does on a subtle level sell the idea to the readers that you aren’t supposed to be in step with Spider-Man for this part of the story, since readers aren’t ‘with’ Spidey when we finally get Brock’s name.
Unfortunately it doesn’t quite work as generations of readers have felt the moment takes them out of the story.
Had the moment been tweaked (perhaps in the way the commenter suggested) it might have more clearly conveyed to readers that was a moment of shock intended for Spider-Man but not for them. The scene might also have avoided being misinterpreted as Spidey having personal knowledge of Brock.
In truth though I think it was simply a case of Michelinie zigging when he should have zagged.
Having Brock be an unknown was fine, but having such a noticeable dissonance between the reader and Spider-Man just wasn’t going to work. Typically audiences of all stories expect to be clued into the thoughts, feelings and relevant knowledge of the central protagonists, in particular when the story is dominated by their point of view told (more or less) from within their heads. This isn’t a hard rule of course, but it does tend to be the case in Spider-Man stories. After all more than any other Marvel character, was Spidey not supposed to be the ‘hero who could be you’?
Thus having Spidey and the readers be so out of synch in this one moment does trip the story up.
But it is less a mistake born of outright incompetence and more misjudgement. Michelinie having established in his mind Brock’s backstory quite correctly extrapolated that Peter would thus recognize Brock and wrote Spider-Man realistically within that context.
However given Brock’s stalker coding and the scene’s intention as a true introduction to him, this is a case of well intentioned realism going too far.
Ultimately Michelinie should’ve put his faith in the readers suspending their sense of disbelief and simply had Spider-Man not know Brock’s identity.*
This would have far more effectively communicated the stalker idea of the character, the ‘unintended consequences’ element of Brock’s origin and the fact that Spidey has enemies who’re complete strangers to him (thus further justifying Peter’s secret identity).
That being said it should be noted that whilst Peter does recognize Brock, his recognition only stretches as far as knowing his name and face. This therefore doesn’t entirely invalidate the idea of Brock being an unknown yet dangerous stranger.
Next up we’re going to talk about the notorious retcons present in Brock’s origin in relation to the iconic Death of Jean DeWolff storyline…and question if they are as contradictory as many readers think!
P.S. An often tangential complaint of Brock being an unknown character is that he was unworthy to know Spider-Man’s identity, especially when a major and well-established enemy like Doctor Octopus didn’t.
But really it is actually all too appropriate for Brock to know his identity whilst being a stranger. As I discussed above, Brock’s anonymous status re-emphasises the importance of Peter’s secret identity. He has enemies whom he’s never met, who hate him for imagined and tangential slights
It showcases the dangers of one of his enemies knowing who he is just as Norman Osborn knowing in the Silver Age did.
It just comes at it from a different (and chillingly more realistic) angle.
*Ironically, had Michelinie used his original female Venom it is unlikely that the scene would have played out the way it did since she was apparently never intended to be a journalist.
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
Pandora
Amazon Music
iHeartRadio
Podbean
Amazon Alexa
Player.fm
Listen Notes
Stitcher
“over the years fans have suggested Peter’s photographic rival at the Daily Bugle Lance Bannon as a substitute for Brock as Venom’s alter ego” During the original Hobgoblin mystery Bannon was one of the readers’ favorite guesses for the Hobgoblin’s identity.
The biggest problem with the reveal that Ned Leeds was the Hobgoblin was that Ned was already dead – he had been killed a few months previous to the reveal. And we had seen the Hobgoblin appear since then, so it really didn’t make sense; the only way to make sense out of it was to turn the Hobgoblin into a legacy character where anyone could put on the costume and become the Hobgoblin (turning the Hobgoblin from a special villain to just another villain who could be anybody). Reading it at the time, it really felt like they decided to reveal his identity, and just before starting to write the reveal, they opened up an envelope left by Roger Stern that said “DO NOT OPEN UNTIL YOU ARE READY TO REVEAL THE HOBGOBLIN’S IDENTITY!” and inside the envelope it said “Ned Leeds is the Hobgoblin” and they were stuck with it, so they had to write an issue that made sense but it was impossible.
Early stalker Brock gave me so many nightmares as a kid, the fact that he was doing all this stuff to a guy who’d barely done anything to him and who he’d never previously met made it all the worse.
Incidentally, I love the early Venom look where he had normal teeth, it just seems so creepy in a kind of ‘uncanny valley’ way, whereas the later sharp teeth and long drool-dripping tongue are more like just a typical monster.
“As one commenter on part 1 of this series put it:”
Hey, that’s a great comment! I like the way that guy thinks!
I’ll see myself out.