GIVE LIGHT, AND THE DARKNESS WILL DISAPPEAR OF ITSELF
By Sym B. Ote
NEW YORK.
Reinforcement from space has finally arrived, as the Silver Surfer faces Knull for a rematch, turning his board into a sword. As he prepared to engage the evil deity, Earth’s heroes converged on them for a final assault.
However, the sudden arrival of a Uni-powered Venom brings this fight to a halt. Cosmic Venom then proceeded to “borrow” the Sufer’s sword and Thor’s Mjolnir to fuse them into a Battle-Axe, with which he engaged the King in Black (pictured left).
With all that added power, Brock just teared through whatever the Space God threw at him: Dragons, Celestials and Even all-Black the Necrosword; before ripping the symbiote of Knull and in what was probably a very cathartic moment, throwing him off a skyscrapper. Venom then proceeded to fly a weakened Knull into the Sun, presumably destroying him (pictured left).
However, victory wasn’t total yet, as a piece of Knull’s darkness still resides within Dylan Brock. However, using the Uni-power for the last time, Brock (litteraly) removed the darkness from within his son and destroys it for good, finally freeing the universe from the threat of Darkness.
However it appears that the end of the road is nowhere in sight for Venom, as the symbiotes crown him the new King in Black….
____________________________
With the final issue finally out, we have a few things to unpack.
First the Captain Universe Venom. While the idea seemed silly a few years ago, it actually works with the growth of the character. Eddie wet to hell and back to find a way to defeat Knull and save Dylan. He went from an addict, using the power of his suit as a drug to a father willing to give up everything for his son. It also explores that while Brock accomplished a lot of things, he still sees himself as a loser, but one who isn’t about to screwed up his tenth second chance.
The action was, once again, impressive. Grandiose splash pages, dynamic page layout, clean art… Mayer, Stegman Martin, Keith and Cowles stick the landing to a miniseries that would have been much less impressive if drawn by a lesser team.
Cates writing was on point. Everyone behaved in character, especially Brock who, in the middle of a battle with a God, while powered by a universal source of power ask his fellow heroes to protect the innocent. Good stuff.
The ending is left in the air, with Venom being the new King in Black. While it’s obvious it will be addressed in Venom 200, I still think it will be hard to swallow for the people reading this event only. Once again a strange marketing move from Marvel.
All in all a solid issue that (mostly) tie up the event in a neat little bow. Well worth a A- in my book.
I’m preparing an entire event retrospective, that will cover King in Black 1-5, as well as the tie-ins, in order to give an opinion on the event as a whole rather than just individual issues. Hope to see you there!
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Funny, I don’t remember much of Minimum Carnage, only the ending with Kaine lobotomizing Kasady. I do remember I felt let-down by it, due to much anticipation (I liked Flash Venom and loved Kaine Scarlet Spider).
What about X-23?
I have a “must-read” reading list for 90’s Venom miniseries and Tooth and Claw isn’t on it, so I probably did my homeworks right, back then when I made it. 🙂
I agree on the suit. It took me a second reading to even notice the star pattern. But once you do it looks pretty slick.
I do agree on the ending (although I honestly thought Dylan was gonna inherit the title). The enigma being a “god of light” is also weird considering what happened in minimum carnage… And x-23
I do agree it wasn’t the best story but as far as Eddie Brock led series go… It was essentially the best we got in a very long time. When compared to bunn, way or the trash miniseries we got in the 90s (if you haven’t, NEVER read tooth and claw. I felt dumber once I was done reading that garbage) it’s actually fairly phenomenal.
Since I still have to read some of the tie-ins, especially those I’m not really interested about (I’m looking at you, Namor), I’m looking forward to that retrospective!
As I already said before, I’m not totally convinced in how Brock is pictured as a hero, in particular from other heroes’ point of view and how we got there. That said, I didn’t find the idea of Captain Universe silly, since as far as I know, the enigma force could choose anyone, it simply picks whoever fits the bill.
What I didn’t like is the visual: it’s just regular Venom with a glowing yellow symbol. I would have preferred more “cosmic effects”; like those little stars you can see on the black of the suit when there’s a close-up, I’d liked them bigger and more visible, giving the suit a starred appearance more in-line with classic Captain Universe.
As for the ending, we all knew it would come to this. I’m just not a fan of how we got here. I feel there was no need to link the Enigma Force to a “god of light” opposite to Knull. I’d have liked it more if Venom defeated him in a way more fitting his style, maybe using his hive against him (justifying why he becomes the new King in Black). But then it’s evident how I don’t like what Cates does with cosmic characters (Thor killing Galactus…), because what I suggest would mean powering down Knull a bit, with him being considered a god only because he created the symbiotes. Instead what we had was a cosmic entity even more ancient than Celestials behaving in a silly way (why should a random planet like Earth matter to something that high in the cosmic order?).
All in all, like with Spider-Man I prefer when Venom is a street-level character, but it’s not the worst story about him (Bunn…Ugh!).
Let’s see where we get from here.