The Vindication of Venom Part 15/Appendix D: Conclusion?

In this final article we wrap up this essay series at last…right?

Some Circumstantial Evidence

There is some further food for thought to be considered regarding the allegedly ‘unsatisfying mystery’ of Venom’s identity.

First of all let’s bear in mind David Michelinie’s work prior to ASM #300. This is the man who co-created enduring characters such as Scott Lang, Taskmaster, Justin Hammer, James Rhodes and many others. This is the man who scripted/co-plotted what is regarded as the definitive Iron Man run. This is a writer who had at least around ten years worth of experience writing comics by the time he penned ASM #300.

With this in mind I find it extremely difficult to believe that a writer with this much experience would honestly make such a rudimentary misstep as to set up a mystery story, then reveal the culprit as someone whom no one could have guessed because he was a complete stranger to the audience.

Even novice writers know enough about mystery stories via pop cultural osmosis to reveal the culprit’s identity as someone the readers already know, or at least could’ve become aware of in the course of the story.

It is therefore very suspect that such a massive and obvious mistake would be undertaken by a writer who’d been around the block a few times by 1988. In the past I’ve been highly critical of the way Dan Slott has handled his mysteries but even the flaws in his mystery storytelling have never come from revealing someone to be a complete stranger. His big reveals have been genuine reveals, with the culprit being someone the readers would be familiar with, even if they might not have been able   to deduce them as the culprit in the first place

Then you have the fact that Michelinie spoke about the origin of Venom with critically acclaimed writer extraordinaire, Peter David.

Apparently a writer of David’s calibre felt no pressing need to point out the seemingly obvious oversight that Michelinie was resolving a mystery by revealing the culprit as an utter stranger to the audience. Less than a year before ASM #300 David himself had to resolve the controversial Hobgoblin mystery and as unsatisfying as this was to many people, he certainly didn’t just say it was someone no one had ever met. He didn’t even do that when setting up the new  Hobgoblin in that story.

Furthermore David has been on record as stating he really likes Venom and felt he had a good start as a character. This is an odd thing for such a skilled and acclaimed writer to say about a mystery character’s identity being completely impossible for anyone to solve.

However his attitude does make more sense it, as I stated in Part 5, the Venom storyline was never intended   as a legitimate mystery story in the first place.

This is also backed up when one considers that Venom’s presence in ASM #300 was apparently because then Editor Jim Salicrup wished to debut a new villain.

Regardless, Salicrup (who it must be said was a pretty reliable editor) seemingly didn’t feel the need to point out that the reveal of Venom’s identity was obviously unsatisfying as a resolution to a mystery storyline. One would imagine that as an editor shrewd enough to have made Kraven’s Last Hunt run through all the Spider-Man titles and innocuously referenced recent issues of Spectacular Spider-Man in ASM #298, he’d catch such a glaring problem. And in catching it would demand the character’s identity be someone the readers were familiar with.

But he didn’t. This again would make quite a bit of sense if the point was not that Brock was the centre of a mystery but simply a new  character.

Finally whilst this doesn’t quite prove my points definitively I did in fact go so far as to personally ask David Michelinie directly about the issue of Venom’s identity.

ME: Mr Michelinie, I am currently writing a series of articles analyzing Venom’s earliest appearances and wondered if you could be so kind as to answer a query I had about Amazing Spider-Man #300.Essentially I would like to know why did you choose to make Venom/Eddie Brock a previously unknown character?

DAVID MICHELINIE: It was a new character, a clean slate, one with a fresh background, origin, personality and motivations. Why would I want to limit what I could do with it by making it a previously known character?

I strongly feel the above further cements that Venom’s status as a new character was more the mission statement behind him as opposed to him being the subject of a mystery story.

Spectacular Misconceptions

In Part 3 I discussed how the readers mistook some of the core ideas behind Venom and saw something different in their place. This then led to them misunderstanding and misinterpreting the character.

However this phenomenon is not exclusive to the comics.

On the (exemplary) Spectacular Spider-Man Animated Series Eddie Brock was a supporting character, with his arc throughout the first season gradually building to his transformation into Venom. One particularly talked about scene for his character was in episode 11, ‘Group Therapy’.

In the episode Eddie Brock takes Mary Jane Watson out on a date to get back at Peter Parker for several perceived slights. Their date consists of a dangerous motorcycle ride wherein Brock rants about Peter in an angry and unhinged manner, including mentioning the death of their parents.

Many viewers of the show felt the scene was out of nowhere and inconsistent with the character as had been established. This point was made particularly in light of earlier episodes such as episode 3 ‘Natural Selection’, in which Brock (a normal young man) risked his own life to try and fight the Lizard.

However the intention of the show makers was to convey that Brock was in fact somewhat unhinged and had a death wish. His risking his life against the Lizard wasn’t meant to be taken as an act of heroism but as an example of very dangerous recklessness, feeding back into his dangerous driving later on. All of which was meant to underscore how this show’s version of the character was somewhat in love with death due to the loss of his parents.

For whatever reason (perhaps it being overly subtle) the idea and intentions of the character as presented didn’t quite reach many members of the audience, a problem the comic book Venom has endured as well.

Just goes to show how sometimes perfectly decent stories can be perceived as problematic by the audience because they simply misread something.

Professional Opinion

The character of Venom is near and dear to me and it is because of that affection that I was inspired to write this essay series and make it as comprehensive as possible. I even have to admit repeating and expanding upon points more than once just to make sure my messages get across.

My desire to be comprehensive was strongest when it came to the sticky subject of Brock’s motivations, the single most criticised element of ASM #300 and the character overall. To that end I wanted to make absolutely sure I knew what I was talking about.

Consequently I actually printed off the relevant pages of Eddie Brock’s earliest appearances from Web of Spider-Man and Amazing Spider-Man #298-300, wrote up some background context and presented them to someone I know. This person actually studied, taught and worked in the field of psychology, even writing a psychology curriculum used in various parts of Britain for a time. They also have a keen interest in literary analysis having tutored students aged 10-18 in English and English literature.

After they read the pages we had a few lengthy conversations about Brock’s mental state and motivations and they helped me to pin down many of the points I’ve made in the course of this essay series.

It was this psychologist who outright diagnosed  Brock as someone experiencing Delusional Disorder as part of a serious psychosis and spelled out what the symptoms of that were.

They also corroborated that were we to take Brock and Spider-Man as analogues to real life people that Venom’s origin and motivations were entirely believable, even ignoring  the influence of the symbiote.

Conclusion

Venom/Eddie Brock as presented in Amazing Spider-Man #300 is categorically NOT  the poorly written or poorly conceived mess of a character that various readers have painted him as since 1988.

Rather the character’s perception has suffered due to two key intertwined factors: unwarranted presumptions of the character then exacerbated by somewhat poor communication of the concepts underpinning him.

However when properly contextualizing the story, paying attention to the details of how it presenters characters and events and most importantly having an open mind, there is precious little wrong with Amazing Spider-Man #300 or the character of Venom/Eddie Brock in spite of one or two flaws.

The story does fit in with prior established events, is highly unlikely to have been rushed out at the last minute and most of all presents a bold and strong new antagonist for Spider-Man.

Venom as originally conceived is a novel, clever and psychologically layered character who posed a very potent threat for Spider-Man.

His slick look, imposing powers, twisted personality, stalker tendencies and violent, hypocritical and warped mental state combined to make him near instantly iconic.

He filled a unique place in Spidey’s already superlative rogue’s gallery as he touched on themes and concepts close to the heart of the character.

For ‘the hero who could be you’ Venom represented ‘the threat that could be behind you!’

My hope after this 15/2 month long project that we can now and forever finally appreciate  that about one of Spider-Man’s most iconic, and undoubtedly his most famous, foe. Oh and that anyone having read this will bear it in mind next time they read ASM #300, especially if (like me) you plan on reading it tomorrow to mark it’s 30th anniversary.

Happy 30 years Eddie!

Next time…oh wait. We’re finally finished with this essay series right? There couldn’t possibly be another installment to come. Certainly not one tomorrow to mark the actual 30th anniversary of Amazing Spider-Man #300’s publication could there?

Well…that is partially true…