Venom review # 1: Venom is a god now, and it’s almost too much for Marvel

Venom is back … again! Following the conclusion of the years of critical and commercial success for Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman. Poison Run, the eponymous symbiote, and his human suitors Eddie Brock and his son Dylan are here to eat heads and bash baddies in a brand new # 1.

The big change this time? In stark contrast to the typical Marvel relaunch, everything that happened beforehand seems to have really mattered.

Who is working on Venom # 1?

In a rare move for a Marvel comic, two writers are dividing up the scripting duties. Al Ewing, writer of Guardians of the Galaxy and the recently concluded Immortal hulk It is said that he is tackling the cosmic parts of Eddie Brock, while writer Ram V, who directed one of the best comics of this year in The many deaths of Laila Starr – Dylan Brock is writing, more focused on anguish.

Despite the divided perspective, artist Bryan Hitch is drawing everything, along with Andrew Currie’s inks and Alex Sinclair’s color work.

What is Venom # 1 about?

After the conclusion of the above Poison to run for what seems like a few weeks or months at best, this new story it’s a continuation of its character arcs, not a “back to basics” reinvention or dramatic reboot.

Eddie Brock has accepted the mantle of King in Black, a title previously held by the supernatural cosmic villain, Knull. Burdened with a new responsibility, including control over every symbiote in the universe, Eddie spends most of his days projecting his mind onto symbiotes in space, saving lives throughout the universe. Until, that is, he encounters “Bedlam”, an unknown but apparently quite powerful entity who presents himself in a genuinely terrifying sequence. (A note to those in charge of continuity: this is almost certainly not the mutant, also known as Bedlam, played by Terry Crews in Deadpool 2 but hey, who can say?)

Meanwhile, teenage Dylan is seen struggling through everyday human life on Earth in the shadow of an absent father, his outcast status at school, and a surprising lack of friends other than aliens. He spends his days with the Venom symbiote and his most recently introduced son, Sleeper, who takes the form of a graceful Siamese cat. whose mother was a pokémon. It is the typical story of an anguished teenager, at least by way of cosmic calamity.

Image: Al Eweing, Ram V, Bryan Hitch / Marvel Comics

Poison # 1 is picking up the torch of what came before, but also using it to light a new path.

So why start the series over at No. 1?

Because Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman wanted to do new things and a conveniently scheduled new opportunity. Poison the movie would come out, of course.

But more seriously, this gets the relaunch treatment because Ewing and V are using it as an introduction to the next chapter in Eddie and Dylan’s lives. The story tries to synthesize old and new stories into a general narrative, and if the gradual transition of the character’s life to a new phase occurs in parallel with a creative change in the real world, well, it works quite well.

Ewing seems interested in pursuing the cosmic significance of Eddie’s divinity, and it’s clear he has far-reaching plans for the disgraced reporter’s new god-worthy foes. V exercises his control over the mundane, using simple gestures and grounded storytelling to make the scope of Dylan’s story seem just as important to Eddie’s. The boy was warned not to bond with the Venom symbiote for his own safety, but at the end of the problem he is faced with the idea of ​​wanting to do and be. more than he is allowed, just as his own father was famous before him.

It’s a cool and thoughtful mix that wouldn’t have worked so well without a noticeable change in release status.

Are there any required reading?

Although the tense father-son dynamic is clearly the main point here, readers would probably be better off knowing the general context of Donny Cates’ earlier work. Poison to run. That series explored the creation of symbiotes under their resentful god, the aforementioned Knull. More importantly, it covered Knull’s defeat at the hands of Eddie Brock and Dylan, who had special symbiote detection powers before they were taken from them, at the conclusion of the multi-series series. King in black event (imagine that!).

Cates also introduced a series of retcons that better contextualize the slimy race of soldiers in the larger Marvel universe, specifically through the revelation that new symbiotes (such as Carnage and Toxin, among many others) are born in response to changes or crises. cosmically important, and they leave a DNA maker called Codex embedded in the spine of anyone they have linked up with. And, thanks to various Venom-themed events that have happened before, that includes characters like the Avengers, the X-Men, and many more.

Venom # 1 is good?

That Poison does it well, bringing the previous story to its natural conclusions and continuations, it does very well. Readers like me are justifiably tired of always having to deal with the turmoil of their favorite characters’ lives every time a new book is released, and the creative team here is clearly and thankfully not interested in doing that. A bit of cosmic intrigue was introduced, and the appearance of a villain who seems to be completely disconnected from anything the heroes know about is a nice touch. It’s also exceptionally cool to see Dylan become a character in his own right, rather than the plot device in which he was introduced.

However, what is lacking in this issue is a unified direction. Hitch’s art is ultimately unimpressive (the touch that “Bedlam” presents is visually flat) but enough (read: I like the part where the Venom symbiote wears a baseball cap and khaki pants). Arguably, it is exactly that, providing a unified perspective for the Dylan and Eddie stories, but it never really overcomes the book’s structural inequality. The distance between the main characters’ voices, the ever-changing tone of the narrative, and the general type of error in highlighting Eddie’s own struggles, as his own struggles have always defined, in favor of emphasizing Dylan’s. Everything leaves a little to be desired.

That said, there just had to be a lot of setup here and it’s very likely that Ewing and V will hit a more natural step soon. Either way, the experimentation of two writing partners telling a story about a hero who is himself two partners is too interesting to miss.

He would also have accepted Ozzy, Tony, Bill, and Geezer. Seriously, we all let the Black Sabbath guy be called “Geezer.”