I haven’t read any other issues of Marvel’s big “Venom War” crossover, but Venom War: It’s Jeff! has been my most anticipated comic of the year. Kelly Thompson and Gurihiru– the team behind the Eisner-winning It’s Jeff!– reunite to venomize everyone’s favorite land shark once again after the short story they did in the Extreme Venomverse anthology title.
Like the short story, this “Venom War” one-shot includes dialogue, something that sets it apart from the mostly-wordless standard issues of It’s Jeff! that go straight to Marvel Unlimited. This is because Jeff is joined by some human friends from a short-lived series that is very near and dear to my heart: Thompson’s West Coast Avengers. We get most of the WCA gang minus Alloy and the team members currently busy with Guardians of the Galaxy and X-Men stuff (if I had a nickel for every Grant Morrison-created boy with a punk haircut who joined the 2018 West Coast Avengers, I’d have two nickels).
At thirty pages– the longest Jeff-centric story to date– this issue gets some narrative variety from the WCA’s inclusion. The first half is your usual dialogueless Jeff misadventure, where Jeff desperately tries to rid himself of the symbiote and satiate his ravenous hunger, while the latter half sees him team-up with Hawkeye, America Chavez, Fuse, and Gwenpool to battle “zombiotes” at Coney Island. From what I can gather, the zombiotes are part of the wider “Venom War” event, but the concept of “symbiotes that turn citizens into web-slinging zombies” is one the story effortlessly introduces to readers. The “how” and “why” of it all aren’t important: they’re something for our heroes to punch.
Gosh, I love how silly Thompson allows these characters to be. This really feels like the missing link between the random, situational comedy of West Coast Avengers and the cartoon slapstick of It’s Jeff! Jeff himself originated from the pages of West Coast Avengers, so it’s neat to see him sort of go back to his roots.
Gurihiru is probably one of my favorite artists in superhero comics. The Japanese duo brings an adorable softness to all of their art, but you shouldn’t overlook how good they are at capturing dynamic action as well. The first half of the issue gives us that cute, funny imagery that we’ve come to expect from Gurihiru, but the second half is a gigantic battle where they get to showcase the diverse fighting styles of the team. In a big splash page, Kate Bishop launches trick arrows across the page to trap enemies, Fuse uses his strength on the environment to take out multiple foes at once, Gwenpool bops the opposition with a giant hammer, America flies all over the scene using her portals, and Jeff punches baddies, because this issue gives him a beefy new venomized form evocative of Street Sharks. This is truly what superhero comics were made for.
I also love the way Gurihiru draws citizens. One of the most underrated aspects of their work on It’s Jeff! is definitely all the random people who inhabit Jeff’s world. These extras have different ages, body types, and fashion sensibilities, and I feel like I can people-watch in the pages of a Gurihiru comic in a way I can’t with other artists’ work. This issue is no exception, as it’s packed with lots of lively crowd shots.
Venom War: It’s Jeff! lives up to all of my lofty expectations. Thompson and Gurihiru are one of the all-time great combinations, like peanut butter and chocolate or land sharks and alien space goo. They just bring out the best in each other, and I can only hope that this is the first of many full-issue one-shots that give us Jeff’s perspective on big Marvel events.
