The Amazing Venom #1 is Too Goopy for its Own Good
The Amazing Venom, a comic book with a Spider-Man-colored Venom on the cover, features neither of those characters. Spinning off from the Web of Venom one-shot, it instead follows Spider-Man’s nemesis, the leader of the Sinister Six, the one and only…Boomerang, hot off his starring role in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Now equipped with a Symbiote named Passenger who has been trapped in a jar for a year, he’s going by Comeback in an attempt to get his life back on track after the death of his good buddy, Shocker.
It’s an odd issue #1, feeling almost like the penultimate story of an entire run that’s taken place since Web of Venom. Fred Meyers (Boomerang) has managed to carve out a nice little life for himself as a D-List villain, and even a bit of a D-List hero too. He’s got a nice, boring, quiet life full of book clubs, gardening, and cheese boards. When things get a little too nuts and he has to fight a Doctor Doom, or team up with the Sorceress Supreme, or there’s a big goop event, he has Passenger to take over and do those big scary fights. Fred has found a way to live all the parts of life he likes and actually survive the big scary parts of living in the Marvel Universe. Passenger is happy too, living the exciting life he didn’t get to for 200 years. It’s quite simply, a perfect symbiosis. Then here we are at the end of their story, Queen in Black happens, goopy details, a new King in Goop, and Passenger gets the call to return home alongside the other Symbiotes, which both are more than happy to happen.
Being a Boomerang focused book, this series obviously takes its tone from Superior Foes of Spider-Man, and while it’s not on that level it’s a lot of fun. The highlight has to be Luke Ross (Maruaders, Star Wars), portraying the beautifully mundane life of Fred Meyers, his townhouse is a packed set piece full of incredible details that scream an absolutely boring, normal life. Even the way Ross draws Fred is mundane, when out of costume he almost blends into the background in his boring white shirt, the superhero physique belonging entirely to the symbiote suit. It all comes together to paint a peaceful, boring life that’s wonderfully contrasted by the mere presence of Passenger, whose big goopy head keeps popping out of Fred’s stomach. Everything about it screams out of place, an unsustainable life that they both know they’re going to have to give up for each other’s happiness despite a clear friendship being formed. Contrasted to a classic Venom dynamic, writer Jordan Morris (Bubble, Teen Titans GO!) does a great job of quickly establishing just how fond of each other Passenger and Fred are, which makes their planned parting a little sad even though we’ve basically just met them.
That basic slice-of-life dynamic that really works is not the guts of the issue however, which opens throwing us right into goopy action with a Queen in Black recap, followed by other symbiote action later on (except it’s not real good, it’s an artificial symbiote…yawn). We’re presented with such a fun sounding status quo of Fred finding his happy little life while Comeback goes on classic Marvel adventures, it feels like a waste to not even spend a single issue with that status quo, especially since this book comes out the exact same day as the finale of Queen in Black. In fact, this is one of four Venom books that were released today! I understand some delays have caused things to pile up, but it’s a little ridiculous. Even more than most comics, this is designed to be a catchy cover (and it’s a really gorgeous one too, with some incredible negative space work from Stefano Casselli), that potential readers will be drawn in by, and starting so close to the potential end of Comeback’s story with so much having happened off screen, making such little use of the fun little status quo, feels like it’s going to repel any new readers. The issue ends with a promise of going to space to return Passenger too, adding even more layers to the clear identity crisis of this book not really being sure what it wants to be.
While maybe this book would be more appealing to those coming at it as Venom fans, as a Boomerang fan it was hard not to be a little disappointed as this issue leans far more to the Venom side of its title than the Amazing. It’s a fun start, but promises a status quo that seems to lean away from the parts that worked best about it as it struggles to make the book’s identity clear in a debut issue that isn’t quite the comeback I’d hoped for Comeback. There’s still a lot of potential in the Boomerang/Passenger dynamic though, which remains a delight and will no doubt leave this mini enjoyable despite whatever larger Marvel Universe nonsense it gets involved in.
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