Venom #1 Review
I’ll admit, I’ve never been a huge Venom fan. It’s always the weirder takes on the character, like Agent Venom or giving MJ the symbiote, that interests me more. So when it was announced that after Queen in Black we were going back to regular old Eddie Brock again, I was a little disappointed. That being said, this isn’t really the start of this run, Charles Soule wrote Eddie already, as Carnage for 10 issues, the Death Spiral event, and a 3 issue tie-in for Queen in Black, although you really don’t need to have read those – this issue is very much a fresh start. Soule’s previous work on the character has been interesting enough to keep me going, so how does he cope having united Eddie with his other half?
A complaint I often have of modern comics is that everyone is too friendly, and from the jump Soule isn’t afraid to have Eddie having some friction with other heroes, especially Spider-Man. He’s not making them outright enemies or anything, but there’s a clear lack of trust after the last few years and Peter isn’t afraid to let Eddie know he isn’t happy that he and Venom ended up together again. It goes both ways too, it’s clear Eddie isn’t happy that he ever got separated and in part blames the other heroes for that, Peter especially. We see other heroes with this issue too, as Venom stakes his claim on his own territory in NYC, Alphabet City, which he intends to watch over whether other heroes like it or not. But he’s at least polite enough to tell the Mayor, Luke Cage, about it.
Venom is a character that not every artist fits, but honestly I can’t think of a creative team that fits the character like Tommaso Bianchi and Yen Nitro. The way Nitro colours the symbiote is incredible, giving it this real oil slickness that makes it feel so tangible, similar to how the Tom Hardy movie approached it but with a less defined texture making it feel truly liquid and alien. A touch from Bianchi I really enjoy is that we never quite see Venom stationary, there’s always a tendril or two trailing behind as they move or dripping off of him, again really adding to that liquid effect. You see it in the webs too, a great way to really differentiate them from Spider-Man’s actual webbing. There’s a few panels, most notably the big “crown” moment later in the issue, where it also feels like ink has been spilled on the page, which I thought was a great touch. While I wouldn’t quite call Venom’s design in this book “new”, there’s a clear added bulk to him, especially on the upper torso that reminds me a lot of the take from Marvel Rivals. I always like when Venom feels BIG so this works really well for me. One-thing that makes or breaks a Venom design is the teeth, which the team absolutely nails with that big toothy grin that never seems to form the same way twice, and I really like how they handle Eddie’s face behind Venom, never being fully revealed around other heroes. There’s a sense of a real unwillingness to separate between them now, like the symbiote is really clinging to Eddie, even with his face fully exposed it doesn’t go beyond the hair line and the eyes and mouth are still there, giving the sense Venom is ready to fight back at a moments notice if needed.
What drew me to continuing on with Soule’s Venom work was largely his voice for Eddie. In the Queen in Black tie-ins, we see Eddie separate from any symbiote, and desperate to do anything to be reunited with one. To feel like part of a whole again. We see this even further in this issue as he talks to Luke Cage, describing how when he was alone he felt like he wasn’t even alive, how he was willing to do whatever it took to stop being alone and hated being judged for whatever he did. There’s a clear refusal to take any sort of responsibility for his time with Carnage and all the deaths he caused there, instead being angry that he hasn’t been able to move on from that time without consequence. There’s a clear addiction metaphor that’s been building for a while, and I think it’s a very interesting way to approach a “superhero”’s relationship with what gives them their powers.
One thing in this issue I found very confusing was after Venom gives his big “I’m going to be a hero” speech, we get a “99 DAYS” countdown in the bottom of the page, following on from a “100 DAYS” on the first page, but unless I’m missing something, there’s no clear indication of what that meant. I like a book with a ticking clock, but the stakes of that ticking clock need to be made clear from the start, and they just aren’t here, not even vaguely. We also get introduced to Eddie and Venom’s new love interest as revealed at NYCC, Yelena Belova. It’s depressing to look back on the days of slow-burn romance in comics compared to the modern day when characters just get together off screen, like Yelena and Venom/Eddie do here as we pick up with them already together. It seems the only thing not suffering from decompression these days is romance. I love Florence Pugh’s take on Yelena in the movies, and have been surprised the comics haven’t pushed her as much as the movies have, but it’s hard to view “girlfriend to Venom” as that sort of push, especially if the first issue is anything to go by. Her only appearance involves sexily walking up to them with a bit of a goth makeover and a revealing crop top and inviting them up to bed, she strokes Eddie’s face and Venom…well Venom licks her ass basically. I like Soule, and he usually writes female characters well, Avar Kriss from his Star Wars book is a prime example, but it’s hard not to see this take on Yelena as a little bit of a sexist reduction of the character at the moment.
Soule brings a lot of new elements into Venom as well, we see him up against Hazmat from the old Rise of the Imperfects PS2 game, with an implied history that unless I’m mistaken hasn’t been seen on page. It’s unclear if that’s a game reference or something to be explored later. We see some new powers for Venom too, it seems like Eddie’s bond with Sleeper caused some new skills to be developed as we see Venom taking advantage of those transmutation abilities. It’s a nice power-up that allows Venom to adapt to some new situations, but it’s still enough of a struggle that he’s not too powerful.
There’s a lot of potential in this new relaunch for Venom with a back to basics approach, and while I have some issues I also have enough trust in Soule that they’ll be resolved later in the book. Combined with a stellar art team and a really interesting voice for Venom that goes against modern tropes I’m sick of, there’s a lot of potential here and it’s a strong start for Venom fans new and old.
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