Dr. K's Waiting Room

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To celebrate the release of Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Serkis, 2021), Sony Pictures declared September 27 “Venom Day”, a fitting tribute to one of my favourite anti-heroes and one of Marvel’s most iconic characters.

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Quick Facts:
Writer Tom DeFalco and artist Ron Frenz evolved Randy Schueller’s illustration of Peter Parker/Spider-Man in a slick black outfit into a sentient symbiote that bonded with disgruntled reporter Eddie Brock to become Spider-Man’s dark doppelgänger, Venom. Venom’s popularity saw them transition into an anti-hero role and spin-off into this largely praised 1993 solo series, which influenced Venom’s early videogame appearances and their surprisingly successful live-action solo films.

The Review:
Venom’s first solo series is set in San Franscisco and finds the bloodthirsty symbiote bringing their own brand of justice to the streets. After choking a would-be mugger to death with tendrils of their symbiote, oblivious to how badly they’ve terrified the attacker’s victim, Venom recaps their origin and establishes that they settled their vendetta against Spider-Man and assumes a more human guise to check-in to a dingy hotel. Unfortunately, the local police recognise Eddie Brock, forcing Venom to fend them off and flee, though not before having their picture taken by a passing tourist. This comes to Peter’s attention over in New York City and, worried about Brock’s psychopathic tendencies, he drops everything to investigate. While lamenting that his hometown is unsafe, Brock worries that he’ll end up destitute and homeless since his life lacks direction and he has no family to turn to but sets aside his woes to help some vagrants being harassed by thugs. Unfortunately, the gunshots attract Spider-Man, who quickly attacks Venom for “[going] back to [their] old ways”. Venom easily takes Spidey’s punches, though, and chastises him for breaking their arrangement before refocusing on protecting the innocent, slipping away while a confused Spider-Man deals with the gunmen. Unaware that their appearance has attracted venge-seeking General Orwell Taylor, Venom follows the vagrants to their underground refuge, learning that they’ve been targeted by industrialist Roland Treece for months. Treece’s minions then attack in mech suits, with Venom ripping them apart before being bombarded by a sonic beam. Weakened and in agony, Venom is helpless to stop the second digger from crashing them through the floor and apparently sending them through a time warp!

This momentary confusion passes when it becomes obvious that they’ve landed in the underground city Treeve covets and in which the homeless take shelter. Using the distraction to regain their strength, Venom shreds the digger, slaughtering the operators when they gun down one of the locals in cold blood. Despite saving them, many of the undergrounders are suspicious of Venom given their reputation but Elizabeth vouches for them and offers them sanctuary, revealing that the city is the remains of the famous 1906 earthquake. Unfortunately, despite many of the undergrounders defending them, their ruling council votes to expel Venom to avoid the hassle, but they decide to try and win them over by going after Roland Treece. Venom easily bypasses Treece International’s high-tech security and just as easily dispatches the guards when they’re spotted, but they’re caught off-guard by General Taylor and his armoured Jury enforcers while puzzling out what Treece intends for the underground city. Thanks to the Jury’s sound blasts, Venom’s helpless against General Taylor, who’s out for revenge after they murdered his son while escaping from the Raft some time ago. Luckily, General Taylor’s rambling allows Venom to recuperate and flee, only for the Jury to pursue them to the Golden Gate Bridge, unleashing all their firepower without a care for who gets caught in the crossfire. Luckily, Venom uses their camouflage ability to give the Jury the slip, only for a friend of General Taylor’s son to launch a surprise attack with a sonic grenade! Luckily, Venom’s plea for the lives of the undergrounders causes his attacker to hesitate and, when the Jury join the fight, Venom’s unexpectedly saved by Treece, who offers them the chance to become head of security at Treece International.

Believing it’ll help them get the inside track on Treece’s plans for the underground city, Venom accepts and is taken to a bunker in the Mojave Desert, only to walk straight into a trap as they’ve subdued by fire and confronted by Carlton Drake of the Life Foundation. Imprisoning Venom within a sonic cage, Drake forcibly extracts a “seed” from the symbiote to add to his others, planning to bond them with volunteers to create super soldiers. Although the cage causes his “other” great pain, Brock uses his “Olympic level strength” to grab one of Drake’s underlings and briefly break free before again being stunned by a sonic blast, leaving Drake to consider executing him since they’ve already bonded his spawn and set them loose in the city as a training exercise. Thus, Spider-Man (who’d been busy learning of Eddie’s troubled relationship with his father, Carl), is amazed to find Donna Diego/Scream tearing up a local mall. Although Scream is as fast and powerful as Venom, she resorts to threatening innocents when Spidey knocks her off-balance and flees in a hovercraft with Spider-Man in hot pursuit. This leads Spidey to the Life Foundation, where he dispatches the armoured guards but arrives too late to stop Drake forcibly removing the symbiote from Eddie (luckily, Eddie barely survives the procedure). Spidey’s then attacked by Scream and Venom’s four other “children” – Carl Mach/Phage, Leslie Gesneria/Agony, Ramón Hernández/Lasher, and Trevor Cole/Riot – while Treece plots to blow up the park over the underground city and Eddie tricks the Life Foundation scientists by playing dead. Although he fights valiantly, Spider-Man is no match for the five symbiotes, who form deadly weapons from their alien costumes, fling acid, and easily overwhelm him despite his experience with symbiotes and they even reject Eddie when he tries to “save” them with an emotional plea.

Eddie and Spidey hold the symbiotes off with some sonic blasters, allowing Eddie to rebond with his symbiote and fight his “children” on more equal ground. When Phage attacks, Spider-Man accidentally discovers that the sonic cage machine artificially ages the symbiotes to the point of decay. Venom suggests using it to kill the symbiotes and, when Spidey refuses to widen the beam, worried that they’ll kill the hosts, Venom chokes Peter into unconsciousness and activates the machine, apparently killing their “children”, much to Spidey’s disgust. Angered by the setback, Drake sets the facility to self-destruct and, though Spidey escapes, Venom gives him the slip to learn that Treece is after a shipment of gold bullion hidden within the underground city. Unaware of this, Spider-Man fights Venom at the park to keep them from murdering Treece, only for Venom to ensnare him with their symbiote and ask for his help in protecting the undergrounders. Amazed by the plea and seeing they’re sincere, Spidey agrees, and they battle Treece’s digger mechs, easily trashing the machines and reducing Treece to a desperate mania as he prepares to blow up the site. With flames blocking their path and Spider-Man busy with a digger mech, Venom’s forced to endure the agony of the fire to wrench Treece from the control room, leaving Spider-Man stunned by Venom’s selfless act. Still, Spidey prepares to bring Venom in, only for the crazed, injured anti-hero to disappear into the crowd. Peter reluctantly decides that, as demented s Venom is, they seem determined to protect lives rather than threatening them. With Treece’s threat ended, the gold is retrieved by officials, and the underground city remains undiscovered. Against the objections of God-fearing Reverend Rakestraw, the undergrounders decide to let Venom stay and a grateful Eddie accepts the offer, vowing to protect them.

Final Thoughts: 
This was a surprisingly disappointing and cluttered mess for Venom’s first solo series. Although things start visually strong thanks to the immensely talented Mark Bagley, who always draws the best symbiotes, Ron Lim takes over about halfway through. While he tries to emulate Bagley’s style, the visuals takes a noticeable hit, appearing rushed and disproportionate compared to Bagley’s slick, impressive art. While Eddie Brock was always an unhinged, intense character, he was admittedly quite one-note and shallow, appearing to be a crazy psychopath with a twisted code of honour. The Lethal Protector arc seeks to flesh him out by returning him to his roots in San Francisco and having Spider-Man uncover insight into Eddie’s past. While struggling to navigate San Francisco and eager to proactively stop Venom before they go on a rampage, Spidey visits Eddie’s estranged father, Carl, only to be angrily rebuked by the well-to-do elder Brock. Luckily, Carl’s housekeeper, Sharon Dempsy, reveals that Eddie’s mother, Jamie, died in childbirth. Resenting Eddie, Carl constantly ignored him, dismissing any academic or athletic accomplishment and never showing Eddie any affection or encouragement. Thus, the root of Eddie’s insecurities and fractured state of mind can be traced back to a neglectful father, adding further context to his warped desire to protect “innocents” from evil and corruption. Yet, while this is interesting, it doesn’t equate to much of a character arc for Eddie as he never confronts his father and even Spidey admits that understanding Eddie doesn’t really help him find, fight, or understand him. Instead, Spider-Man is reluctantly convinced that Venom’s not looking to murder Treece in cold blood because they actually ask for help in obstructing Treece’s plans for the underground city.

There’s a lot happening in these six issues and yet at least two still waste time recapping Venom’s origin, with both Peter and Eddie pondering their past and how they ended up in San Francisco. It makes sense that a mindless, crazed lunatic like Venom would attract many enemies and that his senseless killing would come back to haunt him, but it’s kind of ridiculous how many people are gunning for him. The least developed is General Taylor, who justifiably wants to avenge his son’s death and yet simply exists to hound Venom when they take a breath, with him and his Jury promptly disappearing once Venom arrives at the Life Foundation. This malicious organisation is run by Carlton Drake, a man with even less motivation than General Taylor who simply wants to extract offspring from the symbiotes, forcibly mature them, and create an army. I’m not entirely sure why, possibly to sell as super soldiers, but I feel it would’ve been far easier to merge Carlton Drake, General Taylor, and Roland Treece into one person employing the Jury to hunt Venom to experiment on them and avenge his son’s death while also seeking to excavate the underground city. Instead, all these forces hunt Venom in the first few issues simply to justify a six-issue miniseries, something only exacerbated by Spider-Man’s presence. Considering they came to an agreement not to interfere with each other and Peter has no reason to think Venom’s descended into anarchy, Spidey’s presence eats up pages and panels that could’ve easily been given to Eddie as he reluctantly reconnects with his father, only for Carl to sell him out to Drake or something. Peter could’ve seen Venom on the news in maybe issue four and then gone to San Francisco to investigate based on more substantial evidence. As is, Spidey’s presence is clearly just there to entice readers into buying the miniseries.

Luckily, I’m a big fan of Venom so I generally enjoy most things they’re in (hence the three stars) and I do like the idea of Eddie being hounded at every turn, driven to fall in with the homeless and desperate to win their approval by defending them. Despite their incredible strength and the versatility of the symbiote, Venom takes a hell of a pounding, often weakened by sonic blasts, encaged in pure sonic energy, and almost dying when Drake forcibly removes the symbiote. It’s no wonder that Venom asks for Spider-Man’s help considering how often they’re ripped to shreds and battered, even though Venom easily handled the digger mechs before and probably didn’t need the assist in the finale. As much as I enjoy the symbiotes, though, Lethal Protector was the beginning of a downward slide into diminishing returns as five new ones are spawned here, none of which are given names much less distinguishable identities (the damn Jury had more personality!) They barely speak and we get very little insight into their abilities beyond some all-too-brief fight scenes before they’re offed with ridiculous ease. The symbiotes were far more visually interesting and dangerous than Drake or the diggers and should’ve been a far greater threat for Spider-Man and Venom, but they’re a mere obstacle here. Considering the chaotic careers these symbiotes later had, it again would’ve been much easier to merge these into a single symbiote, preferably Scream, and have it be Drake’s underling. Or even gender swap Drake and have her become Scream for a more interesting final fight. Instead, the five symbiotes are largely forgettable inclusions (I hesitate to call them “characters”) and are disappointing as this entire miniseries, which awkwardly tries to walk back Venom’s characterisation to make them less fearsome and ironically strips them of a lot of their intrigue and personality as a consequence.

My Rating:

Pretty Good

Did you enjoy Venom’s first miniseries? Do you agree that the story was a bit overstuffed or did you like seeing Venom be hounded on all sides? Did you like the additional backstory given to Eddie here? Were you also disappointed that the new symbiotes were so underutilised? What are some of your favourite Venom stories and how are you celebrating Venom’s debut this month? Whatever your thoughts on Venom, share them below, support me on Ko-Fi, and check out my other Venom content.