Venom 1

I said of Flash Thompson’s military gig as the host of the symbiotic Venom thingy in my review of Amazing Spider-Man 654.1, which may as well have been the first issue of Venom, “Why a disabled ex-corporal was chosen for this is not stated – because he’s an old pal of Spider-Man, is all I can come up with, which is a comic writer’s reason, not military intelligence’s.” I thought this might start to attempt to justify that, but in fact I now learn that Flash has had problems with alcoholism which, since they need the host to be in calm control of the Venom symbiote, pushes this even further beyond plausibility.

Despite that and some other flaws, this isn’t bad. The main other flaw is in the setting up of the villain as unstoppable: Jack O’ Lantern takes out a squadron of Iron Man military types, all in armour said to be capable of resisting a 50-megaton nuke, in seconds. I am all for writers setting challenges for themselves, but they need to then pull them off, in this case by convincing us that somehow Venom can get the best of this villain. He fails this completely, and doesn’t even seem to be making the effort, really.

It also doesn’t do much with stretching the setup – Flash loses control for a few seconds, but soon gets it back. Since the army have installed some sort of bomb in Flash to kill him if he does lose control, we surely have limited suspense around this matter, but if the Venom suit simply gives him handy superpowers to use when the secret agent gigs get tough, this will get old very fast, and it’s a total waste of the concept.

Still, Remender’s script is often very sharp. Jack O’ Lantern and his shadowy master get some terrific villain lines – “Be back home in time to kill a hooker,” for instance. Flash’s internal monologue about his patriotism is very good too, as are some other parts. I hope Remender can turn his obvious intelligence to the big problems and limitations in the setup as this goes on, because they are serious ones.

The art, like the writing, is a mixed bag. Some good faces, some bad ones, and a couple of strong images, but there is too much dark clutter, not helped at all by often muddy colouring from John Rauch; it sometimes takes effort to work out what is happening; and a page and a half late on of quiet conversation is very dull and lacking in expression. It’s worth noting here that the Joe Quesada cover has some real power, even if it has nothing to do with the interior.

There’s really not enough good here to outweigh the bad and keep me coming back, but I fancy trying more of Remender – after all, I’m not sure how much responsibility he has for the apparently idiotic setup of the comic and character.