All credit where it’s due: while Venom War #1 from Marvel has a verifiably insane amount of exposition to get through, writer Al Ewing and artist Iban Coello keep things fun and light throughout the kick-off to this massive crossover. That’s no easy task. But between split consciousnesses, time-travelers, and clothing with a sense of guilt, there’s a lot to get through as we build to the war of the title… Despite multiple characters saying some variation of “the Venom War begins now!” throughout the oversized comic.
To summarize the summary, Venom — the alien suit — is off on its own, bummed out because everyone who has ever worn it veers towards being bad. So naturally, it heads to the one guy things never turn out bad for, Peter Parker. Meanwhile, Dylan Brock, the most recent wearer of Venom, has built a team of his own on the advice of a time-traveling version of himself from the future in order to stop the dark future where his father, Eddie Brock, as the King in Black, has subjugated the universe. Also meanwhile, Eddie Brock has split himself into four different beings and takes over Madison Square Garden — sorry, Grand Garden Arena — and is challenging Dylan to give him the suit because he’s had a vision of a future where his son turns the whole world into Venom.
On top of all of that, through the narration of the Venom suit, Ewing lays out the entire complicated history of Venom, stretching back to before Peter ever found it in Secret Wars, up to the present day. Full disclosure: I’ve read a lot of these comics over the years, and even I was surprised about the wild twists and turns a character who started as “Bad Spider-Man” has gone through.
This is more a meta-commentary on Venom as a franchise than the comic itself, but I would argue this has all gotten way too complicated. You should not need to spend a good chunk of 40 pages to get up to two people fighting over a set of clothes. Not that we need to reduce Venom back to his “I want to eat your brains” days from when Todd McFarlane first introduced the character… But that brief bit highlighted in the book, as well as the origin of the Venom suit bonding with Eddie Brock because they both hate Peter Parker made me yearn for simpler days.
That’s tilting at windmills, though, because here we are. The Venom War! It has begun! Or rather, like how House of the Dragon keeps promising the war is coming and then it doesn’t, maybe it will start next issue! And to get back to the compliments for what is happening now, the fact that Ewing has set this literally in a wrestling ring is ridiculously funny. The writer is clearly having a blast as various D-list characters try — and fail — to stop Eddie’s invasion, while the commentators from the wrestling match (one is Crusher Creel) give classic, over-the-top commentary on what’s going on.
On the flip side, while Dylan and Eddie are talking about bonkers sci-fi stuff, Peter is giving the suit a classic “with great power comes great responsibility” speech that really hits. Part of what makes this work so well is Coello’s expressions for the suit, which come through even while it’s gooped all over a chair looking like the Necronomicon.
Overall? Going into this I wasn’t looking forward to the idea of “a father and a son beat the crap out of each other for a suit of clothes.” But happily, that doesn’t seem to be the direction Ewing is going. Instead, despite the plethora of exposition, what he seems to be aiming for is “fun.” And in my expert, critical opinion? It’s fun to have fun. Someone please pay me to write this stuff. Thanks!
Venom War #1 is in stores now from Marvel.
