by Rick Remender (writer), Tony Moore (pencils), Danny Miki (inks), John Rauch (colors), and Joe Caramagna (letters)
The Story: It’s Venom vs. Spider-Man in the race to save Betty Brant.
What’s Good: Hurray, Tony Moore is back. Tom Fowler is a solid enough artist, but there really isn’t any replacing Moore’s likable, characterful, and slightly goofy style. His work is naturally fun and both his characters and action scenes look solid. That said, a lot of credit is due to the inking and coloring of Danny Miki and John Rauch, respectively. Together, they’ve really helped give Venom it’s distinctive look, one that’s feels dirty, smudged, and sci-fi pulpy.
As far as Remender’s writing goes this month, his strongest work is done with Flash’s narration. It’s intense and really close to the action and it’s rather nice to see how the action actually has a direct effect on the narration and Flash’s stream of thought. It’s a nice change from the usual detachment that narration usually has. More than ever, Remender also does an awesome job using the narration to show the symbiote’s effect on Flash’s psyche. It’s most effective when Flash himself doesn’t realize small things like his referring to himself as “we.”
What’s especially cool this month is how Remender is giving the symbiote itself an increasing amount of its own sentience. Flash essentially has a running conversation with the symbiote, who responds primarily with wordless emotion that he intuitively senses. More creepily fun still is how the symbiote subtly does things, unbeknownst to Flash, such as how it deals with the failsafe device. Remender is slowly building the relationship between the two and the symbiote’s attachment to Thompson.
What’s Not So Good: Spider-Man plays a huge part in this month’s issue, and while the running fight sequence is fun, there’s no escaping the fact that Peter Parker comes across as completely utterly unlikable with motivations that are both bizarre and overly simple. It seems as though he wants to kill Venom for much of the issue, for example.
Unfortunately, Spidey doesn’t just come across as a hateful, unlikable version of himself, but one that’s fairly stupid as well. The lengths he goes to in ignoring Flash’s pleas and being completely deaf to Venom’s words and actions are unbelievable, particularly for a bright guy like Pete. Ultimately, I think Remender was too focused on using Spidey’s role this month to enhance his series’ protagonist and advance the plot. As a result, we get this hateful, violent, and stupid version of Spidey that feels like a strange caricature.
I also wasn’t wild about Jack O’ Lantern this month. He unleashes some cutesy mini robots on Venom that are certainly funny, but beyond that, the character felt a bit blase to me this issue. I think a big part of that is that Remender’s carving out a place for the character as Venom’s arch-nemesis is so blunt and forced. I mean, he just comes right out and says it and explains why. It just felt artificial and bit too much.
Conclusion: A really good month for Flash, but not a good month for Spidey or Jack O’ Lantern.
Grade: B –
-Alex Evans
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