Six Isn't His Lucky Number

"Yo mama" jokes are passe. It's all about "my daddy" jokes now.

Venom: The Savage Six is the end of Rick Remender's stint writing Flash Thompson's - aka "Agent Venom" - adventures, and the beginning of Cullen Bunn's. In fact, the two of them co-write issues 18-21, which form the actual "Savage Six" portion of the trade.

The three issues prior to that revolve around Flash having been drafted into the "Secret Avengers", which Remender was taking over as writer from Warren Ellis. Flash trying to adjust to being on a team with Captain America (until Hawkeye takes over as leader), putting his foot in his mouth around Valkyrie, and having a whole other set of people to lie to about the fact the new Crime-Master knows who's wearing the symbiote. All of which also means more lying to his mother, his now ex-girlfriend Betty Brant, and his pal Peter Parker.

The Savage Six story itself is mostly Flash scrambling to protect his mother, sister and Betty from the fairly random assortment of villains the Crime-Master assembled. There's the Jack O'Lantern Remender and Tony Moore introduced in this series, but also The Fly, Death Adder from the Serpent Society(?), some digitized goof called Megatak, and the Toxin symbiote, bonded to Eddie Brock. It's not a great team since I'm not sure what history Flash has with Death Adder or Megatak. There's no meat to their presence, they're just here to make numbers.

At least two of those are Flash's own fault, as the Fly plays him with some sob story about a kid so that Flash lets him escape custody in issue 16. As for Brock, he was going around trying to kill all the symbiotes, and messed up Flash's attempt to put a bullet in Crime-Master's skull. Flash had to bail, and let Eddie webbed up to another symbiote bonded to him.

Flash ends up pulling the Fly's wings off, while Flash's mom watches, while Brock goes up like oil fire along with the symbiote because Flash can't pull him free in time. Not sure what point to draw from that. He showed mercy to one guy, and that guy turned around and tried to kill him. He left Brock to the wolves, then fucked up saving him.

Maybe the conclusion is Flash sucks at this. The last issue in the trade is his final showdown with Jack O'Lantern, who went ahead and stole Flash's dad's corpse as a taunt. How convenient Flash spends the entire issue thinking about his abusive drunk of a dad, and how similar they are.

Artist-wise, this collection is a mess. I know, no big surprise from Marvel in the early 2010s. Lan Medina draws issues 15 and 18-21, with Robert Atkins handling some pages in issue 20. Declan Shalvey draws issue 22. Kev Walker draws issues 16 and 17. There's 7 inkers, including Shalvey inking himself, and Walker doing likewise, but only on issue 16. There's 3 separate colorists, and no, they don't correspond to the primary artists, as Chris Sotomayor handles issues 16-21. There's even two different letterers!

Of the various art teams, the Shalvey/Lee Loughridge pairing is probably the best for setting mood. Shalvey sticks to a lot of wide, short panels, and more than the other artists, remembers the way the symbiote looks when Flash wears it is just something he's making it do. So as Flash loses control or gets angry, spikes start to protrude from it, and there are panels where you can see it's shifting more towards its classic appearance. And Loughridge drenches panels in a particular shade, playing up melancholy or fury.

Walker's art has rougher texture, and he tends to illustrate the violence more vividly than Medina or Shalvey. He likes tilted panels with rough-edged borders, although at times it's difficult to tell if I'm supposed to read across two pages or finish one then move to the next. Either way, the more graphic approach feels like a good choice; this is Venom, not Spider-Man. What's more, it's a Venom desperate to fix his earlier mistakes, proves he's not a fuck-up who lets people down all the time.

Comparatively, Medina's work is cleaner, more straightforward. Easy to read and tell what's happening, but kind of flat next to the others. Walker's Flash looks tired, eyes narrowed, face pinched, and he's not even scrambling to keep people alive yet. Medina's looks way too clean for someone already beat up and allegedly feeling a lot of pressure.

Saturday Splash Page #47

 

"City Sweep," in Venom (vol. 2) #22, by Rick Remender (writer), Declan Shalvey (artist), Lee Loughridge (colorist), Joe Caramanga (letterer)

Venom had several mini-series in the '90s, and an ongoing written by Daniel Way in the early 2000s, but those were always focused on Eddie Brock as the guy inside the symbiote. In 2011, though, Eddie Brock was trying to stay clear of the symbiote, and the living tar pit had been peeled off Mac Gargan after his stint being Norman Osborn's lackey. Left in the ever-so-trustworthy hands of the U.S. military, they decided to find a suitable soldier and get themselves a super-weapon.

Enter Flash Thompson. Having lost his legs serving in the Army in the Middle East during Brand New Day, Flash seemed quite eager for the opportunity to serve, and also use the symbiote as a stand-in for his legs. Remender sets Flash against Crime-Master, with his own, new Jack O'Lantern as chief henchman, but Flash is probably up against his own worst tendencies as much as anything. Remender uses Flash's own troubles with alcohol, and his ugly relationship with his abusive, alcoholic father. 

Flash doesn't really know how to deal with problems in a healthy manner, so he lies. He's dating Betty Brant, but lies to her about where he's at, claiming he's speaking at events for veterans. He lies to his bosses about how long he wore the suit during a mission in the Savage Land, and doesn't tell them Crime-Master knows who's calling themselves Venom. Because he doesn't want to lose access to the symbiote, the power, the purpose it grants him.

Tony Moore drew most of the initial story arc, and the character design for this version of Venom reflects that it's worn by someone meant to think of themselves as a soldier. It shifts appearance to resemble, boots, shoulder pads, gloves. Flash is packing heat and pouches like it's the Nineties all over again, using the symbiote to hold and fire multiple guns at once. Don't let the Punisher see that or he'll start demanding an alien goo suit. Flash keeps the suit under control with sedatives, but as he loses control, the symbiote shifts to more closely resemble the design used when Mac Gargan was wearing it. The massive, steroidal monster that looks like it could swallow a person whole.

I've only bought selected parts. The initial 5 issues, and the "Savage Six" story that concluded Remender's stint on the book. After the first five issues, it jumped into several Spider-Island tie-ins, and two or three-issue arc, and then the "Circle of Four", which was some play off the New Fantastic Four by putting together "dark" Spidey, Wolverine, Hulk and Ghost Rider in the persons of Venom, X-23, Red Hulk and that lady that took over as Ghost Rider after Jason Aaron's run. Not sure I'd agree with X-23 being more morally dubious than Logan, but whatever, I'm not dealing with that. Issues are surprisingly pricey, and Remender was replaced by Cullen Bunn, whose writing does zilch for me. 

Also, just from what issues I do own, they weren't great about keeping a regular artist. Six different artists in 13 issues, and while Kev Walker and Declan Shalvey aren't too far apart, wedging Lan Medina smack in the middle doesn't work so well.

The comic never does, in the parts I read, address any ethical concerns about drugging what is clearly a sentient being so it can be used as a weapon without its consent. Even when Remender adds Flash to his Secret Avengers run, it's unaddressed other than Hanks Pym and McCoy devising a more efficient way to keep it drugged and compliant. I'm not expecting any better from those two, Hank McCoy may have lapped Pym and Stark both with it comes to be ethically compromised, but still.

Standards Are Dropping Everywhere These Days

I think King in Black might finally be over. I saw some scans from issue 5 of Venom, amped up on Captain Universe powers shoving Knull into the Sun.

Of course, that was after Venom was somehow able to call Mjolnir to him and combine it with Knull's stupid sword into a battle-axe somehow. Really, I'm just hung up on the notion of Venom - loves talkin' 'bout eatin' brains Venom - holding Mjolnir. Captain Universe powers or no, Venom has murdered kind of a lot of people in his lifetime. Brock and the symbiote both, whether together or separate. Why not just let the Punisher swing it around next?

I shouldn't say that. Donny Cates will probably do it. That man has made remarkable time in landing on my "never buy anything he writes list" alongside such luminaries as Mark Millar. I get the feeling he read a lot of the same comics in the '90s I did, but we came to very different conclusions about what we liked.

I can't decide whether Venom being considered "worthy" is more annoying than HYDRA Captain America being able to use it during Secret Empire. Probably not, if only because with Venom I can at least make the argument it's the Enigma Force doing the heavy lifting on the worthiness. Don't have that out with Nick Spencer's mess.

I feel like this all Jason Aaron's fault, though. He did that whole bit in Original Sin about Thor being unable to lift Mjolnir after Nick Fury whispered in his ear. It turned out what he told Thor was that he wasn't worthy, and that was all it took. Thor no longer felt worthy, so he wasn't. Which I guess means you just have to think you're worthy to wield it, and there you go. Because one thing I can believe is a fascist Captain America thinking he's still worthy.

But it sets kind of a shit precedent. I know Marvel likes to argue that grandiose villains like Thanos and Dr. Doom always lose their ultimate power because on some level they won't admit, they know they don't deserve it, but not every villain can be like that. Some of these guys have got to fully believe they deserve it. I could see The Hood absolutely believing it. Or the Mad Thinker. Norman Osborn in his less lucid moments, where he's not aware of what a piece of garbage he is. Magneto, probably. You get the point. 

Hell, if all it takes is having a stupidly high opinion of yourself, Tony Stark should have been picking it up years ago.

I get needing to go big for your finale, but I feel like positioning the Enigma Force as the counter to whatever Knull represents - the void, or something I think - and giving that to someone using the symbiotes ought to have been enough. Leaning on the "Now this character can use Mjolnir!" for cheap pop is just kind of annoying.

Or maybe I'm just sick of Eddie Brock and symbiote-related stuff. Like I said, Cates and I clearly came away from the '90s with different experiences.

Working for the Man's Like Venom in Your System

Best Behind the Music voice: 'In an effort to curb his hunger for brains and get his career on track, Venom turned to pills. But what he couldn't see was that in the rollercoaster of his life, those drugs would carry him to new heights, before plunging him to the pits of Big Event despair.'

Back in March I wrote about the idea of having the Black Cat and Flash Thompson run across each other during that stretch where Flash had the Venom symbiote. Probably because of that, I picked up the first volume of his series, written by Rick Remender, with a whole mess of different artist (Tony Moore, Tom Fowler, Karl Kesel, and Sandu Florea for a grand total of one random page in the first issue).

The gist is that Flash wears the symbiote as part of some government agency, and goes on missions to serve America. He's not supposed to wear it for more than 48 hours straight, or it'll bond permanently with him. He carries sedatives to make it more compliant, which doesn't necessarily help if it can take control whenever he starts losing his temper. And there's supposed to be a bomb inside Flash that will kill him if the symbiote gets out of control. The benefit for Flash is that he gets to serve, he gets to be active, and the symbiote acts as legs for him (since he lost his serving in the Middle East during the Brand New Day era).

The first five issues establish the set-up, and put Flash up against a new Crime-Master, who seems like more of an arms trader than a would-be Kingpin. The guy figures out who's wearing the symbiote after they get separated during a clusterfuck of a mission in the Savage Land, and he gets Flash over a barrel with that. 

 

He's got himself a souped-up Jack O'Lantern as a henchguy, in what's a much more Halloween-themed design. Darker colors, ragged cape, ditches the Pogo Platform for a witches' broom looking thing. It's probably a better design overall than the original, but especially so for fighting gun-toting, sentient goo-wearing Spider-Man wannabe.

Flash wants to be like Spider-Man, so Remender gives him that, complete with Flash lying to his girlfriend Betty Brant about why he forgets important dates and goes silent for days at a time. Crime-Master threatens her at one point, which gets Spider-Man involved, leading to a misunderstanding battle. It is amusing afterward, when Betty is sure she was abducted because of her recent expose on organized crime, Peter's sure it has something to do with Spider-Man, while Flash knows it's about Venom.

The design for Agent Venom is essentially the symbiote making itself look like a combat outfit. It retains the color scheme and the symbol, but it makes itself look like Flash is wearing shoulder pads and boots and the whole magilla. I think that's supposed to be Flash imposing some kind of order on that, probably to help himself feel like a soldier again. Because as his control starts to slip, Moore and the others will draw it as reverting back to its classic look. The teeth start to show up, the musculature begins to swell and the symbiote forms those little tendrils (which I always associate as a Carnage thing, but whatever). The more the symbiote is running things, the more it assumes that form.

 

I'm not sure whether I want to hunt down the rest of the series. The issues immediately after this trade are a Spider-Island tie-in, and before too long, Remender's gonna leave and be replaced by Cullen Bunn. I have a mixed track record with Remender's work (hated his Captain America run, but Franken-Castle was fun), but I have never read anything of Bunn's that did anything for me.

What Reheated Hell Is This?

So I picked up Black Cat #12 today - now you know part of what Friday's post will be - and I get to the last page, where there's a "To Be Continued. . ." No big, to be expected. Flip the page for a glimpse at next issue's cover, it's a black page saying "Black Cat will return in King in Black."

OK, first off, did we need to the end credits bit to the comics? I know, lost cause. Movies are the dog, comics the tail, for all that the comics are the source.

More importantly, does this mean Black Cat is canceled? I mean, the issue itself teases a second Annual that hasn't come out yet, so surely the book isn't done, right? With Giant Days and Unbeatable Squirrel Girl ending last year, there's not really any competition to it being my favorite title at the moment. But this is Marvel, so expecting them to actually keep track of things like having an editor's note touting a book that might not being released would not be beyond them. The comic shop owner didn't know, figured it could be, or it might just be on a break for a bit.

I was actually desperate enough to turn to Twitter* to see if series writer Jed MacKay had anything to say. He says the book will be back, at some point. I was unclear on how far off that is, since it sounded like a couple months in one tweet, and longer than that in another.

But OK, the book is not gone for good. At least one thing went right today**. But what is with this King in Black stuff? I know it's connected to all this weird symbiote god stuff that's been swirling around in Venom-related stuff the last few years, which is more than I'd like to be aware of. Who at Marvel decided we needed events focused around the symbiotes now?

As someone who a) is far from immune to the allure of nostalgia, but also b) lived through the symbiote madness of the '90s, I am a bit lost at this development. Why do the symbiotes need a god, or a king, or whatever it is? I was perfectly fine with symbiotes each just wanting to find a nice host to bond with. They'd make the host stronger, the host would sustain them. They don't particularly care about their offspring (Brock's symbiote didn't even mention it left behind what became Carnage). Makes them sort an element of random chaos in the universe. Like that bit during War of Kings where the Shi'ar slapped a symbiote on Raza of the Starjammers. You don't know where one might appear, or what purpose it might be used towards.

Maybe that's the Brood's purpose in the Marvel cosmology. Or maybe it's Adam Warlock's. Shows up, starts some shit, make headaches for everyone.

Now they sound like just another threat led by some powerful Mista Big out to subjugate everyone else. Whee.

* Just one more piece of evidence this is the darkest timeline.

** Despite not drinking, I think a lot about that Patton Oswalt routine about depressing alcohol ads. The one for Dewar's, Dewar's: At least one thing will go right today. Granted, I have that feeling about things sometimes. Soda, a run I go on, occasionally doughnuts.

Venom

Blame Alex. I should have known when he texted late last week, asking if I'd see Venom. Then when I visited over the weekend, he insisted I give it a try. Well, it went better than that time he insisted I try the first 10 minutes of the Baywatch movie. It gave me the chance to make numerous innuendoes about tongue or swallowing. Take what I can get.

We get close to two hours of Tom Hardy acting nuts, arguing with the symbiote when it calls him a loser, or asks if he can eat someone. Not quite as far out there as Nic Cage's performance in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, but getting there. Hardy definitely leaves bite marks on the scenery. But watching him act like a lunatic who eats frozen tater tots and live lobsters while looking increasingly pale and sweaty is kind of funny.

Riz Ahmed as the creepy technocrat, high on how special and unique he thinks he is, makes for a pretty solid villain. The part where they're giving the schoolkids a tour, and he acts like he's going to answer the little girl's question, but then brushes it off after some pithy bullcrap. That show of being interested in other people and their questions, but he's so convinced of his superiority and power he doesn't even have to maintain it.

It's something I think he and Eddie have in common, because I don't feel like Eddie, for all that he exposes corruption, really cares about the people harmed by it. It's an ego thing, the joy of sticking it to people who think that never happens to them. Which yeah, is fun I'm sure. Everybody enjoys seeing entitled jerks get their comeuppance, but it's not necessarily a humanitarian pursuit.

Michelle Williams and Reid Scott as Anne and her new beau Dr. Dan do fine with what they've got. I did like that there isn't hostility between Eddie and Dan, them fighting over Anne. Granted, Eddie's got bigger problems, and the symbiote may have ideas of its own, but leaving that sort of posturing out was a good call. Would have just detracted from the movie, and you don't really need it for any emotional heft between Eddie and Anne. She has to weigh the feelings and concern she still has for him against the fact he did abuse her trust and he may always be the kind of selfish person who does that.

The big final battle between the two symbiotes is kind of a mess, with these two CGI goo monsters crashing into each other and throwing themselves around. The car chase through San Francisco is fine, nothing special as those things go. Tom Hardy's terrified reactions as the symbiote keeps saving him are what make it worthwhile.

I don't think it's a good movie by any stretch, but it exceeded my low expectations. That it's willing to be silly and that Hardy's willing to commit to playing Eddie as a guy who fell to pieces entirely once things went wrong helps.

Catching Up with Your Ex at Their New Job

I had this thought for no apparent reason on Sunday, so here it is.

The Black Cat used to date Flash Thompson back in the '90s. Initially as a way to annoy Spidey, because she was pissed he married Mary Jane. Even though Felicia and Spidey were on the outs with each other over something to do with the Foreigner (never really been clear what that guy's deal is.)

The parts of the Felicia/Flash relationship I remembered were mostly in Amazing Spider-Man. Felicia gradually developing real feelings for Flash. Helping Spidey out on more than one occasion and rebuilding her friendship. Actually finding some sort of neutral ground with Mary Jane (although the one time I saw Felicia and Aunt May interact May was not friendly. Got the speech balloon with the icicles and everything.)

What I couldn't remember was how it ended. I just knew that at some point their relationship stopped being a subplot. The magic of the Internet reveals Felicia actually proposed to Flash, and he turned her down, and revealed her knew she was the Black Cat all along. Which doesn't really surprise me. She was arrested at least once, even if she was able to fake her way into a psychiatric hospital instead of prison.

Still, I was thinking it would have been interesting if Felicia had crossed paths with Flash again during that stretch where he was Venom. I don't know a whole lot about Flash's stint with the symbiote, other than he was working for the government, and joined the Secret Avengers, then later the Guardians of the Galaxy. For part of that stretch, Felicia was in her ill-conceived "crimelord" phase, but that could work. I'm not sure how likely the federal government would be to care about organized crime wars in Marvel's New York, but they're probably more likely to send Flash after that than a thief, since Felicia doesn't spend a lot of time stealing government secrets.

I'm not sure what I'd expect from it. Surprise on Felicia's part, and more than a little wariness considering the poor experiences she had with symbiotes back in the '90s. Little hard for me to picture Flash letting her off the hook like Spider-Man so often did. At the same time, though, Felicia would know the symbiote's weaknesses.

Flash had always admired Spider-Man, and when they had him lose his legs in the army after Brand New Day, he mentioned Spidey was his inspiration for joining the military. Now he's the costumed hero, fighting super-villains. If Felicia's being her usual thief self, then she's continuing to follow the example of the person she admired most, her father. If she's a crime boss, then you can play up how she's gone off in an entirely different direction, gotten away from who she was for a long time.

Sunday Splash Page #81

"More Rigged Than a Duke Home Game", in Beyond! #4, by Dwayne McDuffie (writer), Scott Kolins (artist), Paul Mounts (colorist), Dave Lanphear (letterer)

Beyond! came out in late 2006, probably during the stretch where Steve McNiven fell way the fuck behind on Civil War. I don't think that has anything to do with this, just a bit of temporal context. It has to have wrapped up before McDuffie took over for JMS as writer of Fantastic Four, since McDuffie pulls a plot element from this for one of his stories there. 

A disparate group of characters - Medusa, Spider-Man, the Wasp, Hank Pym, Firebird, the Hood, Gravity, the Mac Gargan Venom, and one of Kraven's kids - are lured to a mysterious spacecraft landing in Central Park. Which then carries them to a distant planet where a mysterious voice tells them they'll receive their heart's desires if they triumph over their enemies.

Sounds familiar, right? But things aren't what they seem, as they aren't the first, or even the second bunch to be brought here. Plus, one of them is an imposter, and no I don't mean the Hood impersonating a badass.

McDuffie's able to give every character a chance to show how they can be cool or even just human. He draws some good stuff out of the old history some of the characters have (Kraven and Spider-Man for one, Pym and Firebird for another). The reveal of the true mastermind seemed clever and in keeping with the character, at least based on my understanding of him. 

Kolins' art has a kind of roughness to it that I don't exactly love, but it's effective. He can handle the scenes of people talking, the parts where tensions are running high and people are starting to snap at each other, and he can handle the fight scenes. He knows when to pull back for a sense of scale or scope, and when to zoom in on someone under strain. I don't think I've ever seen the outfit he gave Medusa before or since, but it was pretty cool.

You can probably find Beyond! pretty cheaply in trade or single issues, and I'd say it's worth a look if you enjoy Dwayne McDuffie's work or stories about random collections of characters having to work together somehow.

The Avengers' Worst Idea Since Adding Wolverine

'You know how I know this is a shit idea? Because it's really obviously a shit idea.' - Jim (Cillian Murphy), 28 Days Later.

I'm not a fan of symbionts. Or symbiotes. I was burned out on them by the mid-90s (Maximum Carnage at the earliest), and nothing's happened to revise that opinion. I'm biased when it comes to the idea of Venom, sorry, Agent Venom, joining the Secret Avengers. That said, I still don't think Hawkeye is unreasonable to object to it. He didn't need to yell at Flash Thompson about it, but sometimes you have to yell so all the people who are giddily excited about their terrible idea will pay attention. The quote above sums up my feeling about the whole idea. In case it isn't really obvious, though, let's take a look.

First, the whole situation is questionable ethically. The symbiont is capable of thought, planning, emotion, it's aware of itself as a separate and distinct entity, different from it's hosts. How would it recognize the drive to bond with one? In short, it's a sentient being. Near as I can tell from their technobabble, the two Hanks are shutting its mind down so Flash can control it.

They're taking a living, thinking organism, and reducing it to a second-rate Iron Man armor. That kind of action seem wrong to anyone else? It isn't even a Suicide Squad deal, where the symbiont is given the choice to pitch in, with freedom and perhaps some safe host as the eventual reward. Pym and McCoy are flat out removing its ability to have any say in the matter. I'm not surprised at Pym; history is littered with him doing things he thought were right that were actually terribly ill-conceived. McCoy I'm disappointed in. I thought he had more sense.

Think if Pym (or Stark, T'Challa, whatever scientist Avenger you dislike) installed a switch connected to the Vision's free will in his computer brain. Then, if that Avengers thinks it's necessary for Vision to sacrifice himself to save the day, and the Vision won't go along, just flip the switch, and he'll do whatever he's told, including getting blown up. That'd be wrong, to take away his right to decide whether to sacrifice his life. Yes, Vision is a hero, the symbiont is a killer, but I hold to that idea that there are certain things that are wrong regardless of who is doing them, or who they're doing them to. "Don't sink to their level", and so forth. But the symbiont is an alien, and not one that looks even remotely human, so apparently it's fair game. That's how it usually goes.

Even though I'm no fan of symbionts, and would be quite fine with the Avengers putting it on trial for eating people, and then it was shot into the Sun as punishment, I did think the ethical issue was worth mentioning. They start shutting down a sentient's brain so it'll work for the, how far are they from Squadron Supreme style behavior modification of their enemies? I'd like to think Captain America would oppose such things, but considering how blithely he discusses shutting down the symbiont's consciousness, that's out the window.

To a more basic point, this is going to backfire horribly. The time limit for how long he can wear it? It's going to trip them up. Even Flash knows it. There's no way to guarantee he wouldn't have to be out in the field more than 24 hours. What happens then? Get him out of there? What if they can't, he's separated from the rest of the team, or they're engaged in a huge battle? The symbiont's consciousness starts up again, realizes what's been done to it, and guess what? It's really pissed about it.

What happens when a hero gets mind-controlled by a villain into doing bad things, and the hero breaks free? They realize what they were forced to do, and they beat the hell out of the bad guy. That's a hero's reaction. What happens with an alien slime thing that already regards people as food or potential hosts at the best of times? It's going to kill Flash for starters, then jump to some other Avenger - Valkyrie, Captain Britain, maybe Beast if it's aware enough to recognize the threat his intellect poses - and wreak havoc.

Or, it'll simply take control of Flash and start attacking Avengers. We know it can do that already, that's why they're shutting down its consciousness, so it can't 'dominate' Corporal Thompson. That's under normal circumstances. Now it'll be under adverse conditions, when Flash is already busy fighting an Adaptoid or something, and the symbiont will be more determined/enraged to take control than ever before.

Yes, they have a Human Torch, and symbionts don't like fire, but there's no guarantee Mr. Hammond will be in any position to respond if Venom does go nuts. Even if he can, what's he going to do? Scare the symbiont off Flash, leaving him exposed in the middle of a fight while the symbiont is running about looking for a new host? Incinerate them both? What's the rest of the team doing while two members are caught up in this mess? It's going to be a disaster.

It's like when they encouraged the Sentry to join. Yes, having a guy with that much power sounded like a good idea. In practice, the Sentry had serious concerns about his own stability and safety to others that were not aided by taking part in Avengers' stuff. It would have been better for him and everyone else if he'd been left alone. Forcing him to be a hero was a mistake, and this stunt they're planning to pull with the Venom symbiont is another mistake.

It Probably Wouldn't Jibe With The Point Of Brand New Day

I saw a cover that promised the New Avengers were going to have to fight it out with Osborn's Dark Avengers. I really don't care too much about that, but the cover showed Spider-Man squaring off with someone that is supposed to be the Dark Avengers' Spider-Man. I imagine he's wearing the symbiont, though whoever it is reined in the alien, given the absence of huge teeth or a really long tongue. I suppose this team is even more public than the Thunderbolts, so Norman needed someone who can control the symbiont better, less attempted cannibalism in front of cameras, and the like.

Anyway, what I thought about was Spidey, during that battle, offering to let the symbiont join with him again. Everything I've ever read says it wants Peter, first and foremost. More than Brock, or Gargan, or whatever sucker it happens to latch on to at any particular moment. And given some of the folks on the Dark Avengers, Spidey could probably use a power boost to get through that battle.

Yeah, it's unlikely Spider-Man would ever willingly bond with the symbiont* again, and doing so would probably go against the tone that Brand New Day has tried to establish for Spider-Man. After all, if being married is going to cut down on his ability to have girl trouble, what's being permanently bonded to an alien goo-thing going to do? Though I suppose you could hi-jinks where the symbiont gets jealous of whatever girl Pete happens to be dating, or gets sore if he spends too much time hanging out with Harry. Still, seeing Norman Osborn in a position of considerable power, in spite of all the things he's done, might just make Pete a little depressed, perhaps a little frustrated or desperate. I doubt Norman would expect Peter to willingly pair up with the symbiont again, so that would probably be quite a surprise.

* Assuming the Dark Avengers' Spidey analogue is wearing the symbiont, as opposed to one of those Iron Spider suits. Those do have camouflage abilities, but they were also Stark tech, so according to Secret Invasion, they all should have crashed and burned when the Skrulls got more openly aggressive. Plus, Norman already had the symbiont, and I can't imagine he would let a weapon like that out of his grasp.

Discussion Topic: Amazing Spider-Man

Brand New Day appears to have been an attempt to return to the sorts of Spider-Man stories that were more common 25-40 years ago, with no marriage, freelance photographer Peter Parker, difficulty paying rent, and an alive Harry Osborn. Venom, while created in the late '80s, seems very much to be a child of the '90s with the development of his "lethal protector" phase, and general willingness to threaten to eat criminals. Venom later became a different villain, trying to be taking more seriously, perhaps marking this decade's preoccupation with showing comics aren't just for children, as well as an increased focus on legacies (or recycling of names, depending on your viewpoint.

Brand New Day has recently introduced Anti-Venom, the original human half of Venom, having previously faded into the background without powers, given new power (and new story importance) by Mr. Negative, a crime lord, similar to some of Spider-Man's past foes (the Answer, the Spot, Persuader, maybe Tombstone or Man Mountain Marko). Anti-Venom apparently can damage the symbiont half of Venom, as had attempted to do so in the most recent Amazing Spider-Man.

So, is this indicative of the larger trend towards stories emulating Silver and Bronze Age tales, by eliminating remnants of the "Marriage Era", or something else?

Warped Reflections

Once upon a time, I liked Carnage. Not like I rooted for him, but that he was a cool, extreme villain, and therefore awesome. It was the early '90s, I was younger, and considerably dumber. Still, there is one purpose Carnage served that I still find interesting, to a limited extent.

In Spider-Man Unlimited #2, we have reached the final chapter of the Maximum Carnage saga, where Carnage and a bunch of other extreme villains have killed lots of people and whomped on third-string heroes because the big guns were otherwise occupied for one reason or another. Carnage is feeling shaky after being blasted with a Magna-Illuminizer (spelling?), essentially a "happy feelings" gun. I'm not kidding. Suffice it to say, happy feelings freaked Carnage the hell out, and he starts running over the city, moving to places of significance farther and farther back in his past, with an angry Venom and a busted up Spidey on his tail.

Unsurprisingly, Venom wants Carnage dead, Spidey wants him captured. The two end up fighting it out in the orphanage where Cletus Kasady grew up (While Carnage fled. Way to go, guys). Venom keeps insisting that Carnage must die, while Spidey mocks him for obsessing. Venom says that he must stop Carnage because the symbiote came from him, thus Carnage is his responsibility, every innocent Kasady hurts is on his head. Spidey responds that he understands, because that's how he feels about Venom. Venom is, of course, flabbergasted by this, because he 'protects the innocent!', leading Spidey to think about how from where he stands, there's only a thin line of sanity between Venom and Carnage. And that was the idea that intrigued me.

I started thinking about how Venom is Spider-Man, if viewed in a funhouse mirror. Visually, Venom is a hyper-muscled Spider-Man. The black costume that could be quite intimidating, has been made frightening with the addition of that tongue, the claws, and the huge pointy teeth. At that time, they both wanted to protect, but Venom was willing (eager) to kill, while Spider-Man wouldn't even have killed a man he despised (Norman Osborn), let alone random criminals. Peter takes responsibility for the death of his uncle, because he didn't capture the thief who later shot Ben, the action which shaped the hero he became. Conversely, Eddie became Venom precisely because he doesn't take responsibility for his own failings. It's Spider-Man's fault for making Brock's life a mess, because Spidey captured the real Sin-Eater, exposing the one Brock had exclusive interviews with as a fake.

Oddly, since becoming Venom, Brock did develop a since of responsibility, often making sure no bystanders were caught in his attempts to kill Spider-Man, but still he blames Spidey for his mistakes. They're both still hung up on a past event, but it drives Peter to be a better hero, to not let others suffer because he doesn't act. Brock is still too fixated on blaming Spider-Man, to get to a point where maybe he can focus more on the "protector" part of "Lethal Protector". Even when he made a truce with Spidey, it doesn't seem to be because he's stopped blaming Spider-Man, so much as he finally realized that Spider-Man does protect the innocent, and so killing him would be bad. That qualifies as progress, but it's questionable how far Brock can move forward if he's always blaming another for his failings. It makes it easy to fall back on that excuse when other things go wrong.

Carnage seemed to be like looking at the reflection in a funhouse mirror, reflected in another funhouse mirror. The symbiote looks less like a costume, more like an actual living being, with loose flowing strands moving about at all times. It can morph it all manners of blades and projectiles, something Venom showed no ability for (beyond making webbing). The colors shift, back a little more towards Spider-Man's red costume, but with black still playing a part. The black in the symbiote could almost be seen as the web pattern from the red-and-blue costume, warped into a series of random lines. Additionally, Carnage seems to be Venom with no morals whatsoever. Whereas Venom simply lacks mercy for criminals and Spider-Man, Carnage possesses no mercy, period. He kills everyone, indiscriminately, reveling in how high he can pile the bodies. He doesn't concern himself with whether people intervene in his slaughter, because he would kill those people eventually, anyway.

Whereas Peter lost his parents on a super-secret spy mission early in life, but had Uncle Ben and Aunt May to love him, and Eddie Brock lost his mother, and was left with a demanding, unsupportive father, Kasady had a mother killed by his father, and possibly a grandmother that he killed (apparently he likes to change up the story he tells the shrinks from one time to the next). From a situation where the loss of loving parents was mitigated by loving relatives, it just went downhill as we pass through the mirrors from one character to the next.

That was pretty much the extent of my interest in Carnage, as someone whose existence and activities troubled Venom, as much as Venom troubled Spidey. Characters that can make the protagonist question how far apart they really are can be kind of fun, in limited doses. Unfortunately, Marvel kind of went overboard on Carnage, and I'm left thinking he would have been better off as a one-shot villain, maybe someone to convince Venom to tone himself down.

Is It A Retcon?

Topic of the day: Venom's origin.

Oh, don't leave.

So I was thinking about this a few days back, and I get to the part (in my mind) where we learn that Eddie Brock's career was supposedly ruined by Spider-Man, and I hit a snag.

See, Eddie tells Spidey that during the Sin-Eater's rampage, he had been conducting interviews with a man claiming to be Sin-Eater, and earning front page headlines at his newspaper (the Globe?). He finally caves to police pressure to help them apprehend the fellow, and all looks well.

Then Spider-Man captures the real Sin-Eater (by nearly beating him to death). Oops, Eddie was getting strung along by a compulsive confessor, but he gets accused of fraud, and his career goes down the tubes. All because of that blasted Spider-Man. Based on that, I'm not real surprised I preferred Venom when his mission became to protect the innocent from Spidey, rather than just to get revenge on Webs.

Here's the thing. In the Death of Jean DeWolff story (which was the Sin-Eater story), we see one person claiming to be Sin-Eater who isn't. He comes to the Daily Bugle to kill Jonah and gets caught instead (Peter takes a page from Daredevil and throws a typewriter ribbon at him).. That's the only false Sin-Eater we ever hear about, and that wasn't a case of the cops being tipped off by Eddie Brock.

So my question is, does that qualify Eddie Brock's motivation as a retcon? I'm just not quite sure I understand the term completely, and if it is, it's probably the earliest moment in my comic reading life involving such a thing.