All-New Venom #4: The Sleeper Agent

The fates of Dylan Brock’s former allies Toxic and Sleeper are finally unveiled as All-New Venom #4 ties up the last loose threads of 2024’s Venom War, revealing why the boy has come to regard fellow host Flash Thompson as a traitor. Al Ewing refuses to let his crossover event fall into the void of inconsequence and has ensured that the conflict has shaken the foundations of Marvel’s symbiote community. Under his pen, the Klyntar have joined the likes of mutants and inhumans as one of the universe’s marginalized groups hated, feared and hunted by shady government agencies.

Toxic and Sleeper remained imprisoned yet fed and unharmed thanks to the sacrifices of Flash, who has reluctantly become the government’s symbiote consultant to spare his friends from the law. Since his run on Venom began some odd years back, Ewing has done much to establish the symbiotes as full-fledged personalities and emotional beings separate from their hosts. He does the same for Toxic here, whose monologue about how lonely the life of a parasite can be will pull at heart-strings. Sleeper is much less bitter, retreating into a meditative zen-state; a detail which winds up being the Chekhov’s gun of the comic. Under threat of persecution, Flash must hold up the most regrettable part of his bargain and hunt down the elusive new Venom, meaning the lethal protector will be fighting a three-front war against him, the forces of A.I.M. and the dastardly duo of Madame Masque and M.O.D.O.K.

Readers may be surprised to hear that the latter two steal the show as their team dynamic is campy in a way that evokes nostalgia for an earlier era. M.O.D.O.K is as entertainingly neurotic as ever, but Ewing has an even more brilliant grasp on Masque’s voice that makes her the most lovably hateable she’s been in years. Mercenaries of her archetype tend to fall into the extremes of ice-cold stoics or quirky and quippy sociopaths, but Masque is witty in a uniquely dry and intelligent yet playful way. And artist Carlos Gomez imbues that mischievous energy into her every pose and movement, making her lithe, theatrical and effortlessly confident. All emotion is conveyed brilliantly through her detailed eyes and the reflection of her victims across her golden façade.

Venom’s two-on-one fight against them is an electric sequence set atop the deck of a New York high-rise, a limited space that becomes increasingly crowded as it’s blown to bits by lasers and bullets. Acrobatics and more signature slapstick body horror make it an all-around satisfying fight, halted abruptly by the arrival of professional sidekick Rick Jones. Rick has been a symbiote all along, just not the obvious one, serving as the secret host of Sleeper for who knows how long, meaning the version of the symbiote locked up in jail must really be an automated drone. It’s a final page reveal that crosses another suspect off the list while bringing the fight into its second phase.