All-New Venom #5: All Is Revealed

As the drums rolled for four consecutive issues, All-New Venom kindled speculation and built anticipation in preparation for this: the unmasking of the symbiote’s mysterious new host. Luke Cage, Madame Masque, and Rick Jones have been crossed off the suspect list one-by-one, leaving only Daily Bugle journalist Robbie Robertson behind. But any reader well-versed with the whodunnit? genre knows not to limit their imagination, as the true culprit can be any character present within the story, especially the one least-expected. And while the grand unveiling of their identity is bound to be the talk of the town, it is not All-New Venom #5’s only source of excitement.

Right back in the midst of the action is where everything kicks off, with M.O.D.O.K. fighting a two-front war against Venom and its symbiote offspring Sleeper, who is now piloting the body of Rick Jones. The duo foil M.O.D.O.K.’s plot to regain control of A.I.M. and, in his outrage, the villain destroys the balcony, sending them and a dozen innocent civilians plummeting off a skyscraper. Al Ewing and Carlos Gomez pool their creative minds together to produce the most gratifying kind of action sequence, one in which the hero defies insurmountable odds to save everyone.

Gomez’s perspective and scale is on-point, making the drop from the top of the tower feel long and fast. There is an excellent sense of gravity and momentum behind every movement the characters and surrounding debris make. On top of that, Gomez keeps a sort of continuity with how far they’ve fallen, ensuring that at all times the reader knows how close Venom is to reaching the ground; the heroes never feel like they are floating aimlessly in the wind. In the end, Sleeper and Venom manage to rescue every civilian and incapacitate M.O.D.O.K. while his dastardly partner-in-crime Madame Masque escapes. Left weakened by the battle, Venom returns to the home of its host, walking right into a conversation between Robbie Robertson and Paul Rabin.

It turns out that Robbie was not behind the symbiote after all, but, as a seasoned investigative journalist, he was hot on the trail of the real individual: Mary Jane Watson. Yes, the former love of Spider-Man is the All-New Venom, answering one big question while creating a hundred new ones. How did the two become bonded? Why maintain a secret identity? And will MJ leave her Jackpot persona behind? As far as unforeseen outcomes go, this one is quite doozy, made all the more entertaining by how Ewing used MJ’s boyfriend Paul as the ultimate red herring. With its mystery solved, it will be fascinating to see what direction the comic takes, and what it means for the duo’s future.