Venom #10: A (Brutal!) Walk Down Memory Lane

Damn, I don’t even know how to talk about this issue. The flip of the realization that Eddie was the one driving was a bombshell to be sure but more important was the way his dad handled the info. The beating received at the hands of his own family was brutal and clearly the guilt was never processed, leading into an interesting character moment; Eddie considers himself eternally guilty. This could be considered a pivotal piece of character revealed for Venom, and helps set a reason that he’s never gone full blown superhero before that has never been established. Eddie thinks he’s a monster therefore the Venom Symbiote manifests him as one.

I’m so pleasantly surprised by this arc, when I saw the solicits I wasn’t too sold on the concept of a Venom arc without Venom. I’m still not. But shockingly these last two issues have won so much ground with me, and the multiple huge reveals this issue really caught me. Great arc so far I hope it keeps up.

The pencil work by Ryan Stegman is incredibly detailed as always, but the panel layouts and general flow of the story were also exceptional, with a combined sound effect/ action panel being a real highlight to see (it’s the first panel of the second of the three pages pictured above). He shared this pencil work today on Twitter, and poor JP Mayer had to ink that beauty of a splash page!

This issue was very color heavy with red borders on many of the flashback panels and muted tones throughout. Very subtle but interesting work by Frank Martin, who has been phenomenal throughout the series on colors!