Venom #16
John Jack
Recap
We get a quick 1 issue bridge between big events as Eddie recovers from the War of the Realms while stumbling across the early moments of Absolute Carnage as everyone's favorite murderous psychopath begins to seep into the woodwork of New York City and infect it's populace with his crimson miasma. God is no longer coming, God is here.
Review
A fairly easy read, Eddie heads out for soup and finds more. I really appreciated that rather than completely disregard the tie in issues as is often the case Cates takes a few pages to intelligently and quickly weave them into the ongoing story without missing a beat in this Absolute Carnage prelude.
That said I felt a little taken out of the story at points with Eddie fighting his inner Venom, which I like at face level but got a bit out of hand at times, especially during the fight scene with Eddie taking a hammer to the face and walking away, a bit of over the top plot armor. All for a can of soup…
I laughed out loud when Eddie gave Dylan the soup and Dylan complained. Just like a kid amirite hahahahaha!
The art by guest artist Juan Gedeon (filling in while Ryan Stegman OBLITERATES THE ABSOLUTE HELL out of some pencils on Absolute Carnage, the preview images are incredible, see below) is great, with Eddie and Dylan looking right on model with the rest of the series and a bit of nuance added in these less extreme situations. Sin Eater looks rad as well as the way cool (artistically) 90s as all get out Venom cutaways. So great.
Final Thoughts
A fun issue that is worth your time.
Venom #16: Absolute Eddie
- Writing - 9/109/10
- Storyline - 8/108/10
- Art - 9/109/10
- Color - 9/109/10
- Cover Art - 8/108/10