Venom #20: Oversight & the Council of Reeds!

Some may say that Cates has been trying to carve away at making a “human” type of story with Eddie and Dylan with twists and turns along the way while intertwining with Absolute Carnage. Now that the storyline is over, I think in a lot of ways, Absolute Carnage stole small bits of this storyline with its hype. Now I loved Absolute Carnage, but I do believe it stole the show and it necessarily (at times) was only the star of the show by name only. After Eddie saved the world, he still had so much to contend with, and really all the action is building toward the conversation that he gets to have with his son here, but as we see in the last few panels, maybe we have been building up to so much more. Not only do we get a big reveal with Eddie and Dylan, but we get introduced to the Council of Reeds! Yes, THAT Council of Reeds.

The Maker has big plans and Cates lays a perfect foundation for a story that undoubtedly has larger implications for the Marvel Universe. As I have said in previous reviews of this series, I believe that Venom and Carnage were never the “true” story here. It has always been Dylan, who he truly is, and what it means to the Marvel Universe. The Maker backs me up, and you should too! Artwise this book continues to keep true to what we have come to expect from this team of Coello, Carlos, and Beredo, they continue to pay great respect to Ryan Stegman and Frank Martin, but overall I think it’s a good looking book.

While this may be emotionally heavy for some, I honestly believe that folks that are heavily vested in this series knew this was coming, we just didn’t know when or how. We may have had to trudge through the forest of Carnage to get there, but we are here, and we are loving it!

Now that we have the big Dylan reveal, we can turn our focus to the Council of Reeds. What is The Maker’s true purpose, or maybe it the counsel that has sent him and he is just a pawn in their overall mission to capture Dylan and experiment on him? Either way, Cates continues to take Venom to new heights and keeps you busy with questions and scenarios that may or may not play out. One this is for sure, you do not want to miss a single issue of this storyline, which is sure to be looked at as one of the best of the decade.