Venom #25
Isaiah Hernandez
Recap
Until recently, Eddie Brock was the web-slinger known as Venom and the leader of the symbiote species--the king in black. After Eddie seemingly died, his mind became unstuck in time. at the end of all things--the garden of time--brock became trapped in a time maze. Eddie, and every future version of himself, was destined to become the villainous Meridius.
Bursting from his corpse on earth wielding new human-symbiote powers and renewed purpose, Eddie struck a deal with Bedlam, a violent incarnation of Eddie’s personality as it was when he first bonded to Venom. Their first move--acquire a true time machine--from Doctor Doom! In the ensuing battle, Eddie broke Doom’s time platform, which sent them hurtling randomly into the timestream!
Review
Venom #26 opens with a direct parallel to the writings of Ray Bradbury, as Doctor Doom recounts the renowned author’s interpretation of time travel logic and rejects it in favor of his own. The butterfly effect is pure farce within the Marvel universe, as it takes a monumental amount of interference to jeer the stubborn timeline off its intended course. If that’s truly the case, it makes one wonder what the well-established Time Variance Authority is always so concerned about. Regardless, this quick monologue is the comic’s way of covering its bases, assuring continuity fanatics that Eddie Brock and Doom are free to frolic through the past without consequence.
There is also some well-incorporated characterization for Doom, which ends up being an abundance in this issue. The man embodies the cliche of a mustache-twirling villain, so being reminded that there is a human under the mask, one with interests and hobbies, is always amusing. The image of Victor enjoying a science-fiction novel in his study does much endear him to the reader.
The unlikely duo covers a lot of ground in this double-sized issue, delivering a true time-travel adventure as they battle a t-rex, nazis, and multiple copies of Kang the Conqueror. The penciling team does wonders keeping this rollercoaster ride of an adventure coherent; every period visited is quickly identifiable thanks to their grand establishing shots. The timestream itself is quite memorable decked out in Frank D’Armata’s psychedelic colors.
The true meat of the comic from their detour to 15 years prior, which leads to Eddie encountering a teenage Peter Parker while Doom confronts his rookie self. This serves as a moment of realization for both characters, forcing them to ponder who they once were and how much they’ve changed. The panels cut back and forth between the conversations, threading a connection between the two that suggests Eddie and Victor have more in common than previously thought.
Aside from his poignant interaction with Peter, Eddie takes a backseat to this issue, feeling more like a passive passenger on this wild ride. Victor undoubtedly takes precedence here, especially towards the end, as he and Kang have a tongue-in-cheek argument about timeline nonsense. It’s an odd choice, but given the major shake-up that is approaching the Venom title and its cast, it makes sense. Knowing their time is limited, the current creative team has become unashamedly experimental. Issue #26 even caps off with an unsubtle set-up for Eddie’s story to continue in an event that’ll almost certainly be titled Venom War.
Final Thoughts
Venom #25 is more of a stealth Doctor Doom comic under the guise of an Eddie Brock-centric story, but it offers enough amusing time travel antics to entertain fans of both characters, and keeps up an enticing pace throughout its double-sized page length.
Venom #25: Eddie and Doom’s Excellent Adventure
- Writing - 7/107/10
- Storyline - 7/107/10
- Art - 8/108/10
- Color - 8/108/10
- Cover Art - 8/108/10
What do you get when you buy an oversize 25th issue of Venom in which Venom doesn’t appear?
To say this issue was disappointing would be an understatement. Whole lot of pages to accomplish very little. Story-wise, this issue barely moved the chains. I was expecting to see the culmination of an arc Ewing has been building (slowly… so slowly) since issue 18. Did that happen? Nope. Just a masturbatory slug-fest that accomplished nothing and ended with a… I cant even call it a cliffhanger… call back to a panel of Doom and Flexo that we’ve seen in a previous issue. The goal: Eddie wants a time machine to beat up his evil future self. I’m sure there’s no way that could go wrong. Ultimaely, said evil future self is dispactched with barely an inconvenience by a means that should have barely inconvenienced him.There’s 2 pages of expository dialogue from Doom and Kang explaining why everyting Eddie is doing is futile – Kang literally draws a diagram on a white board to explain it to Doom, who already knows. We get a bit of fan-service as a time traveling Eddie pours his heart out to a teenage Peter Parker. Honestly this scene didn’t work at all, and would have been better left out.
Al Ewing is a pretty good writer, but this is not his best work.
The art team for this issue had 5 different artists. While I won’t say any of the art was bad, I can’t say that any of it was particularly good. It was… ok. They were all competent storytellers, but they’re styles were different enought that the transitions were jarring. The failure of this issue lies soley at Ewing’s feet.
This Venom series has been a bit of a mess from the start. The shifts between Dylan’s and Eddie’s storylines have been weird. They interrupt each other’s arcs, leaving everything feeling unresolved and incomplete. Multiple writers and inconsistent art teams are big red flag that something’s going wrong.