Venom #256: Good Night, Sweet Prince

Yes, the hearsay is true; Venom #256 should be published in memory of Paul Rabin, as it marks the end of his 4-year-long tenure (or reign of terror, depending on who you ask) amongst Spider-Man’s supporting cast. The character who single-handedly dragged Spider-Man storytelling down to a new low is gone, having died quickly but valiantly in a bid to save Dylan Brock from the ruthless serial killer known as Torment.

Having mowed down a handful of obscure aunts and uncles from the Parker, Watson, and Brock families, Torment has finally mustered up the courage to go after someone actually important to the protagonists. Paul can do little more than take a stab to the gut when the masked fiend appears at his door step, but does so gladly when it means buying Dylan enough time to escape. Venom, Spidey and Carnage crash the party before Torment can finish the poor bloke off, but the killing blow has been struck, and Paul dies with a bit of grace and dignity; more than many fans
think he deserves.

Series scribe Al Ewing has not been above peppering Venom with humorous meta-references towards Paul’s controversial reception, but these winks and nods crescendo into a surprisingly sympathetic climax. Torment adds insult to injury, berating Paul by telling him how useless, insignificant and out-of-place he is in this world, even bringing up his and MJ’s magical disappearing children one final time. Paul seems to make peace with this assessment in his final words, knowing that he “never mattered.” For all the hatred and frustration understandably directed at Mr. Rabin, at the end of the day, he was a victim of poor writing choices as much as Peter and MJ, and issue #256 strives to make that known.

Ironically enough, the death of this universally-despised character has proved the only one of impact in this whole event. It is certainly the only impactful moment in this issue, too, overshadowing the ensuing pages which only seem to go through the motions. Nothing else can measure up to this shocking opening, outside a moment of drama near the end when Carnage betrays the heroes in the most predictable double-cross in history. MJ might as well not be present the way she takes a backseat to the Venom symbiote’s predominate personality here. Still, the issue certainly looks good, and its at last given Torment a bit of street cred to his name.