Venom #5: Back From Outer Space (Somehow)

Hm, pretty toothless issue, feels a bit like mid arc slump, where the issue is so preoccupied resolving previous plot points and setting up the finale that it has little merit on it’s own, a big problem in these days when issues are intended for collected editions with sometimes little appeal as a single issue. We basically spend about a third of the issue falling from space (is that survivable? not sure) drop Miles off like he’s a difficult Uber customer then we get 4 or 5 pages of endgame, which was interesting but not enough to make me love the issue. I would have liked to see them escape I feel like I missed half an issue, I even went back an issue and checked if I missed something.

“Get out already I got a guy that needs to go to the airport!”

I did find the big reveal of Rex’s nature pretty interesting, which I did feel was the high point of this issue, providing decent set up for next issue, if you’re following the arc you’re still following it, if you’re reading the trade you probably won’t even notice this issue exists, besides some seemingly sloppy editing, one panel shows the dragon flying into space the next panel they’re falling.

The art by Ryan Stegman continues to be just excellent, the real visual highlight being the falling scene and the big wings reveal, which likely would have had more impact were it not on the cover, that’s pretty nitpicky though haha. Also pretty nuts is the panel where Venom stabs Rex, slightly reminiscent of Terminator 2, which is not a bad image to emulate.

Also, side note, the Symbiote God’s name is Knull, he is referred to as the void, null and void. Dunno.