Eddie Brock is beginning to lose control of his other half, but he’s not the only Symbiote in town with problems! As if that wasn’t bad enough, there’s some kinda Symbiote dragon on the loose in Manhattan, whaaaa?!
Title: Venom #2
Writer: Donny Cates
Pencils: Ryan Stegman
Inks: JP Mayer
Colors: Frank Martin
Letters: VC’s Clayton Cowles
Publisher: Marvel Comics
What You Need to Know:
Venom wasn’t the first human to bond with a Klyntar, not by a long shot! In Vietnam Nick Fury had half a dozen Symbiote commandos at his beck and call, now one of his retired former operatives has informed Eddie that Shield was transporting his former Squad along with something BIG, when Venom stops the convoy the squad is anything but grateful, punching a hole in Eddie’s chest before being devoured by whatever giant monster was being transported in the convoy, which then left Eddie for dead! Did I mention Eddie’s Symbiote has been changing form and ignoring orders, spouting an alien language? Curiouser and Curiouser…
What You’ll Find Out:
We open on Eddie, dying, with a giant gaping hole in his chest. His Other begs him to wake up, desperately trying to patch up the catastrophic damage to his rib cage, In a last-ditch effort the symbiote infiltrates his bloodstream, removing bone fragments and beginning to patch the damage, then it reaches in and begins to squeeze his heart, and he startles back to life. Is that all you gotta do? Doctor, grab the heart squeezer or this man will die! Joking.
Venom goes to confront Strickland, the man who sent him into that tunnel to die, but before he gets a chance to ask any questions the Symbiote hijacks his body again, speaking in the alien language and attempting to kill Strickland, Eddie manages to maintain enough control to wrest himself away and disable his rogue Symbiote. Rex tells him he knows what it said, “God is here!”
You’ll have to discover the rest of this issue for yourself, pick up Venom #2 today!
What Just Happened?
Wow! 2 issues in and I’m still scrambling for answers but this is shaping up to be a phenomenal arc, with a fair bit of introspection balanced out by decent action and a bit of mystery. I’m really interested to learn more about previous symbiote incursions and I’m in no way surprised that Fury is involved. Could honestly be worth a miniseries.
I’m also pretty intrigued by this Symbiote god, we’ve seen so little of the Klyntar homeworld, as much as we’ve seen them last few years I don’t feel like I’ve learned much, with the exception of the Poison X storyline a couple months back, which delved into the alien species the slightest amount. I would really love to learn more.
The art is absolutely phenomenal for the most part, albeit a little bit dark. The evil symbiotes look pretty good, although I feel like we’ve seen the design before maybe? I like the glimpses of the Symbiote god we’ve seen but haven’t seen enough to make a formal decision on the subject.
Pretty awesome start, although it isn’t necessarily the jumping on point we were promised, so much as an arc completely unrelated to and disregarding the preceding series while creating more questions than answers, pretty standard relaunch fare and par for the course every 10-12 months at Marvel. Not to detract from the current series specifically so much as the state of the industry.
Rating: 9/10
Final Thought: A solid step up from the last series, I’ll gladly spend my money on it provided quality keeps up. An interesting first arc. Can’t wait to see Symbiote god!
If anyone ever wants to contact me, look me up in my groups for the love of comic books and New Fans, Old Comics, I also have several comic pages dedicated to my various true loves, Batman, Superman, Sword and Sorcery, Indie Comics, Spider-man, Marvel, Oldie Goldies, and Hats! (Long story on that last one haha) or on Twitter @johnbatusijack
