The God of the Symbiotes has risen, taking Eddie Brock and Miles Morales prisoner. Every comic fan knows if there’s one thing a villain can’t resist when he has his foe in chains, it’s telling his origin, IT’S EXPOSITION TIME KIDS!!
Title: Venom #4
Writer: Donny Cates
Pencils: Ryan Stegman
Inks: JP Mayer
Colors: Frank Martin
Letters: Clayton Cowles
Publisher: Marvel Comics
What You Need to Know:
What You’ll Find Out:
We open on a narrative from the dawn of the universe, a being floats through the void in peace, only awakened by the spark of war, by titans. The First Host, recently seen in The Avengers first arc, travel across the universe, seeding planets with life, not all of them needing or wanting it. As he strikes at the nearest Celestial, killing it with seeming ease, he reaches into his shadow realm and pulls out a piece of material, banished to the darkness he forges a weapon in the fires of the dead celestial, the first Symbiote, ALL-BLACK THE NECROSWORD! The Godbutcher blade is a Symbiote?! It makes so much sense!
Armed with his newly forged god tier weapon he sets out across the universe, carving a swath of death and destruction. Together they “slit the throats of creation and choke a billion stars with the blood of the Almighty.” But no warrior is unbeatable, and in time he falls, his firstborn, his weapon, is stolen from him by a man we know well, Gorr the Godbutcher! (Read Thor: God of Thunder for the good of your soul! Also, it’s what they’re referencing here)
Following his initial defeat and stranded on a desolate, dying planet, Knull gathers his power and creates his horde. Linked across the galaxy through the network created by symbiosis he reigns unchecked until he reaches Earth, where one of the greatest cameos in recent memory waits to unseat the God of the Symbiotes from his throne!
You’ll have to discover the rest of this issue for yourself, I loved it!
What Just Happened?
Wow! The All-Black the Necrosword origin alone blew my mind, as it was never fully explained during Godbomb. I love the way this ties into one of the greatest Marvel stories of the past few years. The mindblowing nature of the origin does well to distract us from the fact that this issue did practically nothing to move the story forward. The Thor cameo definitely got me stoked though, but looking past that I wanted a bit more out of the story.
I did enjoy the backstory of the Symbiotes, and they did a good job of explaining why he calls them Symbiotes and not Klyntar. It was a bit strange that Knull had a humanoid form from the start despite apparently predating existence. Also a bit strange is the fact that no known hero up to and including Odin is capable of cracking the armor of a Celestial but Knull killed one in seconds.
One potentially minor nitpick is the symbiote dragon they’re riding in space is flapping its wings, which requires air to be effective. honestly, it’s a pretty stupid thing to bother me, and I don’t count it against the book, just something I can’t unsee.
The pencil work by Ryan Stegman is fantastic as it has been this entire series, not to throw muck but his depiction of Thor in the cameo is a stronger visual than I’ve seen out of Del Mundo in Aaron’s current Thor series. Not to complain about a book I’m not reviewing haha. More of a compliment to Stegman than a complaint about Del Mundo. Likewise, the Celestials look fantastic in the early pages of the book, very strong visuals in this book, including a forge seem reminiscent of Simonson’s Thor run, when Surtur made Twilight, and likewise when Odin had the dwarves make Stormbreaker for Beta Ray Bill.
Rating: 8/10
Final Thought: Very gratifying single issue but felt like it had very minor short-term effects despite some very big long-term effects including a Symbiote origin retcon and at long last an origin for All-Black the Necrosword. The issue itself makes a great one shot but I feel it’s a weak link as part of an arc.