Web of Venom: Venom Unleashed #1: Dogs Day Out

A pretty interesting issue in that it’s basically completely from the point of view of a dog. Symbiote dog, anyway. It’s really interesting the way Carnage is trying to track down all the hosts in order to bring in fragments of Knull using some form of mind control, very different from his usual “kill everything that moves, even if it’s standing still” policy. Also noteworthy is Ryan Stegman, in his first solo writer credit that I know of (forgive me if I missed something) that’s so super cool he seems like a cool dude and I wish him nothing but the best. I’m so interested in this story line, that has become an epic in recent months deeper and more interesting than anything I’ve seen for Venom in years! Also I just got the title, Venom Unleashed, because he’s a dog, that’s actually hilarious.

I was a little bit confused at the “dog” tracking using scent, it was convenient to the plot but still seemed a little strange, for one thing a symbiote using a nose like a nose seems strange as I’m pretty sure they breathe through their skin like frogs, especially since it morphs into a nightmare monster pretty frequently. Also strange how much it’s doing without a host, it seems more likely it would take sleeping Eddie for a ride the way it did Peter all those years ago.

The pencil work by Kyle Hotz and Juan Gedeon is pretty cool although it’s a bit hard to judge accurately as everything in the issue seems to be warped to a degree, whether that is due to the perspective being that of a dog or just a stylistic choice is unclear, either way I like it. Carnage in particular looked better than he did in his one shot a couple months age, which I didn’t love.

I’m really confused, this issue has 6 inkers and 5 colorists credited and as such it’s difficult to figure out who did what, so I’ll just say the inks were heavy in a good way and the colors were really interesting, especially the controlled.