Venom

By Rick Remender, Tony Moore, Crimelab! Studios, Sandu Florea, Karl Kesel & Tom Fowler ((Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-493-5

In the anything goes, desperate hurly-burly of the late 1980s and 1990s, fad-fever and spin-off madness gripped the superhero genre in America as publishers hungrily exploited every trick to bolster flagging sales.

In the melee Spider-Man spawned an implacable enemy called Venom: a deranged and disgraced reporter named Eddie Brock who bonded with Peter Parker’s alternate costume (a semi-sentient alien parasite called the Symbiote which the wall-crawler first wore in Secret Wars #8, December 1984).

Brock became a savage, shape-changing, dark-side version of the Amazing Arachnid but after numerous spectacular clashes, the spidery adversaries eventually reached a brooding dÃ©tente and Venom became a â€œLethal Protectorâ€, dispensing a highly individualistic brand of justice everywhere but New York City.

At one stage the Symbiote went into breeding mode; creating a junior version of itself that merged with a deranged psycho-killer named Cletus Kasady to form the even more terrifying metamorphic Carnage.

Since then many other hosts have bonded with the ebony parasite, including Brock’s wife Ann Weying, Mac Gargan, AKA the Scorpion, mobster Angelo Fortunato, Mayoral assistant Edward Saks and even Franklin Richards and other members of the Fantastic Four.

In the beginning of 2011 a new iteration of the lethal Protector debuted in The Amazing Spider-Man #654 and was swiftly followed by this classy and viscerally action-packed rollercoaster ride from scripter Rick Remender and penciller Tony Moore, ably augmented by inkers Crimelab! Studios, Sandu Florea, Karl Kesel, Tom Fowler & colourist John Rauch.

This time the host is Flash Thompson, Spider-Man’s greatest fan and a war hero who came back from Afghanistan without his legs. A recovering alcoholic, Eugene, as he now prefers, is part of a top-secret military black-ops operation which uses the Symbiote to carry out under-the-radar missions vital to US security.

In return, Thompson gets to be a hero (of sorts), feel useful again, serve his country and get out of his wheelchair prison for 48 hours at a time.

Of course there are drawbacks: the parasite is a deadly menace, constantly seeking to permanently bond with its wearer and is classed as one of the most dangerous entities on the planet. If the new Venom should go berserk or if the human host stays bonded for more than two days the war room controllers of the mysterious General Dodge will simply detonate the explosives attached to Thompson’s body and start the project over with another volunteer. It’s what they had to do with the previous wearer, after allâ€¦

This superb blend of visceral action and powerful drama opens with Venom trying to extract to the US a genocidal scientist attempting to ethnically cleanse his Balkan homeland with the unstoppable Vibranium weaponry he was contracted to build for American gang boss Crime Master.

Even inside an alien skin driving him crazy whilst granting him incredible, intoxicating power, Flash can’t help going off-mission to save dying civilians, so he’s doubly distracted when Crime Master’s kill-crazy enforcer Jack O’Lantern attempts to steal the mad scientist out from under him, resulting in a devastating battleâ€¦

Only partially successful, Thompson limps home to girlfriend Betty Brant and pal Peter Parker, trusted confidantes he cannot tell about his new private life and who are therefore terrified that his constant disappearances mean he’s drinking againâ€¦

Venom’s second mission is to stop the supply of Vibranium from the Antarctic Lost World known as the Savage Land but that goes even more Fubar (it’s military slang and rude – look it up if you must) when Kraven the Hunter unexpectedly attacks and delays him long past his time limit.

With the parasite making inroads into his psyche and Crime Master’s goons delaying him even longer over his deadline, his identity is exposed to the Machiavellian mastermind and Flash mistakes a military technical hitch for Dodge’s trust in his ability to resist the Symbiote’s influence when, after days as Venom, his brain still hasn’t detonatedâ€¦

In America, however, Jack O’Lantern has kidnapped Betty and uses her to force the extremely famous and recognisable paraplegic war-hero to bring him all the remaining Vibranium. Desperate, and with his mind slowly being eaten away by contact with the alien parasite, Venom runs amok in New York battling Spider-Man as a bomb counts down under baffled hostage Betty Brant, all leading to a staggering and supremely satisfying bombastic battle climax.

But wait: there’s moreâ€¦

Rick Remender is a stellar writer and somehow convinced his editors to end this blistering adventure miniseries on a small, quiet and highly poignant note. After a brief but gruesome clash with cannibal serial killer the Human Fly, Venom is safely squared away as the last issue follows the wheelchair-bound Flash through his abusive past and traumatic present by focusing on his brutal, alcoholic cop-father who so nearly made his son into a doomed and self-destructive carbon copy of himself.

Moving and thought-provoking, this affords a powerfully intimate glimpse into the real world behind all those high-flying fantasy heroes, villains and monsters.

Fast-paced, scary, clever and full of heart, this is a thriller to delight action fan and superhero deep-thinkers alike.

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