Written by Rick Remender
Illustrated by Tony Moore– PART ONE OF A SIX PART EVENT!
– Hell is spreading across the Earth from out of Las Vegas.
– Ghost Rider is responsible but what price is she willing to pay to save mankind?!
– X-23, Venom & Hulk must defeat their worst enemies, buying Ghost Rider time to stop hell’s march across the globe!
– As a clone, X-23 has often wondered if she has a soul. This is where she gets her answer!
– Who is Ichor and why has he targeted Venom for Death?!
Okay, so I have this stupid game I play. Bascially, imagine going back in time and telling your younger self about one comic that exists today that you at that age couldn’t possibly fathom being good.
“So Uncanny X-Force stars all of the “Dark” X-Men, and yeah, they’re still fighting Apocalypse, and the story arc’s called The Dark Angel Saga, and Deathlok’s there, and…” You get the picture.
With that in mind, I often wonder how long it would take my 15 year old self to stop reading comics all together if I told him Bucky would come back from the dead with a cybernetic arm and still be awesome, Grant Morrison will put Superman in jeans and a t-shirt and it looks cool, and that Venom was one of my favorite monthly comics.
Keep playing after the jump!
There’s a lot going on in Venom right now, so look, let’s cut right to the chase: if you’re not reading Venom, you’re missing one of Marvel’s best books. It’s as simple as that. In the last year, Rick Remender and a team of fantastic artists have turned Flash Thompson into one of the most fascinating and desperate characters in comics, and while this is just the first part of a larger story, he already seems like the perfect anchor character for the current Circle of Four story that kicks off in this week’s Venom #13.
Starring a quartet of Marvel’s lower tiered heroes, Circle of Four finds Las Vegas turned into a literal Hell on Earth by the devilish Blackheart, with only Venom, Red Hulk, X-23, and the latest incarnation of Ghost Rider standing in his way. And I’ll come clean here, and confess that I’ve never read anything with X-23, Lady-Ghost Rider, or anything outside the Avengers books that stars the Red Hulk. However, I’m a Venom guy, through and through, and can’t say I was excited to hear about these other guys invading the book, and then spinning out into four one shots. But Venom #13 was a pleasant surprise, and while I’m still not jumping up and down about buying four extra books this month, I think I’m in.
And really, as the world’s only fan of The Terminatrix Objective — another story starring a bunch of offshoot heroes — I feel sort of obligated, y’know?
But all kidding aside, I’m looking forward to seeing Flash/Venom take a little break from the impending doom of his little cross-country tour. It’s been pretty dark lately, and while a rip roaring punch ‘em up through a corner of Hell might not exactly say light-hearted, at least it’ll be fun, and I don’t have to worry about Flash killing anyone that doesn’t deserve it.
Final Verdict: 8.5 — Buy it, but know what you’re getting into… Circle of Four has five more parts.
