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“Venom: The End” #1

By | January 17th, 2020
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

Over the years, Marvel Comics has more than earned the right to be referred to as the ‘House of Ideas’. The Marvel Universe is host to several unique and colorful characters, worlds, heck, realities even. A lot of these ideas are truly amazing, fantastic and astonishing. The Marvel Universe is ever-expanding too, each day there’s more ideas…sometimes they can kind of sneak up on you. Sometimes a random Spider-Man villain like, let’s say Venom, apparently, becomes a big deal. I mean, this symbiote craze really blindsided me. There was a crossover event, something about whatever a Necrosword is, something about the Void and codexes…ah well. I may have missed all that craziness but I’m right on time to be here for “The End”.

Cover by Rahzzah

Written by Adam Warren
Illustrated by Jeffrey “Chamba” Cruz
Lettered by VC’s Clayton Cowles
Colored by Gur-eFX

THE FINAL VENOM STORY! The alien symbiote who bonded with Eddie Brock has been through a lot… but not nearly as much as he has coming. In a tale that literally spans over a trillion years, Venom travels the length of space and time as the last defender of life in the universe!

Okay, where do we even start? A whole lot happens in “Venom: The End” #1. I would even say too much happens. It’s not that there’s anything inherently wrong with denser comics. Over on Krakoa these days, the X-Comics are flush with data pages and we gobble them up. However, this issue felt overstuffed and rushed. This is definitely detrimental to the titular character. I don’t really recall him saying anything or a single speech bubble. It’s all narration, all recap. Instead of covering one final event or moment, it tries to make “over a trillion years”, as the solicit boasts, fit in about twenty-nine pages.

It sure doesn’t help that the plot reads like something out of a fever dream. Venom (in no particular order) goes to war with every other symbiote, goes to war with a galaxy-spanning A.I. collective trying to warp reality, populates entire planets with clones, calls upon the powers of a bunch of dead mutants, travels back in time, creates a Venomverse…like I said, maybe too much. It just keeps ramping up and up, getting stranger, getting more slapstick and even sillier.

Speaking of silly, there were some issues with tone at the start of the issue. It feels like the comic can’t decide whether it would rather be scary or silly. The idea of Venom forcing Eddie Brock to stay alive as its host, refusing to release its grip and just let Brock die? Terrifying concept. The artwork reinforces this, as Venom’s tendrils seep into Brock’s eyes and then his brain, further perverting the already twisted bond between symbiote and host. Then we’re silly just one panel later as individual, microscopic Venom cells are covered in Venom’s face. Now comics require you to suspend belief but only to a certain point. I mean, come on.

The issue firmly decides on going the silly route later though. Like the trillion-year plot, the artwork keeps ramping up and up on the silliness. On one page where the A.I. faces off against symbiote, I idly thought it looked like a video game character select menu. A few pages later it was literally designed like a video game. When Venom uses Madrox’s powers, he turns green and wears his symbol. Technically he can do that but why on Earth would he? Venom DJs and spins records for some reason. Venom hosts are rated like Uber drivers. When the symbiote duplicates Quicksilver’s powers, his eyes run backwards like liquid? It’s weird, it really is. Not to mention all the panels where Venom’s tongue is just hanging out for no reason but that’s every Venom comic in all honesty.

Silliness is fine but none of the jokes really land for me. Humor is subjective though and in all fairness it could be right up your alley. For me, it took up precious space that could be better spent elsewhere. Because there really are good bits and ideas throughout the issue.

There’s the aforementioned part where Venom bonded with his original host to the point the human became absolutely nothing. Being Venom was everything to Eddie Brock and in the end it was the very thing that killed him. All of humanity becomes nothing at some point as its consumed by the symbiote trying to preserve it. The same could be said for mutantkind, for whom extinction is their worst nightmare.

Buried in a few panels, there’s the war between several alien artificial intelligence singularities, including the Kree and Shi’ar Empires. An Iron Man A.I. goes up against the Phalanx. Technically, this issue is the story of how mankind’s greatest defenders failed and became some of our greatest villains while a random villain became our greatest hero. Unfortunately,these ideas are all just footnotes in a very strange, pretty silly tapestry. None of these ideas have space to shine. With more pages or issues, they could have potentially left a lasting impression. No dice though. You know what is going to be burned in my mind? DJ Venom on the wheels of steel.

Final Verdict: 4.5 – A trillion years of Venom can’t breathe in twenty-something pages.


Michael Govan

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