Hello there, true believers! Thanks for swinging by for another installment of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Maximum Venom on Disney XD. After defeating the Goblin Nation (at the cost of an enemy turned friend) Peter Parker prepares for a nice normal semester at Horizon High. Just kidding! It’s business as usual for everyone’s favorite web-slinging superhero. Being a teenage superhero can be hard, especially when you have to defend a whole planet against a symbiote invasion with a reluctant hero! Pull up a web and enjoy as we give you five thoughts on season 3, episode 3, “Vengeance of Venom.”
1. Enter the Venomvengers
At the end of “Amazing Friends,” Peter and his ragtag team of teen superheroes (and Dr. Strange) find out that a massive invasion of symbiotes is coming to invade Earth. While Riri, Strange, Amadeus, Miles, and Peter try and figure out Stark’s defense grid, a ship lands at Avengers tower, full of symbiotes who have taken over the Avengers. Peter quickly realizes that this is an advanced force, designed to take out heroes to clear the way for the rest of the invasion.
The first half of “Vengeance of Venom” is intense as we see the heroes slowly get backed into a corner. With each passing moment, Spider-Man loses another ally the threat becoming more pressing with each loss. It really ramps up the threat, which is cool The other thing to point out is that the Venom versions of the Avengers all look awesome. It sounds like there is also some light voice modulation to combine the voices of the characters being controlled with the Venom voice. In every case, they keep aspects of the original character designs and their powers have sinister purple energy. The best design goes to the “Symbiote Supreme,” whose magic now is blood-red and black. The strong design elements of the Venomvengers really stands out.
2. The Spider-Team shines as they try and protect the Venom seed.
While Peter originally thought that the seed he took from the symbiote that he destroyed in the premier was infecting the world, it turns out it was a homing beacon for the invasion. Peter realizes that if he can disrupt the signal, perhaps he can stop the invasion. The only problem is Peter is alone and outnumbered. (At least when it comes to Avengers!) This episode gives the Spider-Team some time to get involved in the fight to give Peter the opportunity to destroy the seed.
It’s nice to see the team back in action, they became a pretty cohesive unit by the end of season two and they haven’t seemed to miss a beat. They do eventually get captured as well, but once again it gives them the opportunity to create some truly cool looking symbiotes. Ghost Spider’s is especially cool because the pink of her hood becomes a Venom tongue. While they get captured, Peter is actually successfully able to destroy the seed! Only for the Symbiote Supreme to use Strange’s time manipulation magic to bring it back together.
3. Marc Spector is TOTALLY not Moon Knight
By the end of the first part of “Vengeance of Venom,” Peter is totally alone. All of the other heroes have been defeated and most of New York has been turned into symbiotes. Spidey is attacked by a group of symbiotes but is saved by a mysterious man, Marc Spector. Marc takes Spidey to his underground lair and Peter is excited to discover the cloak and weapons of Moon Knight, but Spector is quick to dismiss Peter. There is no Moon Knight, the only logical plan is to take supplies from the Avengers and hold out for a few years.
Marc and Peter team up to go save Max Modell (Peter will give Marc access to the Avengers supplies) and during this time, Peter tries to get Spector to embrace his heroic nature. He tries all the hits, they need to hold onto hope, with great power comes great responsibility, and other various pleas to appeal to his gruff companion, but he is unswayed. Spector has fallen into despair, as Moon Knight he was not able to save someone he loved so he has put away the mantle (but not the weapons.) The pairing is really well done. Spector is older, broken, and jaded, which proves to be a nice contrast to Peter’s optimism, you really feel his pain and understand why he’s not super eager to face a whole army of superpowered symbiotes. Even Peter’s appeal that he also has lost people, which makes staying in the fight that much more important, doesn’t work. Without this relationship, the episode would not have been as strong.
Continued below4. May Parker, Hero of the Resistance
After saving Max, Spector continues with his plans to be a lone wolf. As he’s raiding an Avengers compound, he’s attacked by symbiotes. While things look dire, he is saved by a group of regular, non-powered, New Yorkers led by May Parker. While Peter thought she was missing, it turns out that she had taken the space gun he had given her and was helping out a band of people fighting back. Spector can’t understand this, but May explains that we’re stronger together and that as her husband used to say, “with great power comes great responsibility.”
May’s kindness and leadership ability inspire Spector to rejoin the fight as Moon Knight, but more importantly than that, it shows the strength of Peter’s aunt. In this episode, she really shines, showing how her quiet strength and kindness inspire others, but more importantly, helped make Spider-Man the hero he is today. May helped Spector see how it’s possible to overcome trauma. Without her, Earth might not have been saved.
5. With Anti-Venom, where do we go from here?
Max was able to capture Venom Baby Groot (still cute) and discovers that the symbiote doesn’t affect him as quickly, his plant body able to fight back. Peter and Max rush to the laboratories of the space organization to figure out how to reverse the symbiote in Groot, and with the help of a space gun Peter gave to May, they’re able to reverse it, turning him into Anti-Venom Groot (which, also adorable.)
The problem is that the resolution is way too clean. The anti-venom worked far too quickly and effectively, changing back everyone. The stakes, in general, felt incredibly high for an episode 3. That many symbiotes, and super-powered ones to boot, felt like it was almost finale level. To have the whole invasion wrap up in one episode just felt convenient. Not suggesting to keep the invasion around for the entire season, but it just felt accelerated in all the wrong ways. A full-fledged symbiote invasion should be your finale, not something that is neatly wrapped up right away. While we see a menacing laugh over the symbiote egg, it just begs the question, where do we go from here? Are we just going to get a BIGGER invasion? That just feels lazy.
So there you have it! The invasion has come and gone. While there were some really good character beats and moments that worked, the clean resolution was a little disappointing. What did you think? Sound off below!
