Eddie Brock has a lot of friends for a dead guy in Venom #32 Written by Donny Cates, penciled by Iban Coello, colored by Jesus Aburtov, and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Forrest Hollingsworth: Death, despair, and daddies. Justin, it’s another excerpt from King in Black with high highs and low lows. Can I get a quick, symbiote safe, temperature check from you before we dive in?
Justin Partridge: Well, Forrest, my dear. In the immortal words of Real Housewife of New York Dorinda Medley, “I’ll tell ya how I’m doin’, NOT WELL BITCH”.
You have all these grand plans about how the first of the year is going to go and you REALLY push yourself to try and start out the first work week with all these amazing and effortless thoughts and emotions. And then you bottom yourself out and end up playing Kingdom Hearts for hours on end into the night, covered in caramel popcorn dust and not writing anything, making you a failure in the eyes of God and man.
But, hey, at least there are comics.
“The End of the Line”
FH: Picking up directly from issue #31 and running parallel to King in Black #2, this issue functions as a kind of extended death related sensory experience (DRSE – it’s a real thing!) where Eddie — dying in the Avengers’ secret operating room — tours not only his own hellish fractured mind, but a codex-laden collection of his friends and foes, and more importantly, Knull’s victims in the Symbiote hive. Rex Strickland serving as his gruff disappointed daddy Virgil, as it were, adamant that this is the end of all things.
It’s an admittedly self-serving issue, but also one more narratively momentous than the previous, even with a lacking structure and overtly recursive dialogue. Justin, what are your immediate thoughts upon seeing Eddie after his death in KiB?
JP: I would say I “half” like it.
I think it is certainly visually very arresting and a real showcase of the artistic powers of Jesus Aburtov and Iban Coello. The inky black of the “mindscape” is something of old hat here in comics and even kind of here in Venom overall, but the way they flit and fly both Eddie and Rex throughout the space with little to no consideration of physics and spacing is really fun to see.
It is also fun to see this sort of “mind palace” stuff get a more substantial use within the narrative. It adds a neat dimensionality to the powers and connection of the symbiotes which is always fun to see branched out. THAT is always the stuff I mostly respond to here, beyond the naked emotions and character dynamics that Donny stumbles in and out of.
I remember him really selling the aspects of “everything will change for Eddie and Venom” throughout the run of this volume and while he’s kinda flubbed that promise a lot when not concerned with more Knull lore, THIS in particular is the speed and story thread that I like to see Venom and Donny at. Actually explicitly making narrative use out of stuff introduced in other runs (sort of like he started with the codexes in Absolute Carnage).
Of course, all this said though, this is now, what the third time we have seen this scene played through? Just from a different perspective? We got the throw in KiB #1, the fall then in Venom #31, the aftermath of the fall (with a bit more added texture with narration and dialogue) in KiB #2, and now we’ve got it AGAIN here. Like…we get it…he got thrown off a building. We got other stuff to get to, Mister Cates.
FH: I personally think there’s a lot to like here both narratively and visually, and I especially want to call out Aburtov’s overly bright coloring, which I think lends a certain degree of dreamstate synaptic-firing fidelity to Eddie’s dying moments, but there’s also a detracting familiarity to the dialogue that I can’t entirely get past.
Early in the issue Eddie mentions his familiarity with the Symbiote hive, and with the Abyss (the kind of disconnectedness from his other that Brock has experienced earlier in the run) but multiple times throughout this single issue, both he and Rex reiterate those proper nouns into a jargon induced dialectic coma, a problem the run already has. Eddie mentioning the Hive and then being surprised when Rex says that’s where they are just makes his brain elasticity seem imperiled, and moreover like Cates doesn’t respect the reader’s time or ability to retain details. Is it just my obsessively close reading, Justin, or do you feel the same way?
JP: NO SEE, this is precisely what I am responding to! The “rules” of the Abyssal space and how it functions within the hive consciousness of the symbiotes. I could and would just read an entire book on JUST the taxonomy and physiological aspects of a symbiote.
And I also love love love that Donny is finally starting to commit to the language he introduced in regards to the relationships and connections, another welcome callback to the first arcs along with Strickland. Again, I really, really love this stuff (as I have been told now multiple times that I am the too negative one of the Goop Troupe which…fair…) but again, I think it might have been better served attached to a scene we haven’t seen like four different times now.
FH: Our major grievances out of the way, I’d like to reiterate that I really did have a fair amount of fun with the issue, and I respect the significance of structuring the story in this way. A tour of Eddie’s failings, his friends and his foes, and the totality of Knull’s influence on his life alongside a live display of his new priorities (jumping into the street to save some innocent bystanders) really helps solidify King in Black as the end of the first “phase” so to speak of this run, and gives an air of importance that all of the narrative mishmash of Beyond didn’t.
JP: OH, BIG TIME! At least something is HAPPENING now, which I will always appreciate. Plus, you are absolutely right. Aburtov rules and we don’t talk about it nearly enough.
“I Say When This is Over”
FH: The second half of the issue narrows in on Eddie’s will to live for potentially the first time in his life, and on the specific means (seize the means of slime production!) by which he intends to grasp it from Knull’s icy grasp.
Recognizing their specific link to the Hive, being hosts that have spent more time with Symbiotes than most, Eddie makes the case to Rex for turning the hive against Knull from the inside. It’s sound logic, especially with the character re-introduction this issue’s cliffhanger is predicated on (we’ll get to that in a minute), but also one that comes with a not insignificant amount of risk with its reward.
I have to say I’m kind of excited by the potential of how this might shift KiB’s stakes and focus, but it’s also something I recognize as being deeply, deeply ingrained in the weirdly recursive and self satisfied proper noun nature of this issue that we’ve already touched on, and I don’t think it might read as well if you’re not fully bought into Venom’s hyper narrow logic. Does the gambit Eddie lays out make sense to you Justin or does it seem externally valueless? I suppose the two aren’t mutually exclusive!
JP: OH TOTALLY. I also LOVED this. Because again, this is kind of right in the middle of Donny’s wheelhouse right? It is a knocked around, cast out loser who is finally told that his brokenness IS his power and he should lean into it.
I think it definitely fits into who we know Eddie to be and I love the confabulation of his stubbornness to die with heroism. That is absolutely something I would love to see explored (but probably won’t as the title continues). I think if you think about it for more than ten minutes it dissolves in your head like alka seltzer, but it is silly enough (and heartfelt enough) for me to really get behind it, I think.
FH: Okay, okay, we’ve talked around it enough and I can barely contain myself – Flash Thompson is back! Not his first appearance in this run, we have to note, as he briefly appeared in the early issues of this run before ‘dying’ as a kind of backdoor introduction to the idea of Codices, but Rex and Eddie’s soon to be partnership with him from the center of the Hive certainly seems promising, and is a welcome narrative shakeup I honestly didn’t see coming. It’s daddies all the way down!
JP: “Reporting for duty.” Okay. Okay, Donny. You got me back.
And I have to say, you mentioned it earlier, but this being the first FULL appearance we’ve had from Flash makes it hit so much more the harder.
AND ALSO, this is not only a wonderful last page reveal, but a further exploration of his own desire to make Venom it’s own little corner of the 616 with its own major cast members and cameo potential. We will start to see if it actually pays off for him, but for now at least, #32 is several steps in the right direction.
FH: Agent Venom and Space Knight Venom are genuinely some of my favorite arcs from the previous continuity, and I’m glad for their inclusion here even if Flash’s time in the light might be marginal. Of course, we’ll be here to cover it as we slink, slither and otherwise slime our way to you with King in Black #3 in just two weeks.
Marvelous Musings
- The weird Symbiote nubs around Rex’s face make him look like The Tick.
- GOOP SPOOOOOOONNNNNN.
- Rex calls out Eddie not having a shirt on his back but the official position of this column is that he shouldn’t have undies on either.
- SKIN ON SLIME ONLY BAYBBEEEEEEE
- The close-up on Eddie’s face in the second header image here makes him look like a walrus.
- Rex Strickland is a King of the Hill ass name.
- We would truly love if a few issues later he actually reveals that he’s the brother of Buck Strickland, owner and proprietor of Strickland Propane and Propane Accessories.
- Tel-Kar, the Venom Symbiote’s original host from First Host, would presumably also be able to inflict a fair amount of sway on the Hive if he weren’t…in the state he’s in (trepanning, kids!).
Forrest is an experimental AI that writes and podcasts about comic books and wrestling coming to your area soon.
Justin Partridge has loved comics all his life. He hasn't quite gotten them to love him back just yet. But that hasn't stopped him from trying as he has been writing about them now for a little over a decade. With bylines at Newsarama, Shelfdust, PanelXPanel, and more, Justin has been doing the work and putting in the time! Comics have yet to return his calls. Usually he can be found on Twitter screaming about Doctor Who.
