A Gooey Limbo Meet Cute Inside Venom #33

Venom #33 Written by Donny Cates, penciled by Iban Coello, colored by Jesus Aburtov, and lettered by Clayton Cowles.

Forrest Hollingsworth:  Eddie Brock goes to Hell in this one and I feel like we do too – whoops! Justin it’s another issue of Venom and we have what feels like a moral obligation to break it down.

Justin Partridge: FLASH! AHHHHH! HE’LL GOOP EVERY ONE OF US! *Guitar Riff*. 

I have to say, I liked this one more than I expected to! We got some decent heart from Cates, some more crunchy details about the connectivity between the Symbiotes, and some decent Flash Thompson food on top of it! I don’t really know why this stuff is just confined to the solo Venom book and not the actual EVENT (which needs it), but whattayagonnado?

Let’s goop!

“All Kidding Aside” 

FH: Taking place at the same time as the events of King in Black #3 including alternate artistic takes on Dylan, Spider-Man and the Avengers taking on Knull topside (can we call it that? Eddie is like…dead, but it feels right), we find Eddie Brock, Rex Strickland, and the recently quasi-resurrected Flash Thompson at the center of the Hive – the liminal space where all Symbiote hosts find themselves after death. The Venom hosts make amends in a plainly touching moment and discuss the plan to take down Knull, which is essentially to synchronize attacks on Knull from the inside as Dylan does from the outside.
I will grant the team that this all makes sense within the rules of the story, but I also have to say that it feels very…rote. The revision of the pep-talk we see Spidey giving Dylan feels unnecessary, and in some respects it has worse pacing than the first take on it in KIB both narratively and visually, and the majority of Flash and Eddie’s conversation (enjoyable pleasantries and witticisms aside) is itself a repeat of details and stakes anyone reading the entire event is already aware of. It’s a confusing series of choices and time spent that I can’t really make sense of. Justin, can you help me out?

JP: No, I absolutely understand where you are coming from and I think a lot of this can be placed at the feet of the oddly “layered” take we have seen Cates take during this event, placing multiple narratives on top of each other to give us, like you said, revised points of view on scenes we have already seen.

The IDEA is novel enough and attempts to give the whole affair a sort of cinematic feel, but also like you said, it also feels very samey. Especially when we keep seeing the same scene in the solo title directly after we have just seen the same thing in the actual event title. It is…frustrating, but I get the intention of it. And also recognize that the execution of it leaves something to be desired.

Again though, I think this sort of stuff is where Cates thrives! I actually like the Spider-Man scene more than you do, I think, as I am an easy mark for Peter connecting with people also undergoing loss. I also am still oddly into the dumb rules and narrative constrictions Cates is still threading about the Symbiotes throughout the series and the event. I also completely understand why this is not for everybody, as it is barely for me most times. L.O.L.

But hey! At least Flash is back! Kinda… 

FH: The only thing I have to add before we move onto further assessment is that looking at Eddie and Flash side by side, we can see the Symbiote clearly has a type. 

JP: Goop loves Jocks, you heard it here first, people!

“Why Does this Feel so Familiar?” 

FH: Pressing deeper into the center of the Hive, the hosts find what is essentially the shared Knull-Symbiote heart and witness forces attempting to imprison and subjugate Symbiote hosts that Dylan has at least partially freed. Flash leaves Eddie with a word about fully accepting the mantle of being Venom and descends into the fray in a fun football inspired fight scene as Rex is overtaken by Knull leaving us….feeling so familiar (see above). 

Two immediately dichotomous thought: 

• The Flash sequence is so fun and I’m willing to excuse a lot of the noise to get to it, a worthwhile idea that Cates has probably been sitting on for years and one of the few proper exits I would accept for Flash, assuming that’s what this is meant to be and if it isn’t, what a banger of a way to make him matter again. Flash is as much a part of this story in both big and small ways as Eddie is, and that focus as brief as it is feels so deserved.
  
• The rest feels like a complete mess. Narratively, the idea of explaining that several dead but not really dead men are trapped inside of the collective memory of a alien race that is also hell but also their murderous god deity’s domain while attempting to leverage their alien abilities to help their son kill him in real life is just a further reminder that too many disparate elements, beats, and nouns happening at once. Visually, most of it takes place in a glaringly underdeveloped monochromatic setting that makes everything frustratingly difficult to parse. 

If the idea is to forward some universal or narrative recursion ala Beyond it doesn’t land, and Knull saying aloud that it feels familiar just…feels like that? It’s as if some sort of intentional irony or subversion is supposed to be there but was omitted and that doesn’t feel nearly as rewarding or earned as some of the highs of the event have been. Am I off track, Justin?

JP: No, you absolutely aren’t. And this sequence overall just smacks of the kind of self-referential, narrative enclosed stuff that Cates loves loves loves mucking with in his comics. We have seen it all over his work in how he’s seeded Knull, he just loves calling attention to the stuff he’s already done and here is no different.

I will say, though I think this mostly works too on the charm of Flash and the goofy details about the “rules” of Symbiotes, it absolutely is a “counting chickens” sort of moment here. The cliffhanger really assumes a high level of investment from it’s reader base about seeing this moment played out again and I am not sure the series (as rabid as it’s fan base is) has really earned that yet.

But this also sort of speaks to the weird “layering” of the plots we have gotten before now. Like Cates is really banking hard on us wanting “every angle” on this event and in doing so, just keeps repeating the same beats with slightly different structures in order to sell that experience. The only trouble is, the only thing the new “angles” are providing are just dialogue variations and one or two random other bits of texture. It’s FINE, but nowhere near as vital as the series seems to think it is.

FH: I’m looking at the rules for football now and a lot of what Flash did is like…not cool, but I digress. We’ll see you next time fellow slime scholars!

JP: Flash played by the Starship Troopers rules, probably. Lotta head stomps and off-sides violations.

Marvelous Musings

• Don’t treat grenades like footballs in real life, kids.
• RED.
• The splash of Dylan freeing Cap was kinda cool.
• Also I guess this stuff happens BEFORE The Surface makes planetfall? I don’t know, maybe comics suck now. Who even cares?

Forrest Hollingsworth

Forrest is an experimental AI that writes and podcasts about comic books and wrestling coming to your area soon.

Justin Partridge

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.