All Hail the King in Black in Venom #1

Ram V, Al Ewing and Bryan Hitch begin the tale of Venom anew in Venom #1

Vishal Gullapalli: Knock knock, let the devil in! Al Ewing and Ram V’s Venom has finally kicked off and lemme tell you this is the book I’ve been most excited for since I first heard about it.

Zachary Jenkins: I’m not a big Venom head but it’s been hard for me to say no to Al Ewing for awhile. Adding in Ram V? The dude who has quickly become one of the smartest names in comics? Even a Venom skeptic like myself couldn’t help but get excited.

Ritesh Babu: Hello my fellow Symbiote-Fans. I, too, am now a Venom-Head. (I’m sorry) Jokes aside, I’ve never really been a Symbiote person, but I do adore the stacked creative team on here, so here I am. I guess I now read Venom!

The King In Black

Zachary: Ewing takes Eddie Brock full cosmic for his part. Coming out of his ascension at the conclusion of King In Black, Brock has tried the shepherd in a softer, gentler age of the symbiotes. What begins as a search and rescue mission quickly becomes something more alien. I’m interested in the tale Ewing is telling, but I’m not quite sure of the shape of it. There isn’t a solid hook for me and if it was a writer who hasn’t proven himself time and again, I’d be predisposed to be more critical.

Ritesh: See, I came away with a very clear hook. Venom’s been a Space Epic for a good bit now, and you expect all the typical space opera stuff, charting across the oceanic expanse of the stars. But this immediately distinguishes itself as a book about Time. It’s about a very specific perspective of Time. That was the promise here for me. There’s a LOT buried in here and going on, clearly, which we won’t be making full sense of until much later. This is a comic where Eddie Brock dies and yet ascends beyond death itself to arrive at some sort of celestial garden. Everything is happening as it should. Or perhaps it has already all happened. But what does it all mean? There’s a lot that is alluded to that we do not know, and that mystery was what was most interesting for me! I dig the density here!

Vishal: My vision of it seems different from both of yours – the hook to me is Dylan’s growing up by himself while Eddie has to come to terms with the fact that he’s abandoned his son. Which is made even more compelling by the fact that Eddie dies – as we can see it, there’s no way for him to make this up, to try and be that father for Dylan. Eddie had a chance and he squandered it playing god. Now he has to live with the consequences.

What I will say in regards to the writer here (since we know Ewing is mostly handling the Eddie portions and Ram V is mostly handling the Dylan portions) is that Ewing’s flaws are showing a bit in how he writes Eddie. Namely, that Eddie sounds like any of the dozen or so cosmic protagonists Ewing’s written in the past. A lot of it feels performative, but as our friend (who will be covering this book with me starting next issue) Forrest pointed out, there’s phrases chosen that just don’t feel like what Eddie Brock, mean-spirited journalist-turned-villain-turned-antihero-turned-space god would use. It’s a nitpick, but nits are there to be picked.

The Kid In Chains

Zachary: What lands more firmly for me is the angst that Dylan, the new Venom host, is experiencing. I never truly bought Dylan and Eddie’s relationship in the Cates run, but I feel the humanity in Ram V’s take on it. Eddie is distant, physically and spiritually. Dylan only just got his father but has to compete for attention with gooey brothers and sisters from across the stars. He is angry and unstoppable.

Ritesh: This was very much the strongest part of the issue, and the scene where it most hit me was when Dylan gets that call from Eddie while Other Eddie is waiting downstairs. There’s a real sense of doubt and certainty, a potent feeling of ‘wait what?!’ confusion, all things Dylan himself is feeling in that moment you are too. There’s real tension here, and it works. But it’s also the moment wherein the book gains clarity and tells you what it is. It’s the moment wherein it best expresses its nature and interest as a story centered around Time stuff. It’s when I went ‘Oooh, I see, so that’s the kind of book we’re dealing with, huh?’ and it’s what stuck with me most clearly. I’m digging seeing this kid stumble his way around this whole superheroing thing.

Vishal: Surprise, surprise, the part of the book that’s about daddy issues is the part I liked the most. But more seriously, Dylan’s feeling of abandonment is something reflected in the prior run fairly well – Eddie left him with Harry Osborn’s family for a brief spell, and just generally did not spend too much time with Dylan because he was constantly busy with symbiote nonsense. And now that Eddie’s become the God of Symbiote Nonsense, he has even less time for Dylan. It taps into a genuine sadness that so many people have, and doesn’t shy away from a condemnation of Eddie while doing so. This isn’t a book that tries to explain that Eddie didn’t abandon Dylan, it makes it abundantly clear that Eddie chose the symbiotes over Dylan and will never have the opportunity to make up for it.

I’m a little less intrigued by the long game for Dylan than Eddie, since Eddie’s seems to be crazy cosmic stuff and Dylan seems to be a bit more grounded, but the character work and immediacy is definitely the highlight of this first issue.

Hitched To The Same Artist

Zachary: Bryan Hitch defined comics for a generation. His impact is inarguable, the shadow he casts is long. His work on The Authority and The Ultimates was the pivot point from the story telling of the Silver Age to the modern direct market comic.

That was twenty years ago.

It isn’t that Hitch’s work is technically deficient, it simply isn’t an evolution. One of big reasons Venom became a must read book in the last few years was the work of Ryan Stegman. His was an evolution of the 90s ethos that above all else, everything must look cool. Hitch, on the other hand, started as a student of the school of Alan Davis where everything must be clear. There’s little energy in the work. It isn’t bold enough for Ewing’s cosmic caper or gritty enough for V’s teen action story. While it is great to see Marvel stand behind this book enough to put an A-list artist on it, it’s unfortunate that it is such a mismatch.

Ritesh: Alex Sinclair’s colors never felt like the right ones to go with Hitch’s work here for me. There’s a sort of odd retro 2000s look to it in a way that I’m not sure helps. I’d have been interested in seeing someone like, say, Dave McCaig take a crack at Hitch here for a more interesting looking book. But as is, to me, visually it looks like any other generic superhero title. And it shouldn’t, I think, given the contents. I reckon an artist with greater variation would’ve really suited this, someone like Joe Quinones for instance, to really play with the whole divide of The Teen Boy On Earth and God-King Beyond Death and Time which Ram and Al are going with.

Hitch is very good at nailing scale, but less so with a lot of other little nuances and touches, at least here, I think. Incredible artist whose work I’ve adored and admired, but I’m not sure he was the best match for this either.

Vishal: It’s frustrating, because we’ve just come off of the Cates/Stegman run, which, for all frustrations with either of the creators, looked fantastic. Whether it was the cosmic elements or the classic 90s-style large goop men, Stegman knew how to give them all weight and presence. Hitch is failing to do that, the symbiotes look more like they’re made of rubber than anything intimidating. Hitch isn’t a bad artist but for a Bold New Take on Venom, he’s not really the guy to do it.

Zachary: In the end, this was a deflating debut for me, if not one with some upside. The writers have given me reason to trust where they are taking this, and there’s enough I liked to keep me engaged. However, I’ve seen Ewing and V do more with less, so I was frankly let down. What did you two think overall?

Vishal: I was more positive on it than you, I think – I’m genuinely really interested in the grander cosmic story being teased in the Eddie sections, and I’m really curious how Ram V’s gonna handle Dylan, a character who has no real definition. This is a run with a lot of potential, especially once they switch artists.