User blog:Hawkeye2701/Review4U: Venom Volume 2

Unfortunately I couldn't get a source for Volume 1, so this review originally requested by Dreadpool2099, will only be of Volume 2 of the Venom series. I'm sorry it's taken so long, but as with my last few requests, I've either had to find new sources, or just had a lot to go through.

The Story So Far
The background here is simple, Eugene 'Flash' Thompson used to be a bully and jock who tormented Peter Parker in Highschool whilst idolizing Spider Man. His father was an abusive drunk, and this is a problem that pretty much haunts Flash constantly. After losing both legs in Iraq, Flash was brought onto a secret military project (As you do) The Government would give him the Venom Symbiote, the creature replacing Flash's amputated legs and in return, he'd essentially be a super powered Wet Works Agent.

During a mission in some very generic Eastern European place, Flash crosses paths with a group who are using ammunition made of Savage Land Vibranium. Supposedly having to bring in the scientist who designed this weaponised vibranium, Flash instead comes across Jack O'Lantern, or rather the latest incarnation of, there is like 8 of these guys, seriously, I counted. Blowing up Jack's face and killing the scientist, Flash makes his first long term enemy, but since I have some 40+ issues to get through, I shall condense the rest of this story into as much brevity as I think I can.

Being monitored by Jack's boss, a lovely fellow named Crime Master (Most Original Name EVAR!!!!) Flaash gets caught in a long term mission in the Savage land being assaulted by Kraven the Hunter. There, he is incapacitated, allowing CM's spy drones to get a good look at Eugene's mug. Intercepting the latest shipment of Vibranium for CM, Flash gets blackmailed, either bring them the Vibranium, or his girlfriend gets acquainted with Jack.

Bringing it to them as requested, he only has so long to rescue Betty, or she's dead. Along the way he gets harassed by both Jack and Spider Man, but despite the delays, Betty is saved by Spidey and the Vibranium recovered, alls well that ends well etc.

We then start to run into the Spider Island saga. During which Manhattan Island basically startss looking like the next Prototype game as the place is overrun with people gaining Spider Man like mutations. During this time, Flash's father, with whom he had a tenuous relationship, is dying, and Flash is debating whether or not to go see him whilst struggling to actually be in a position to be able to. After battling and subduing a Spider-Freak Captain America, Flash uses Venom's shape shifting ability to take his shape and infiltrate the Spider Queen's base as an insider. He is then sent to a Church where Eddie Brock, AKA Anti-Venom is using his powers to cure the spider people. Getting into a fight with the former Venom (Rumble in the Concrete Jungle) Flash manages to subdue him and bring him to Reed Richards, at which point Eddie and Reed have a nice chat about what a rude jackass Flash was about the whole situation. Making it back just in time to say goodbye to his father, Betty gives him a letter his father wrote for him. Flash is then given the order to execute the Spider Queen. Needless to say, this does not go well. With her eventual transformation into a giant Spider Monster, it's up to Flash, Spidey and a cured Captain America to bring her down, but I didn't see any of that cause it was in Amazing Spiderman or something. In the aftermath, Flash hunts down a minor villain called Hijacker who kills three people, including a mother and her child whilst robbing banks in the confusion created by Spider Island. Losing his father's letter to a fire, the whole reckless disrespect for human life drives Flash over the edge and he quite impressively, bites Hijacker's head off like the Reborn Prince of Darkness. Going home depressed that he never got to read the letter, Betty reveals that was a version she copied neater, and had the original written in her short hand. She then reads the note to Flash.

Crime Master contacts Flash again, threatening his friends and family if he doesn't co-operate. He sends Flash and Jack to Vegas to retrieve something for CM. Along the way we get a glimpse into the mind of Jack O'Lantern. Needless to say, he's pretty twisted, apparently having killed everyone else who had ever worn the mantle, claiming it too cool to be shared, but other than that, he's the bog standard sociopath, doing what he likes because he can. He does seem to revel in the relationship between himself and Flash however, claiming them as Archenemies. Making it to Vegas, having saved several trapped miners and killed two diner workers along the way, the pair raid a Casino only to find the Toxin Symbiote. This is pretty much what CM wanted, but the enmity between Jack and Flash comes to a head as the pair try to do each other in on the Strip before Jack hightails it. Getting on the phone to Betty, Flash breaks up with her in order to keep her safe before going and hitting the bottle himself. Meanwhile, since Flash is officially AWOL with the Venom Symbiote, Captain America has called in an old army friend to hunt him down, thus Thaddeus 'Thunderbolt' 'Red Hulk' Ross is sent after him.

Now going into the Circle of Four story line, Blackheart, son of Mephisto basically tricks the new Ghost Rider, Alejandra, into opening a gate to hell and unleashing it across Vegas. With Red Hulk there to reclaim Venom, Flash there to drown himself in booze and X-23 there to destroy the research Blackheart had been doing with a vial of her blood, these four become our heroes, though honestly Johnny Blaze was much more appreciated than his Protege and if I never see her again I'll die happy. Confronting Blackheart, he uses a demonic mirror to summon the Antithesis to the heroes. Four creatures that basically embody the weaknesses and fears of our heroes. This is an idea I love and would personally give these guys their own series if I could, but that's besides the point. Since Johnny Blaze's amulet is preventing Hell from spreading outside of Las Vegas, Blackheart sends his girlfriend to remove the obstacle as the heroes throw down with their opposites.

Being their fastest, they send Alejandra after her, and along the way she deals the finishing blow to her opposite, being the first one down of the four. The others are not so lucky. Preying on their personal weaknesses, Red Hulk and Venom are crippled by their foes while X-23 is tormented, but not deterred by her own, making her way back up Blackheart's Citadel to kill him. With Alejandra closing in on Blackheart's ugly as sin girl, he sends the other Antithesis after her. Collecting themselves with accustomed military vigor, Ross and Flash pursue, meeting up with Alejandra and unfortunately, they fail rather spectacularly. Ross is killed outright after slaying X-23's opposite, Alejandra is mortally wounded and Flash is left to hold the line and while he does kill the remaining antithesis, he soon has his neck snapped by the girlfriend whose name I refuse to say because it is a pun that horrendous. The girls of the team, X-23 is left battling clones of herself infused with cloned Symbiotes before being dropped unceremoniously into a flaming pit by Blackheart and Alejandra, whilst dying, does something stupid. Namely destroying the amulet that was keeping hell at bay. So to summarize this part, our heroes are dead, Hell is spreading and all hope seems lost.

The four awake to find themselves in Hell. Which is handy since they were there already. With Mephisto bearing down on them. Since they are in Hell, they can't really die, but in order to stop Blackheart, they need physical form to do it, so Mephisto offers them a deal, bodies to go back and kick Blackheart's ass with in return for a favour to be named later. Agreeing, the team gets ready for round two.

Formulating a plan, X-23 is sent to relieve Blaze, who is currently stuck in the machine bringing Hell to Earth, her job being to destroy it so that Earth doesn't end up in Hell. Meanwhile, the other three will storm the Citadel to get Blackheart and retrieve the Spirit of Vengeance that fled Alejandra's body upon her death. These plans unfortunately go about as well as the first time, with X-23 being attacked by the Girlfriend and Red Hulk and Venom being shown the door. this is where things get AWESOME! I cannot overstate this. Using the reclaimed Spirit of Vengeance, Flash's Symbiote and Red Hulk, the remaining three (Unintentionally on Alejandra's part) fuse all their powers until we get a massive, demonically possessed, symbiote armoured Red Hulk to throw down against Blackheart in Hell on Earth. Feel free to light a cigarette now.

With Alejandra and Flash now both powerless, they go to help X-23. Well, Flash does, Alejandra, having already ensured the spread of Hell and wanting no part of the actual plan except to get the Spirit of Vengeance back ends up pushing Flash (Who may I remind you is legless here) out of a moving vehicle and then leaves, adding nothing to the rest of the story except claiming the spirit again later. Long story short, while X-23 and Flash manage to work together with Johnny Blaze to put Hell back in its place, Venom Rider Rulk tries to fight Blackheart. He actually does very well until, since no one told Ross this, he tried to use the Penance Stare on Blackheart and only made him stronger. He is eventually defeated though as Ross turns the Antithesis mirror on him, unleashing what is essentially an Angelic Blackheart to kick his own ass. With Peace restored the four are marked and Ross vouches for Flash to Captain America, bringing Agent Venom on as a Secret Avenger.

After this, we get reacquainted with the Crime Master plot. Finally getting his stuff together (We all know what I wanted to say) Flash prepares to kill Crime Master, Jack and all his minions in one place. There is however, one snag. Edward Brock is a character i always considered kind of a jerk, but having graduated to full blown religious zealot, had taken it upon himself to kill every symbiote he came across, though not very well since of the two he shot, one got retrieved, split into four or five separate symbiotes and given to a government team. So yay for being a character who just lives to make things worse. Interrupting, Flash fails to slaughter the group, forcing him to run. Retrieving Brock, CM uses the Toxin symbiote Flash and Jack stole from Vegas to add a new addition to his Savage Six.

Being led across the city, Flash manages to kill one of them and greatly harm another whilst saving his sister and mother, but this still leaves Megatak, Toxin, Jack and Crime Master himself. Storming CM's base at the old shipyard, Flash gets his butt handed to him by Megatak before he is seemingly killed by Toxin, who is determined not to let Venom escape. The fight is short, but Eddie, much like his movie counterpart, ends up rebounded to his symbiote just as it goes up in flames. He does surprisingly survive this with no apparent scars so... Iuno, comics.

Confronting Crime Master, he quickly dispatches Jack, but due to an advantage of weapons, CM puts Venom down, before he can finish however, the captured Betty shoots him in the back, killing her own brother. Dun Dun Duuuuuuun! Really, CM turned out to be Bennet, Betty's brother, so either he's a lot older than he looks, or he was raising Jack when he was a teenager, either way, if there's more of a history to his story, I don't know it, meaning I had zero investment here and really didn't care that she plugged the guy.

Moving on, Jack survives their encounter and, exhuming Flash's father, has one last showdown where Flash proves himself as more than the product of his fathers teaching, unlike Jack. Beating the psychotic villain, he hands him over to the Raft.

Revealing the truth of everything to the Avengers, Flash is officially on thin ice. Going to investigate the Department of Occult Armaments, a ancient branch of Nazi occultists, what was supposed to be a simple spy job, ended up in a brawl where Flash was eventually pitted against Daimon Hellstrom. Forcing a Demon into Flash's body, it is soon revealed that the mark left of him by Mephisto wasn't just a chip to be cashed later. It was marking Venom as a potential demon lord once something called the Descent occurred. The demon within him being subdued by a combination of demonic law and the Symbiote, Flash is essentially left sharing his body with two extras as he tracks down Hellstrom again. Battling his Monsters of Evil, seriously, a terrible name is bad enough without being a parody of a terrible name, Flash finds his authority allows him to control demons as well, if not better than Daimon. Turning his elite team of freaks back on him, he takes Daimon down and has him incarcerated.

Oh joy, Minimum Carnage. If you can't tell by my exuberance, I'm not a fan. Essentially, the Microverse exists in such a way that Symbiotes, as a form of parasitic matter, is like a degenerative cancer to all matter there. Organism, machine, dirt, it's all interconnected. So when Carnage and Venom are secluded away to the Microverse to be used as the clone base for an army of super soldiers, things do not go as planned. Alongside a small group of heroes (Both in number and scale) Flash saves Betty and the Microverse from an army of mini-symbiotes, at least I think he does, Minimum Carnage was concluded in another comic.

Finally! It's finally here, Venom goes Solo! Kinda... I'll take it. Anyway, Flash decides that it's time to make a clean break, after a job in Philadelphia (Praise be to spell checker) where he battled the U-Foes alongside Valkyrie, declaring her his sorta-girlfriend, the hero decides to set up shop in the city. Taking a job as an assistant coach at the local highschool, he starts to find his heroic rhythm and settle in, even building a sorta mentor relationship with a girl in his building called Andi. Things do not remain peaceful unfortunately, as Toxin soon rears his ugly head once more. After a brawl or two where the stronger red hued symbiote nearly kills him, the two find themselves on the same side against a bunch of cybernetic spider/tentacle things that came from the U-Foes handiwork. Afterwords, Toxin agrees to leave Flash alone, but basically warns that he'll be watching and the instant Flash loses it, he'll kill him.

During this time, not only does Andi twig to the fact that her Coach is Agent Venom, but Flash draws the attention of a local crime lord called Lord Ogre, who hires every hitman and mercenary he can to kill Venom. This has unfortunate repercussions when Jack O'Lantern reappears.

Breaking in to kill Flash, Jack comes across Andi, following her back to her apartment, he kills Andi's father despite Flash's best efforts. Spreading a poison into the air, Flash attempts to Shield Andi with his Symbiote, but an unexpected reaction occurs. Andi is soon encased in her own Venom suit. Having watched her father be killed and now having the power to do something about it, Andi brutally hunts down Jack, but when he realizes that this isn't the same Jack he knew, Flash convinces her not to kill him.

Now with a new sidekick of sorts called 'Mania' Flash is called away to Austin. Telling Andi not to try and hunt down Lord Ogre in his absence, this of course falls upon deaf ears as once Venom is gone, Mania sets about hunting down Lord Ogre and killing anyone who gets in her way.

Meanwhile, Flash is shown a body of Daimon Hellstrom, stripped of the hell brand on his chest. Returning to the prison where he left him, he finds the Daimon he defeated still there. Confused, he finds out that with the Descent fast approaching, Daimon duplicated himself at least 5 times over, trying to play every angle he could. He surmised the DOA were now hunting those with brands in order to take them and improve their own chances, but pointed out that Flash need not worry about this anymore, as he no longer had his brand.

Returning to Philly, Flash intervenes just in time as Andi had hunted down and was about to kill Lord Ogre at the potential cost of hundreds of lives. The victory is short lived as the DOA, headed by Crossbones, attacks them, pretty much confirming all of Flash's fears as they go after Andi, who now wears Flash's former Hell Brand.

Escaping, Flash brings Andi to an old Casino, where they manifest Mephisto to explain what's going on. Pointing out that the brand was actually Venom's, not Flash's, the Symbiote, having previously swallowed a clone of itself, used the clone as a means of expelling the brand, infusing it, the brand, and potentially the demon into Andi.The DOA crash the party, but Mephisto lends a helping hand, summoning his son's Monsters of Evil, he observes as Andi commands them to destroy the DOA. The battle is soon concluded and despite Flash shooting him in the face, Mephisto takes it in stride, saying he would leave Flash as Andi's protector until the Descent.

The Review
Oh wow, this is gonna be a big one. I guess I'll start with the art. The art is consistently acceptable. It's not always the best art, or art that I'm particularly fond off, but it never drops below a good standard. Even when the art changes, the characters are always recognisable and they manage to maintain a good visual dynamic, motion and intent is always clear which is something you really want with the web winging heroes.

The characters are fantastic. Brilliantly flawed, but worthy of praise. I knew nothing of Betty before this series, no idea, but her strength of character and views on the situation with Flash are very good and indicative of a strong character. Peter Parker doesn't feature much, and I'm grateful for that as I think too much Spider Man spoils an independent book, but when he does appear, he's Peter Parker, he's the nice guy. Andi in particular is a character I have fallen in love with. Her dynamic with Flash is established early on and you see her as a genuinely good person, but her transformation into Mania is shown in such stark contrast and at such a time, you can't tell if all that rage is her's, the symbiote's or something more and I really look forward to seeing her develop alongside Flash. My one complaint here would be that Jack O'Lantern is made to look like a monster, but does just come across as another generically monstrous guy. His sense of theater is all that really separates him from other villains and unfortunately, in a Spider Book, a Halloween themed nutter really doesn't stick out from the crowd.

Now then, onto the story. Overall, the story is enjoyable, it manages to mix a sort of Military Black Ops into a regular sort of Spider Man book and more Occult stuff later on which while maybe not the best direction in my opinion, certainly hasn't harmed the book any. I do however need to address the crossover events and the like that appeared throughout Venom.

Circle of Four is something I read before I was asked to review this, because I was looking at it for X-23. I really enjoyed that story, the art was good, the premise was straightforward and the potential for future payoff was insane, my only issues being that some characters I felt were a little out of character. Ross quaked in his boots at the sight of Blackheart. This is a man who faced the Hulk as a human and as the Red Hulk, Blackheart scares him? X-23 also lacked a lot of her depth that I've seen and since it is set after the whole "Goes to hell Saga" I just feel they could have played her better, but she wasn't really bad, just a bit shallow in exploration compared to what her solo series did for her. The biggest offender is Alejandra. How the hell is she a protagonist? I haven't read any modern Ghost Rider, are we supposed to like her? Cause if we are, I gave up roughly when she started letting hell take over Earth because of stupidity, never mind pushing a legless man out of a moving vehicle to fight a demon by himself. Seriously, I recently read that Johnny Blaze regained part of the Spirit of Vengeance and is now basically the main Ghost Rider again and all I can say is THANK F*CK! Still, there is a reason I bring this up first, cause while maybe not a true crossover event, this is the one I think has done it best. It has all it's parts here, you don't need to go comic jumping for it, all the characters are given a good showing, even the ones we would like to see less of (Alejandra) and its events actually pay forward into what is happening in later comics instead of just being forgotten about. Which is what makes the rest of this such a terrible shame.

Venom has the problem that he's not really a big time hero. As a villain, he is legendary, he is one of Spider Man's big time rogues, If Norman Osborn is Spider Man's Joker, then Venom is his Two-Face, but under Flash Thompson's control as Agent Venom, he is a B-Hero at best, and that's pretty much just because of the Legacy of Venom. If he had started out, even if it was still Flash Thompson, if it weren't the Venom Symbiote, he would be way down the league and unfortunately, it's this position that screws this comic in places. He's near the top, but he's not the top. So when an event rolls around that's of decent size, not like Infinity or Civil War, but like Spider Island and Minimum Carnage, Venom makes a showing. The problem is, he's not Spider Man, he's not Captain America, he plays a part, but he's not the show stopper. So what we end up getting is a lot of Agent Venom snippets, the bits where Flash is relevant, but then we lose the rest and it's unfortunate when that happens with any event comics, but at least with Circle of Four, it was all there, lead in, narrative and ending were all in Venom, there was no missing context, but in 42 issues, Flash has featured as part of Spider Island, Minimum Carnage and the Secret Avengers and anyone who is just reading Venom will be disappointed when you then have to buy three other comics at least just to find out what happened.

All in all, I've enjoyed Venom and I look forward to reading more, but if more event comics keep popping up, I'm afraid the strengths of this series will be lost to being just a comic to fill gaps in larger narratives. If you can afford/have read the rest of these crossovers, I advise reading Venom in it's entirety, it is fantastic, but otherwise, it might be more bearable to give it a miss. Now if you'll excuse me, this is Hawkeye2701 courtesy of Dreadpool2099 and I'm going to go sit in a corner and lament that you people have gotten me hooked on another comic, goodnight.