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Toxin #1-6
Toxin: The Devil You Know
As each new generation of men must hand down the torch to the next, so each new generation of alien symbiotes must hand down the, ah, stringy, fleshy tendrils. So move over Venom, step aside Carnage, because Toxin is taking the spotlight! When the full-scale jailbreak from the pages of New Avengers leaves New York overrun with super-villains, Pat sees the perfect opportunity to use the creature sharing his body for good. But Toxin might have other ideas! Featuring a special guest appearance by Spider-Man! Collects Toxin #1-6.
144 pages, Paperback
First published November 2, 2005
8 people are currently reading
81 people want to read
About the author
Peter Milligan
1,303 books391 followersLibrarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
Peter Milligan is a British writer, best known for his work on X-Force / X-Statix, the X-Men, & the Vertigo series Human Target. He is also a scriptwriter.
He has been writing comics for some time and he has somewhat of a reputation for writing material that is highly outlandish, bizarre and/or absurd.
His highest profile projects to date include a run on X-Men, and his X-Force revamp that relaunched as X-Statix.
Many of Milligan's best works have been from DC Vertigo. These include: The Extremist (4 issues with artist Ted McKeever) The Minx (8 issues with artist Sean Phillips) Face (Prestige one-shot with artist Duncan Fegredo) The Eaters (Prestige one-shot with artist Dean Ormston) Vertigo Pop London (4 issues with artist Philip Bond) Enigma (8 issues with artist Duncan Fegredo) and Girl (3 issues with artist Duncan Fegredo).
Series:
* Human Target
* Greek Street
* X-Force / X-Statix
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
Peter Milligan is a British writer, best known for his work on X-Force / X-Statix, the X-Men, & the Vertigo series Human Target. He is also a scriptwriter.
He has been writing comics for some time and he has somewhat of a reputation for writing material that is highly outlandish, bizarre and/or absurd.
His highest profile projects to date include a run on X-Men, and his X-Force revamp that relaunched as X-Statix.
Many of Milligan's best works have been from DC Vertigo. These include: The Extremist (4 issues with artist Ted McKeever) The Minx (8 issues with artist Sean Phillips) Face (Prestige one-shot with artist Duncan Fegredo) The Eaters (Prestige one-shot with artist Dean Ormston) Vertigo Pop London (4 issues with artist Philip Bond) Enigma (8 issues with artist Duncan Fegredo) and Girl (3 issues with artist Duncan Fegredo).
Series:
* Human Target
* Greek Street
* X-Force / X-Statix
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
October 17, 2018
This did not have to be anywhere close to good. “Toxin”, the son of Carnage, grandson of Venom; a “New Avengers Tie-In” - who cares?? They could’ve easily phoned this one in and yet Peter Milligan and Darick Robertson somehow made something half-decent out of this?!
Pat Mulligan is former NYPD turned host to the latest member of the Symbiote family, Toxin. Together they take out the scuzzbags - and these are some bottom of the barrel villains we talking bout here! - of Noo Yawk while Pat pines after his wife and new son who he’s gotta distance himself from to protect them from Toxin.
The story is no great shakes. Milligan throws nobodies like King Cobra, Wrecker and Piledriver at Toxin to easily slap down while making a laughable big bad in Razor-Fist, a guy with two swords for hands! Coupled with the Darick Robertson art, Razor-Fist was like someone who’d stepped out of the pages of The Boys, he was such a goofy, almost parody, character!
The difference here though is that the villains aren’t the point; they’re there to inform the characters of Pat and Toxin, whose pairing and conflict is the real story. Pat’s self-imposed estrangement from his wife and newborn feels corny until there’s a clever development later on involving Toxin (though it still seems a bit silly overall), and Pat “tames” Toxin through some pretty crazy stunts. I appreciated that it’s a distinct Symbiote story from the ones we’ve seen with Venom and Carnage.
Milligan very unsubtly presses the Jekyll/Hyde comparison and there isn’t much to Toxin’s character, but I guess if he is a kiddie Symbiote then he’s well-written in being kinda dumb and overexcitable. Darick Robertson’s design isn’t amazing but he smooshes Venom and Carnage’s looks together and the effect is ok. And I’m a huge fan of Darick’s art so seeing a whole book of it was awesome.
It’s not a mind-blowing read or even that good but Toxin: The Devil You Know was surprisingly not bad. It clearly had some thought and effort put into it and it shows by not being totally uninspired or boring drek. It’s certainly better than every Venom book I’ve read so if you’re a fan of Marvel’s Symbiotes, maybe give this one a shot?
Pat Mulligan is former NYPD turned host to the latest member of the Symbiote family, Toxin. Together they take out the scuzzbags - and these are some bottom of the barrel villains we talking bout here! - of Noo Yawk while Pat pines after his wife and new son who he’s gotta distance himself from to protect them from Toxin.
The story is no great shakes. Milligan throws nobodies like King Cobra, Wrecker and Piledriver at Toxin to easily slap down while making a laughable big bad in Razor-Fist, a guy with two swords for hands! Coupled with the Darick Robertson art, Razor-Fist was like someone who’d stepped out of the pages of The Boys, he was such a goofy, almost parody, character!
The difference here though is that the villains aren’t the point; they’re there to inform the characters of Pat and Toxin, whose pairing and conflict is the real story. Pat’s self-imposed estrangement from his wife and newborn feels corny until there’s a clever development later on involving Toxin (though it still seems a bit silly overall), and Pat “tames” Toxin through some pretty crazy stunts. I appreciated that it’s a distinct Symbiote story from the ones we’ve seen with Venom and Carnage.
Milligan very unsubtly presses the Jekyll/Hyde comparison and there isn’t much to Toxin’s character, but I guess if he is a kiddie Symbiote then he’s well-written in being kinda dumb and overexcitable. Darick Robertson’s design isn’t amazing but he smooshes Venom and Carnage’s looks together and the effect is ok. And I’m a huge fan of Darick’s art so seeing a whole book of it was awesome.
It’s not a mind-blowing read or even that good but Toxin: The Devil You Know was surprisingly not bad. It clearly had some thought and effort put into it and it shows by not being totally uninspired or boring drek. It’s certainly better than every Venom book I’ve read so if you’re a fan of Marvel’s Symbiotes, maybe give this one a shot?
September 29, 2014
Wow. This was bad. I'm surprised I even managed to finish it. I got halfway through and began thinking "I'm not enjoying this. I'm not even interested in Toxin as a character, so why am I even reading this?"
But I like to finish books that I start. Even if they're bad.
Toxin is the offspring of Carnage. He's a third generation symbiote. His host is trying to deal with Toxin wanting to be bad and terrible because he doesn't want to be bad and terrible. I think the concept of the character is supposed to be a mix between Venom and Carnage. That evil creature trying to seek some kind of redemption?
It's got Darick Robertson from The Boys and some other indie stuff on art, so it looks okay.
But I like to finish books that I start. Even if they're bad.
Toxin is the offspring of Carnage. He's a third generation symbiote. His host is trying to deal with Toxin wanting to be bad and terrible because he doesn't want to be bad and terrible. I think the concept of the character is supposed to be a mix between Venom and Carnage. That evil creature trying to seek some kind of redemption?
It's got Darick Robertson from The Boys and some other indie stuff on art, so it looks okay.
December 11, 2024
I thought this was pretty good. Carnage's symbiote spawns and a New York police officer becomes its host. The main villain in this series is Razorfist, and in this case it worked. It reminded me a bit of the Tom Hardy Venom film even though this was almost 15 years earlier. Overall a good comic for Venom and Carnage fans.
July 16, 2017
Pat Mulligan, a former NY cop tries to solve crime without resorting to transforming into Toxin.
In this volume, Razor-fist is the main antagonist, a psycho amputee with blades.
To be in control, Mulligan needs to constantly manipulate his symbiote.
But most times, he had to let the monster out to get things done.
I enjoyed Mulligans's conversation with his symbiote a lot.
Often times hilarious. Like this line from the third chapter:
"Say Mister Razor-fist. How do you go to the bathroom?"
In this volume, Razor-fist is the main antagonist, a psycho amputee with blades.
To be in control, Mulligan needs to constantly manipulate his symbiote.
But most times, he had to let the monster out to get things done.
I enjoyed Mulligans's conversation with his symbiote a lot.
Often times hilarious. Like this line from the third chapter:
"Say Mister Razor-fist. How do you go to the bathroom?"
December 22, 2010
Cuando me puse a leer este tomo no sabía si me iba a encontrar con el Milligan decepcionante de X-Men, con la bestia arrasadora de Enigma o con el Peter cumplidor de "Girl", que pese a ser una obra bastante libre no llega a demostrar la genialidad del británico. Para bien o para mal, me encontré con este último Milligan, que no llega a decepcionar pero tampoco a brillar con luz propia. No conocía a Toxin antes de leer este tomo pero no creo que sea un personaje particularmente interesante. Milligan logra hacernos creer que sí por seis capítulos seguidos. En algunos está más inspirado, en otros se lo ve un poco apurado, pero sin irse a ningún extremo mantiene un buen nivel, logrando sonrisas cuando esa es la idea y un poquitito de incomodidad en las escenas más jodidas. Y acá tengo que hablar de Darick Robertson. Sus trabajos en The Boys y en lo poco que leí de Transmetropolitan me parecieron buenísimos. Acá, cumple y gracias. No se gasta mucho en expresiones, fondos, diseños ni a la hora de retratar la violencia, una de sus virtudes más evidentes. No sé si el laburo lo hizo con desgano o con apuro pero sin duda no es de lo mejor que ha hecho.
En resumen, un comic que se deja leer sin demasiadas pretensiones (como la mini se Spiderman de Vaughan, que parte del mismo "sub-universo") y que entretiene lo justo como para no aburrir, pero tampoco dejando con demasiadas ganas de más.
En resumen, un comic que se deja leer sin demasiadas pretensiones (como la mini se Spiderman de Vaughan, que parte del mismo "sub-universo") y que entretiene lo justo como para no aburrir, pero tampoco dejando con demasiadas ganas de más.
August 5, 2011
A great character that has been tragically neglected by the Marvel Universe as a whole. Regardless of that fact, this is still a great stand-alone read.
January 26, 2018
Right when I thought Spidey gets another villain, the host proves he is the better man. After facing many challenges within and without Patrick is just another weak character in an ordinary symbiote story that borrows from Venom, but never manages to be cool. I won't compare Toxin to Carnage as the latter is superior to the former in every way. The artwork isn't that spectacular either, especially when compared to what some artists did with Venom and Carnage.
Carnage has created a child symbiote named Toxin who has chosen Patrick Mulligan, a former cop, as host. Patrick still wants to do good and embraces the symbiote as the means to achieve his goal. Like for Parker and the Venom symbiote, Patrick's control over Toxin wanes when he tries to keep its destructive nature in check. Toxin manipulates Patrick to gain more and more control over his body. Right up until the story goes all PG-13 and everyone becomes friends. Patrick isn't firm enough, intelligent enough or pure enough to bring Toxin under full control. A tragedy near the end makes him see the true path.
The superheroes are too busy to go after some lower-lever supervillains, so Patrick uses Toxin to help them. The story has him meet people who cut themselves and need someone to follow. It also mentions religious issues, the conquest of America and the often less-than-clear-cut difference between good and bad. These points of view were more entertaining that the whole story.
Carnage has created a child symbiote named Toxin who has chosen Patrick Mulligan, a former cop, as host. Patrick still wants to do good and embraces the symbiote as the means to achieve his goal. Like for Parker and the Venom symbiote, Patrick's control over Toxin wanes when he tries to keep its destructive nature in check. Toxin manipulates Patrick to gain more and more control over his body. Right up until the story goes all PG-13 and everyone becomes friends. Patrick isn't firm enough, intelligent enough or pure enough to bring Toxin under full control. A tragedy near the end makes him see the true path.
The superheroes are too busy to go after some lower-lever supervillains, so Patrick uses Toxin to help them. The story has him meet people who cut themselves and need someone to follow. It also mentions religious issues, the conquest of America and the often less-than-clear-cut difference between good and bad. These points of view were more entertaining that the whole story.
April 9, 2021
The pitch is that you have a symbiote who's trying to be heroic. But what you get is a mess. The main character is an ex-cop who just really wants to be a cop again, to the point where he will sometimes put on his old cop uniform to intimidate criminals. He walked out on his wife and son, but uses the symbiote's shapeshifting powers to pretend to be a new dude and starts dating his wife again. He upholds the apparently virtuous and inherently perfect morals of being a cop, while also talking about how great it is not to be a cop so he can be as violent as he wishes.
Oh and the whole thing is a big hot mess for mental health. There needs to be a MASSIVE content warning for mental health and self-harm, as the villain's henchmen are all motivated by self-harm. Yup, he has blades so sharp that it doesn't leave scars so he now has a group of people who call him "master" and do anything he says because he can cut them, and give them the same feeling of self-harm, without leaving visible scars. That's his whole thing, and it's a massive part of the story- incoluding some pretty explicit images of self-harm. There's also a poor handling of suicide, and the usual dated 2000s inclusion of gay jokes.
It's just not an enjoyable book in any way.
Oh and the whole thing is a big hot mess for mental health. There needs to be a MASSIVE content warning for mental health and self-harm, as the villain's henchmen are all motivated by self-harm. Yup, he has blades so sharp that it doesn't leave scars so he now has a group of people who call him "master" and do anything he says because he can cut them, and give them the same feeling of self-harm, without leaving visible scars. That's his whole thing, and it's a massive part of the story- incoluding some pretty explicit images of self-harm. There's also a poor handling of suicide, and the usual dated 2000s inclusion of gay jokes.
It's just not an enjoyable book in any way.
April 17, 2022
God, this thing sucked. I really liked X-Statix (even if it's a little uneven), but between this and the first few issues of his X-Men run, I'm starting to dread seeing Peter Milligan's name pop up. There is literally nothing of interest here. It hangs on the same boring plot point repeated over and over again, and the dialogue is often painfully bad (case in point, the sequence with the painting in issue 4).
January 17, 2021
J'ai vraiment voulu l'aimer plus que ça. J'aime habituellement ce qui a rapport aux symbiotes. Mais on dirait que tout dans ce comic arrive rapidement, pour aucune raison en particulier et sans conséquence.
January 4, 2025
theoretically milligan has a fine concept, of his hero (the cop) teaching a newborn symbiote to shun wrongness while his villain (the escaped prisoner) is teaching the unruly and suffering youth to do the most wrong (kill), but it has no spark.
August 20, 2023
I LOVE symbiotes and this was a wonderful continuation to the graphic novel venom vs carnage.
May 24, 2024
3,5 - 05.2024
June 23, 2019
Peter Milligan and Derick Robertson are at the helm of Toxin: The Devil You Know, with some funny and interesting developments from newly introduced characters Toxin and Pat Mulligan. When a jailbreak leaves New York overrun with super-villains, enter Pat Mulligan, a former New York police officer who shares his body with a young simbiote called Toxin.
Mulligan wants to use his “powers” reasonably as a man of the law it is only right that he tries to serve and protect, Mulligan also has to balance Toxins more blood thirsty inclinations and steers Toxin towards the “bad guys”. And the “bad guys” in this series where not that memorable, characters like King Cobra, Wrecker or Razor-fist to meekly challenge Mulligan/Toxin. It wasn’t about the villains; we’re talking about a simbiote here. This is the story of the relationship between Toxin and Mulligan and that is where this story falls down. We have seen all this before with Eddie Brock and Venom that it is difficult to bring a more interesting element to the table.
This was a disappointing read, which is sad because the character of Toxin had a lot of potential. The problem with characters like Toxin is that he is spun out of a side character like Venom that has resonated with readers, so much so Venom has its own movie. Unfortunately, there has not been many interesting standalone comic books of Venom that have developed the character of Venom and whomever his host is at said adaptation of Venom so what are the chances of a newer adaptation being able to do it. That being said there is some interesting moments in the story that felt a bit forced and while the story didn’t bring anything too exciting for readers of Venom and Carnage alike you should still give this a read.
Mulligan wants to use his “powers” reasonably as a man of the law it is only right that he tries to serve and protect, Mulligan also has to balance Toxins more blood thirsty inclinations and steers Toxin towards the “bad guys”. And the “bad guys” in this series where not that memorable, characters like King Cobra, Wrecker or Razor-fist to meekly challenge Mulligan/Toxin. It wasn’t about the villains; we’re talking about a simbiote here. This is the story of the relationship between Toxin and Mulligan and that is where this story falls down. We have seen all this before with Eddie Brock and Venom that it is difficult to bring a more interesting element to the table.
This was a disappointing read, which is sad because the character of Toxin had a lot of potential. The problem with characters like Toxin is that he is spun out of a side character like Venom that has resonated with readers, so much so Venom has its own movie. Unfortunately, there has not been many interesting standalone comic books of Venom that have developed the character of Venom and whomever his host is at said adaptation of Venom so what are the chances of a newer adaptation being able to do it. That being said there is some interesting moments in the story that felt a bit forced and while the story didn’t bring anything too exciting for readers of Venom and Carnage alike you should still give this a read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 18, 2010
A mess of a narrative - neither terribly funny nor all that dramatic. Just seemed Luke a fill-in gig fir Milligan and Robertson while they worked on something their hearts were more into?
September 1, 2012
Worth reading.
Read
February 15, 2014Nothing special
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews