Acclaimed author Al Ewing's storied Venom saga reaches a thrilling climax, as father and son battle for the right to be Venom!
It has come to this. Eddie Brock is Venom. Dylan Brock is Venom. But there can be only one. It’s Venom vs. Venom! Who gets to keep the symbiote?
Limitless in scope, Al Ewing's VENOM saga has followed Eddie Brock and his son, Dylan, on separate journeys as the symbiote heroes. But after both have terrifying glimpses of the future, they realize only one of them can be Venom. Their father and son feud will become everyone’s problem as past and present symbiote characters alike are forced to take a side!
No matter who wins, Venom will be forever changed by the fight! And their showdown of showdowns threatens to tear the world asunder!
This book is crazy and not in a good way. The highest I would have rated this book was 2.5 stars, and even with Spider-Man (Peter Parker), showing a bit more mature attitude I could not round it up.
Eddie Brock is back and makes his announcement in the middle of a pro-wrestling ring. He challenges his abandoned son for the Venom symbiote. Everyone has their own future version or a symbiote or both. The book is just a mess for me.
The plot of this book was "a much ado about nothing". I really don't get the point of this book at all. Even as a pro-wrestling fan the backdrop of the ring and wrestling moves was not enough to get me to like this book. The artwork was the only reason I gave this book its second star. The book finishes with a thumbnail and full-page variant cover gallery.
This event feels so disconnected from itself. The main event is completely removed from every tie in by having this ridiculous wrestling match keeping the main players locked away from the mayhem happening outside the arena. It’s absurd. I enjoyed all the fighting outside the arena everything inside I just couldn’t get behind, it felt so small despite the stakes being so incredibly high. Last time we did a big symbiote based event was Absolute Carnage and that was expansive and each little story helped the larger story. And of course before that was the massive King in Black event that touched almost every corner of the comics. I was expecting a smaller version of that but what we got was a wrestling match. The best parts of this event were the Deadpool, Wolverine, and Carnage stories by far. They were darker (or funnier) and a lot more contained, it didn’t bother itself with the wider Venom lore, just sick ass characters ripping apart Zombiotes. And yes you read that right… the army made by the bad guy in this are called Zombiotes, symbiotes that attach to corpses, and somehow despite not contacting each other everyone agrees to call them the same thing. This does seem to have a big effect on the future of a handful of characters, most importantly whatever convoluted shit they plan on doing with Venom next. That ending really meant nothing to me and I don’t feel satisfied by it. I’m usually really easy to please with these events but I found myself week by week uninterested in making sure I read this leading to me never buying the final issue because I simply forgot it came out until I was catching up and it was missing. The Jeff story is once again peak storytelling, love that guy. The Black Widow stuff is good, the She-Hulk and team stuff is alright, the Daredevil one is good, the rest is just okay.
Al Ewing’s Venom run has been a big bold and often convoluted mix of cosmic epic and extended family drama. It attempted to tie together the increasingly sprawling symbiote universe while building on the King In Black mythology established by the previous run. It introduced several new symbiotes, time travel, and alternate futures. Saying all that now, I realize just how similar it’s all been to 90s X-Men comics; it even has an obvious Cable analogue.
It might seem strange then that Ewing would attempt to culminate such an ambitious project in a five issue miniseries that plays out primarily in a wrestling ring. But, that seemingly silly story device proves to be an ingenious way to bring a huge cast of characters together in one location and keep things easy to follow. The story walks a tight rope of balancing the ridiculous set up with the epic stakes of the story, and I think it managed to stick the landing. Each issue is packed with all the twists and reveals you’d expect in a big Pay-per-view wrestling event.
The art by Iban Coello and Fran D’Armatta help maintain that balance between hulking super-heroics and emotional character work. It feels like proper event with this quality of visuals. I’m sure the artist were as equally inspired by Daniel Warren Johnson’s Do A Power Bomb as Ewing clearly was.
This was great 👍🏻👍🏻 so much venom that you won't know what to do with it. There's a lot of back story that I don't know anything about and will have to read up on. This story does a good job at making the backstory clear without harping on it too much. Overall, venoms one of the best supervillains and who can't like a story that dives deep into all aspects of that.
This was a fun event and well the set up was long in the main Venom run by Ewing and it gets confusing for sure with so much time travel and all and you need to read it if you wanna understand most of what's happening here.
We see the wrestling like set up here and Eddie and his team arriving from the future, then comes Dylan and where he has been along with the team he made and both start fighting of sorts until Spidey with the main Venom symbiote comes in and its a mix of what's happening and you get the story, the big fight between Spidey and Eddie with the Bedlam symbiote and that fight is brutal and I love how old school it feels. There is also the sub-plot with Meridius and Carnage and the zombiote stuff which is intriguing and how that brings in Agent Anti-Venom aka FLASH!
I love how old school it feels with so much happening and it can also be a drag if you don't know the context behind much events and its cool, then there is the big fight obviously and the twists and emotional beats when Flexo turns on Eddie and well the Doom stuff is referenced here and in a way I feel its rewarding if you have read everything and I love how it challenges both the father and the son and the big twists obviously!
The story is packed but then the Meridius entry happens and ngl it felt disappointing with how much he was built up and then how it got over so quickly and that epic ending you felt coming with the Anti-all and whatever Meridius big plan was well.. but then again there is the stuff with Adult Dylan whose story you have to read in the main Venom book also.. but still it ends as expected and teases whats to come next. So like I said you have to know a lot of things reading this and the context of it all from the main Venom book and the ending which you expected with a big fight vs Meridius well..
So overall an event with great build up and great scenes and emotional beats every issues but fizzles out towards the end with the big payoff not there but the art is good, story moments are nices and teases whats to come next and it can be promising. But lets see. Definitely read it once. Not really the main King in black event type the way I was expecting it to be, but its a good one and done read and you will probably enjoy it with the wrestling like kind of set up here. Definitely read and judge it on your own though!
Venom War's odd. Like, it's a culmination of all of Al Ewing's Venom stories up to this point, so there's lots of Kang time travel, Meridius posturing, Carnage being a git, zombie symbiotes (zombiotes!) and a multitude of other symbiotes running around, including Spider-Man suiting back up, but there's also...Venom and friends taking over Madison Square Garden's wrestling ring to duke it out. It's a very odd combination, and I'm not sure it entirely works, especially given how serious most of the rest of Ewing's run has been.
The conclusion is solid, and it definitely feels earned after 40+ issues of the Venom series. I especially like how Ewing hasn't jettisoned anything from before, keeping faces like Sleeper and the new Toxin around, but there's definitely some tonal dissonance here which can make the book feel a bit odd. Iban Coello's artwork is superb however, he's been cutting his teeth on symbiote books for years at this point so he's no stranger to all the gooey madness going on.
(Also, I don't know if they're in the trade yet, but they damn well should be - the single page Venom Horse stories at the end of each issue are absolutely hilarious.)
A good ending for the most part, and a solid springboard for the next two symbiote books spinning out of it - I'm just not sure we needed the wrestling ring.
(I don't know why Marvel still does this. This 'story' is written across 12 separate one shots and/or limited series. Some good...and several just one step above garbage)
The main story? It starts out in a wrestling ring... EVERYBODY wants to bond with Venom. Meridus, Eddie(Prime), Dylan, Spider-Man... They all think that the others are...doing it wrong and will wreck the universe
Huge chunks of the plot are written into the side stories.
-Meridus' plans across the years -Carnage and Kletus split -Spider-Man's (and Jackpot?) go over past relationship, love, etc -Deadpool runs to Monster Island -James Hudson Jr POISONS things... -Princess and Silence trying to save symbiote bite victims -future Dylan quests for some magic gold goo -Black Widow and Sliver teamup with AntiVenom and punch things -Silver Sable and the Wildpack/Lethal Protector protocol -Wolverine gets rescued by X-Men -Jeff the Landshark in an all ages cameo w/Gwenpool and the West Coast Avengers -She Hulk and Hellcat vs Shocker and Overdrive vs zombiotes -Doctor Doom and Kang mess stuff up...again -Daredevil(s) protect Hell's Kitchen -Fantastic Four get brought into a time loop
I didn’t hate this…I liked the wrestling frame and the weird single-page iterations about Venom Horse were often absurd and hilarious. A lot of the plot here felt like it required a TON of peripheral reading for what is otherwise a very limited crossover event and even having read King in Black just a year or two ago, I felt like I had little idea as to what was going on with Dylan and Eddie and Meridius. There were just too many characters crammed into this thing to really have it click and fully make sense, and the rate of convenient macguffins and other plot devices was just wild. I’m starting to think I might skip the train entirely on Kid Venom of late now…
Heh, I probably should have read up more on the series that led into this to have a better idea about all the symbiotes mentioned, Eddie's son and general developments within the Spider-verse itself. Putting that all to one side though, this was rife with manic art and Ewing blended all the varying symbiote personalities amongst other featured heroes and villains deftly so I wasn't confused as to what was going on the whole time 😂
The lesson here for me is this: Do more research before jumping in at the deep end 😅
4 So I actually quit this series after issue 3 after enjoying a lot of the Eweing run. The finale of that run seemed to devolve into a pretty hum drum big bag fights the good guys story without much substance. But I got interested in the all new venom title and wanted to know what happened, so I not only finished this...but also read all the tie-ins. For once, the tie-ins actually make the story better, which is not a compliment. The art was great, and I did enjoy it. So... I'm also with substance.
BLACK DADDY WITH THE TONGUE! 2.75 stars. This was fun enough. Could definitely tell I was missing a bunch by not also reading the additional tie-ins but, eh. Art work was good, venom stories usually always got that going for them as the symbiotes always look cool!
WOW. After so much set-up and world building the Venom War ends up in... a wrestling ring?! They really crap the bed trying to reset things to status quo including Venom Horse. It didn't work in the movie, it's even worse here.
A whole lot better than a lot of the junk that got us to this point, but still...not very good. This is just over the top nonsense for the most part. Good artwork, but c'mon...Where's the damn story? Is there a "roll your eyes" emoji?
Not the greatest story. I did like the VenomHorse back up story. It was a bright spot. Other than that, it was not memorable and it was kind of a drag to get through.
Banger finale to the most recent venom run that sets up a lot with current comic runs afterwards. It’s a little messy like any big comic event but it is sick as hell.
This was my first VENOM Tradepaperback/Graphic Novel and I’m thinking maybe Venom isn’t for me. I found the Plot confusing and in all fairness it’s possible I started in the middle of a series