[Read as single issues]
After Venomverse and Poison-X, comes Venomized! The Poisons and their interdimensional villainy has finally arrived on Earth-616, and now the Marvel Universe is under siege, and for every fallen hero, a new villain takes their place. But the only heroes equipped to deal with the Poisons, namely Venom and the original five X-Men, are still halfway across the galaxy. Gulp.
Venomverse’s problem was that it built up a lot of momentum and then squandered it all in the final issue. Poison-X’s problem was that it spun its wheels for five issues and didn’t go anywhere. Venomized’s problem is that…well, it’s just kind of boring, which is probably the worst problem to have, especially as the finale of a trilogy.
The stakes should feel super high at this point, but as soon as we start losing heroes left, right, and centre, the whole point of the Poisons falls apart – we know that once they’ve bonded with a hero, they kill the person underneath. That’s why it was such a big deal when Jean Grey was taken during Poison-X. As soon as half the Marvel Universe becomes a Poison, we know that it’ll all shake out alright at the end, so there’s no sense of concern about the characters any more. The fact that they all escape their fate without a proper explanation other than ‘because’ compounds the problem.
This is mostly an extended fight scene, as the Poisons swarm over the world and the heroes attempt to deal with it, before Venom and friends return to try and fix things. There are glimmers of something deeper, like how Poison-Thanos and Poison-Doom are being manipulated, and how Carnage has been targeted specifically since he was used as a secret weapon in Venomverse, but nothing’s ever really explored in favour of more fighting instead.
Cullen Bunn is a writer who very clearly has favourite characters. Unfortunately this works against him as he seems focused on using the cast of Monsters Unleashed in pivotal roles in this story, and if you’ve not read Monsters Unleashed (like me), then you’ve got no idea who they are or why you should care about them. The Poisons sight Kid Kaiju as a major player, but his powers and importance aren’t ever addressed either, so I was personally totally lost again as to why I should care about them.
Iban Coello, artist of Venomverse, takes four of the five issues here with Kevin Libranda penciling the spare. Coello’s design work is good for the most part, differentiating between the symbiote and Poison heroes fairly easily, but some characters aren’t clear as to who they are underneath either, especially those with more generic colour schemes. Libranda slots into Coello’s style quite well too; he’s becoming another of Marvel’s resident chameleon fill-in artists.
Venomverse had so much potential, but by the time we’ve gotten to Venomized it’s all been wasted. It’s a damn shame, because there are some solid ideas in here, but they’re unfortunately buried under dreck. If you want a mindless good time you’ll be in good company, but I really wanted so much more from this.