Venom/X-Men: Poison X

X-Men Blue (Collected Editions)

by Cullen Bunn (Writer), Ario Anindito (Illustrator), Edgar Salazar (Illustrator)

• GLI X-MEN E VENOM IN MISSIONE NELLO SPAZIO… E QUALCUNO NON TORNERÀ!
• I Predoni Stellari sono stati attaccati da simbionti alieni… e per salvarli, gli X-Men cercano l’aiuto di un esperto: Eddie Brock, Venom!
• Gli eroi del grande schermo riuniti in una saga completa, con i disegni di Jacopo “Nomen Omen” Camagni!
• Un crossover pieno di colpi di scena… preludio a Venomized e alle prossime storie di X-Men Blu!

Contiene: X-Men Blue Annual #1, X-Men Blue #21/22, Venom #162/163

Genres: Comics, Marvel, X Men, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Spider Man

120 pages, Paperback

First published May 23, 2018

About the author

Cullen grew up in rural North Carolina, but now lives in the St. Louis area with his wife Cindy and his son Jackson. His noir/horror comic (and first collaboration with Brian Hurtt), The Damned, was published in 2007 by Oni Press. The follow-up, The Damned: Prodigal Sons, was released in 2008. In addition to The Sixth Gun, his current projects include Crooked Hills, a middle reader horror prose series from Evileye Books; The Tooth, an original graphic novel from Oni Press; and various work for Marvel and DC. Somewhere along the way, Cullen founded Undaunted Press and edited the critically acclaimed small press horror magazine, Whispers from the Shattered Forum.

All writers must pay their dues, and Cullen has worked various odd jobs, including Alien Autopsy Specialist, Rodeo Clown, Professional Wrestler Manager, and Sasquatch Wrangler.

And, yes, he has fought for his life against mountain lions and he did perform on stage as the World's Youngest Hypnotist. Buy him a drink sometime, and he'll tell you all about it.

Visit his website at www.cullenbunn.com.

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

A real hard entry into the Venomverse as the X-Men and Venom find themselves on a mission to save the Starjammers from vigilantes with Symbiotes. A definite improvement on the previous volume sees Cyclops put the X-men on a desperate mission, leaving them, way out of their depth. 6 out of 12, star-based Three Star read.

2019 read

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

A crossover sandwiched in between two other Venom "event" books. The book is basically nonstop fighting with the barest bones of plots. What plot there is, is just an excuse to give us venomized versions of the X-Men. Then the Poisons are introduced without any explanation so if you haven't read the other Venom books, good luck. I was thoroughly bored with the majority of it. There's several artists, none of which I'd heard of. The art was all serviceable, but none of it memorable. I really don't understand how Cullen Bunn can manage to write some of my favorite comics (Sixth Gun, Harrow County, The Damned) when he's doing his own thing, but his hired work is "meh" at best.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 2 out of 5]

[Read as single issues]
Let's get this out of the way - I liked Venomverse a lot, but it felt like the ending was heavily truncated in order to facilitate the expansion of the story into this crossover and Venomized. After reading this, I wish it hadn't.

Poison-X drags the X-Men Blue team and Venom into space after Corsair and the Starjammers are infected with symbiotes and hunted by bounty hunters. It sounds like a good premise, but it drags like hell. The villains aren't particularly compelling, and there's no real tie-in to the overall Venomverse story until right near the end. This is one of those crossovers that has enough story for about 2 issues and drags it out to five instead.

The art's kind of all over the place as well, with multiple artists on each issue. It reeks of being rushed to get out in time, and the final 'reveals' are so obviously temporary that it takes all of the tension out of the proceedings.

Poor. Not unreadable, but definitely dwindles all the of the faith and momentum that Venomverse began.

[Tiag⊗ the Mutant · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nothing good comes out of the Venomverse, not even Cyclops and the Starjammers could save this mess.

[C. Varn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cullen Bunn has a slow burn at the beginning; if this were prose, it would suffer from far too much exposition. The crossover with Venom and the Venomverse is entertaining and X-men has been experimenting with cosmic storylines in X-Men: Gold and Cable as well. Yet, like the other two titles, this doesn't seem to know what to do with the arc, dragging out of the set-up for far too long, and the ending seems unnaturally truncated t both Venomized and to get a B-team out in the X-men: Blue arc. While not terrible, this is an unfortunate trend where X-books seem lost and pulling at gimmicky straws.

[Krystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kinda random but I'm here for Symbiote chaos.

X-Men have some trouble on their hands when Scott's dad gets into Symbiote-related trouble. They track down Venom to help them out.

What a team up! I haven't read any X-Men comics before this so all I have is a vague knowledge from the films. It was kind of fun to see them all interacting, although to be honest none of them were particularly memorable besides the classic Scott-and-Jean combo.

Venom, on the other hand, was a lot of fun. I liked him bossing the X-Men around. He does have the most experience, after all.

There was an interesting nod to Venom's past, too, which I found fascinating and wanted more of.

The artwork is clear and easy to follow, and there are some really cool action panels with all kinds of black tendrils through them. Good fun.

The story was a little weak for my tastes but it was still a fun lil team-up adventure that forced characters into scenarios you wouldn't expect.

Decent for a fun once-off adventure.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Annual that leads things off has a slightly interesting premise: Symbiote-clad bounty hunters have captured the Starjammers, and the baby X-Men must go off to space with Ed Brock (hey! I guess he's Venom again!) to save them.

That promise is never really fulfilled. Basically, we get fights with a bounty hunter, then with the symbiote crew, then with Poisons, and none of its really interesting.

And what's a Poison anyway? There's about one speech balloon worth of background on them, apparently growing out of the Venomverse crossover, but generally they're so opaque that they make you not that interested in the crossover by the end. And this is apparently all a setup for yet other crossover, Vemonized, because we don't get any closure at all here.

Overall, this is a pointless comic that is so beholder to Venom crossovers before and after it that it's a waste of money.

[Dimitris Papastergiou · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it, dare I say, much better than the Venomverse, I still have the same problems with the cringe-worthy enemy called Poison, and that end scene at the main event was predictable as fuck, but, still like that we got the X-Men involved too, and even though you can see where this is going it's a fun ride and mainly Venom is fun to read him interact with the others.

Nice ending too!

[Adam Stone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Updated Review During 2025 X-Readthrough:

I might have been in a funk from reading so many mediocre-to-bad X-books the last time I read this.

This is an average cosmic X-Men adventure with Venom and the Starjammers thrown in. It's fun, and if its consequences weren't immediately undone before the next storyarc in X-Men Blue, Vol. 4: Cry Havok, I might have more affinity for it.

The plot is easy to follow, the pacing is fine, I didn't mind the dialogue during this readthrough. While I don't remember for sure, I imagine I soured on this book the moment I saw the name "Killer Thrill", quite possibly the worst name in the Marvel Universe, which is an insane achievement. Also, the Killer Thrill and venomized friends part of the story is incredibly dull. There is no reason to care about them or The Poisons, who are apparently part of Bunn's Venom run, and can be summed up as What If The Brood Were Even More Boring. None of this inspired me to want to read Venomized, which is the coda of this crossover.

If you enjoy Venom, or if you've liked the X-Men Blue book, this is a fine continuation of both. I don't think it's going to win over new readers, though.

***

Original 2019 Review:

Bunn writes an impressive amount of comics. He has two brand new series coming out this week, alone. But maybe, maybe if he pared down his output, he wouldn't be responsible for so much unreadable fucken garbage.

This crossover between his Venom series, and his X-Men Blue is poorly constructed, not very-well plotted and features only one major plot point for his X-Men Blue series (which is the one I'm following), which he then has to immediately undo in the next issue. Bunn does excel at coming up with shocking concepts, but as he has no skill with dialogue, long-term character development, or the ability to follow-up on his shocking concepts, they're all completely wasted.

I've also never been impressed by anything Mike Costa has written.

Recommending or forcing someone to read this book is expressly forbidden by the Geneva Convention.

[Robert Kirwan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok so this started SLOW!! Like really slow. To the point that after issue 2 I was like zzzzz

But then I continued and OMG did this get good!! Loved this crossover and the changes that happened in it. The stakes are genuinely high and I really liked the enemies and the Klyntar!! It definitely made me interested in picking up some of the venom comics!!

Very surprised with how this ended!! THAT ENDING OMG. Loved it and very surprised

[Oneirosophos · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was so random and I'm so sick & tired of symbiotes with generic stories, so 0.3/5

[Ant Tellez · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.4/5.0

A team-up that sounds sweet on paper, but just needs more in terms of depth and character interaction to really bring the story forward.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't read the Venom storylines that tie into this one, but this wasn't bad. I'm a big Venom fan, and it was interesting to see him interacting with the X-Men, even if it wasn't the X-Men I'd have preferred for the team up. This leads into the big "Venomized" event, which I plan to read eventually.

The Starjammers are kidnapped by symbiote aided bounty hunters, and the X-Men find themselves rushing to the rescue. Venom is recruited due to his experience with symbiotes. This story mostly takes place in outer space and on other planets. One sequence was no doubt inspired by the cantina scene in the original Star Wars film, and Venom fit right in to that motley hive of scum and villainy.

The "ending" leaves much to be desired as this is more a setup for the next big story than anything self contained, but still not bad.

[Michael Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This second part in the Venomverse event is one hell of a big step-up from the preceding books (Edge of Venomverse and Venomverse), with a deeper emphasis on plot and emotional engagement. After Scott Summers’s father is abducted by symbiote-enchanted space pirates, the X-Men go to Venom for help and basically end up having to kidnap him for a sojourn into outer space and a trip to an alien planet (keep an eye out for a Blade Runner Easter Egg in X-Men Blue #21 from artist Jacopo Camagni!) where the gang runs afoul of an interstellar symbiote poacher. Cullen Bunn packs in a lot of action, but unlike Venomverse there’s a good amount of attention paid to the characters, which I really appreciated. Of course, there’s another book in this big Venom-centric event, so Poison-X ends on a pretty big cliffhanger with a nice To Be Continued...which means it’s onto Venomized for me!

[Nicole Westen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm more curious about what Magneto's going to do when he finds out the teenaged x-men went gallivanting around the galaxy without telling him... and then lost someone.

[Beelzefuzz · Rating 1 out of 5]

That thing where you take two things and combine them to create novel nostalgia in the moment, but nothing creative really occurs? That is much of Cullen Bunn's recent output.
Cyclops in a Venom suit. Everyone in a Venom suit. Plot is your enemy. There, you read this book. You never have to look at it now.

[C.T. Phipps · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cliffhanger copout

Sadly this story of the x-men versus symbiotes doesn't have any clear resolution. On the ppl plus side having Venom team up with the X-Men is funny enough on its own to sustain the story. Still not a mustbread.

[Sesana · Rating 2 out of 5]

The middle part of a big Venom... thing that I don't particularly care about, read only because I knew something big happened to an X-Man. Which, as it turned out, was so transparently a temporary thing that it had zero impact.

[Daniel Butcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

X-men in Spaccccceeeeeeeeeeeeeee plus Venom which is a different type of team up.

I still have not gotten used to Brock in the symbiote instead of Flash. I guess they need to do that with the movie coming and all, but to me Flash is more prepared for in Spaccccccceeeee and I don't really know if Eddie should know as much about space.

This new symbiote attitude also feels like he would want to bond with Flash over Eddie.

I wonder if a big moment in this book will have true consequences.

[Jesús De la Jara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Durante una comunicación de Cyclops con su padre Corsari, resulta que éste es capturado por unos simbiotes extraterrestres por lo que el equipo de X-Men buscará la ayuda de Venom. (a propósito que justo el escritor de X-Men Blue también es el de Venom actualmente y aprovecharon para hacer este Crossover entre ambos números).
Aunque la historia es relativamente buena, con combates en el espacio y una amenaza siempre constante me sorprende el poco énfasis que se le puso al final, sobre todo por las consecuencias de esta aventura espacial.

[Subham · Rating 3 out of 5]

This continues from Venomverse and sort of continues the story and we see the Star jammers getting captured and thus X-Men Blue have to rescue him as it impacts Young scott and all and we see the X-Men fight against Vwnom and then capture him, taking him to space and then you know they come to an understanding and they team up vs this capturers who turn out to be "Poisons" and there is some sort of invasion from another universe happening, that will play out in "Venomzied" but here we see the symbio-tification of the X-Men and as they fight these threats and whether they will save Cyclops dad and what will be the fate of Jean grey?

Its a fun story and does well to give it an emotional impact with Scott and his dad and seeing X-Men well symbiote up was like in particular the designs were interesting and if you try to read it as stand alone you will be confused and you have to read all of the tie-ins and everything here and the prequel and sequel to it.. and well if you have you will like it.

Its nothing much aside from some cool moments and doesn't give the villains much of a personality, but presumes you to think they're very dangerous and all.. so yeah.. but you know quick one-time read.

[Rolando Marono · Rating 2 out of 5]

La premisa de este tomo es demasiado simple. Scott busca a su papá que fue secuestrado (el motivo real por el que fue secuestrado no es revelado, lo que significa que sólo lo secuestraron para que Scott lo fuera a buscar y pudieran vender este cómic) por un grupo de simbiontes. Como los X-Men no tienen experiencia con los simbiontes, deciden secuestrar, si, secuestrar, a Venom y llevarlo a una aventura espacial de rescate.
No tengo ni que especificar que la aventura sale mal y nuestros protagonistas terminan peleando por su vida contra piratas simbiontes.
Este cross over sólo existe para vender cómics y figuras, ya que nos regalan un look de los x-men originales con simbiontes.
Aún de lo sencillo de la trama, me gustó más este cross over que Black Mirror de algunos años.
Creo que mi mayor problema con el volumen es que la interacción entre Venom y los X-men es muy irregular, a veces los trata como héroes, otras como niños, otras le da igual, etc. Se ve que los escritores ni siquiera querían escribir esta historia, sólo necesitaban algo para poner en movimiento el siguiente evento de Venom, Venomized.

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tem horas, que eu vou lhes dizer, amigues, é difícil ser fã dos X-Men, puxa vida! E ser fã hardcore dos X-Men é hardocoramente difícil. Porque tem saído uma fase horrível atrás da outra. A leitura daquele Ressurreição da Fênix é uma leitura tão mas tão dispensável que se tivesse uma página com a Fênix saindo de um buraco ia ser melhor. Esse Venom/X-Men também é um droguinha-x. Porque pega aquele enredo comum de encontros de heróis: encontram, discutem, brigam, e depois se juntam. E aqui se junta vai ao ponto carnal da coisa, porque os X-Men ganham simbiontes. Zzzzz... Todos eles ganham simbiontes... Zzzz... Não podia colocar a roupitcha do Venom em apenas um deles e lidar mais profundamente com a situação? Poderia, mas pra que né? Isso não iria vender na visão da nossa querida Marvel Comics. O pior de tido é chegar no final da história e ela não acabar e nos mandar comprar outro encadernado que se chama Venomizados em que TODO UNIVERSO MARVEL vai ter um simbionte para chamar de seu. Puta que pariu, Marvel, vai ser apelativa e sensacionalista assim lá nos tablóides ingleses. Assim não pode, assim não dá!

[Michael Church · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn’t horrible, but it checked several boxes on my “this is really working against the title” checklist. Forced crossover with an unrelated title? Check. Lead in to a larger crossover which I will never read or care about? Check. Forced conflict with another hero for the sake of a different story? Check.

On the bright side, it was all written by Cullen Bunn, so at least it was very clear how the stories should tie into each other. Like so many of these crossovers, it would have been absolutely baffling to try to read only one series.

Again, this wasn’t wholly bad, it was just very forced. It’s only purpose seemed to be to set up the Venomized event, give us alternate “venomized” versions of the X-Men, and set up the new status quo with a character’s supposed death. The Annual seemed like the weakest issue to me, just because of the emphasis on this forced conflict and cooperation with Venom. There was also a lot of background information from Venom that seemed important, but we had no actual context for most of them.

The art was fine, but nothing really stood out. Like everything else about this volume, it was mostly just “meh.”

[Adam Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Venom unwillingly joins with X-Men (Blue team) to head off to space when the Starjammers are captured by a band of space pirates who have bonded with Klyntar (the race of symbiotes). Cyclops, in particular, desperately wants to see his father one last time before they get sent back to the past to right the wrong of their time travel to the future. They go to find Haze Mancer, a bounty hunter who captures and sells symbiotes. After getting the info from him, the X-Men bond with symbiotes themselves, and head off in search.
As you can imagine, seeing the original X-Men clad in symbiote is awesome. AND, the battle that unfurls is very good. BUT, just when they are able to rescue Corsair and his team, another ship docks with theirs and the pirates, as well as Jean, are taken over by a special group of symbiotes called Poisons. Venom warns that one touch and they are soon dead. Escaping, yet leaving Jean behind, we are informed that the story continues in "Venomized"...
Good story, but I wish I had the next Volume to keep going!
Recommend.

[Andy · Rating 2 out of 5]

What in the world is this?

I mean I guess we get to spend more time with the original five. I do like the change of scenery. That's cool. It was fun, and Venom was a nice addition with the rest of the group. Maybe I should check his comic out.

This storyline was so comic bookie it's not even funny. I like the new team looks due to the symbiotes, they are pretty interesting looking. Fun twist. In all honesty, it did lose me towards the end, kinda world ending predictable like usual. Need to see how things end on Venomized I guess, sigh.

p.s. love that Bloodstream and Jimmy got left behind, yawn.

[C · Rating 1 out of 5]

Continuing the great x-read of 2017/18...

Mix a little Star Wars with a little classic style X-Men space adventures with Venom and a whole bunch of heavy heavy melodrama and you're left with this, something far less than the sum of its parts in my opinion.

So Venom teams up with the young X-Men (since when is Venom a hero anyway?) and they fight some other symbiotes. Again and again. And then... Well, nothing much happens (sure, the one big loss that we know will be retconned somehow eventually so it loses a lot of its punch).

This one fell completely flat for me. Just boring through and through.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collects X-Men Blue issues #21-22 and X-Men Blue Annual #1, and Venom (2016) issues #162-163

I read this because it is the continuation of the story started in "Venomverse," but it wasn't my favorite crossover. I haven't been following the X-Men stories for years, so I was a little lost on some of the character dynamics, even with context clues. The ending does leave me stumped as to how they are going to get out of a certain situation, but this is comic books...it's going to be fine.

Final rating = 2.5 stars

[Dave Relph · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a mediocre interval between Venomverse and Venomized, which sees a rather meaningless team up between the titular characters making for a fairly uninteresting plot. The Poisons only appear in the final part of the volume and the artwork throughout isn't that great either (despite compiling a couple of different titles' issues). The only redeeming feature is the by-now-familiar dialogue between Eddie and Venom, which is entertaining and the only real character development we see in the whole thing.

[Rangga Sukmawijaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diawali dengan kabar diculiknya Corsairs dan para kru pesawat Starjammers-nya, Jean Grey dkk., berangkat ke luar angkasa untuk menyelamatkan ayah Scott itu, setelah sebelumnya menculik Venom untuk bekerjasama dengan mereka. Venom adalah makhluk separuh Eddie Brock dan separuh Symbiote dan X-Men membutuhkannya karena orang-orang yang menculik Corsairs jelas-jelas memakai pakaian symbiote. Para X-Men berjuang mati-matian untuk mengalahkan para penculik walaupun mereka akhirnya terinfeksi juga oleh symbiote.