What do you think?
Rate this book
The Amazing Spider-Man (1963-1998) #258, 300, 315-317, 332-333, ...
Spider-Man Vs. Venom Omnibus
Collects AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (1963) #258, #300, #315-317, #332-333, #346-347, #361-363, #374 and #378-380; WEB OF SPIDER-MAN (1985) #1, #95-96 and #101-103; DEATHTRAP - THE VAULT; DARKHAWK #13-14; THE TRIAL OF VENOM; GHOST RIDER/ SPIRITS OF VENGEANCE #5-6; SPIDER-MAN (1990) #35-37 and SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN (1976) #201-203 - plus material from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (1963) #373, #375, #388 and ANNUAL #25-26; WEB OF SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #7-8; SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #12; MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS (1988) #117-122 and SPIDER-MAN UNLIMITED (1993) #1-2 and VENOM SUBPLOT PAGES.
Spider-Man meets his deadliest foe as a rivalry for the ages is born! When Spidey's symbiotic alien black costume takes a new host - Eddie Brock, who hates Spider-Man - together, they become the lethal Venom! They'll stop at nothing to take their revenge on Peter Parker - and when Venom sires an even more psychopathic offspring, the result is Maximum Carnage! The sinister symbiote sinks his teeth into Wolverine, Ghost Rider, Quasar, Darkhawk and the Avengers in this complete compendium of Venom's earliest appearances!
Spider-Man meets his deadliest foe as a rivalry for the ages is born! When Spidey's symbiotic alien black costume takes a new host - Eddie Brock, who hates Spider-Man - together, they become the lethal Venom! They'll stop at nothing to take their revenge on Peter Parker - and when Venom sires an even more psychopathic offspring, the result is Maximum Carnage! The sinister symbiote sinks his teeth into Wolverine, Ghost Rider, Quasar, Darkhawk and the Avengers in this complete compendium of Venom's earliest appearances!
1132 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 18, 2018
17 people are currently reading
183 people want to read
About the author
Tom DeFalco
2,477 books106 followersTom DeFalco is an American comics writer and editor, well-known for his association with Marvel Comics and Spider-Man.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 20, 2020
3.5 stars
More of an "Early 90s Venom" book than just a straight Spider-Man vs Venom omnibus, as we get Venom vs other heroes (Darkhawk, Wolverine, the Avengers, etc.) and some solo stuff as well. The highlights here are all of the Venom vs Carnage stories and Sam Keith's awesomely trippy art in the Marvel Comics Presents arc.
More of an "Early 90s Venom" book than just a straight Spider-Man vs Venom omnibus, as we get Venom vs other heroes (Darkhawk, Wolverine, the Avengers, etc.) and some solo stuff as well. The highlights here are all of the Venom vs Carnage stories and Sam Keith's awesomely trippy art in the Marvel Comics Presents arc.
July 23, 2019
Do you like Spider-Man? Do you like Venom? Then this may be the book for you.
That's....that's really all I have.
5 stars.
Have a great day and make someone else's!
:)
That's....that's really all I have.
5 stars.
Have a great day and make someone else's!
:)
December 23, 2018
I didn’t read every single issue bc it was such a bore I couldn’t. Over time I really get why Todd McFarlane was such a sensation but he is barely in this volume! Also the storyline of Mary Jane being washed up and then moving to his aunts house is totally weird and their marriage and relationship makes no sense. I know we can’t always have multi dimensional characters, but these are inconsistent and odd. Also Spider Man is a real jerk! I cannot root for this guy. A disappointing volume and storylines in general.
December 27, 2025
The Spider-Man vs Venom omni gave me exactly what I wanted. It collects all of Venom's appearances prior to him spinning off into his own series, and while the book does ultimately jump around a lot I expected that going in.
The first couple issues collected in here bridge quite nicely with the Spider-Man: The Complete Black Costume Saga Omnibus. We see the issues of Peter realising the suit is alive and how he goes about removing it. What I really liked about the book is that after this it also collects the pages from other Spider-Man issues teasing/setting up Venom's first appearance, it does a wonderful job setting the character up and building tension (it also does this for the alien costume escaping from its confinement early on).
A slight knock against the book (but an ultimately understandable one) is that the Spider-Man/Sin-Eater storyline isn't collected here. I thought this was a shame given its importance to Venom's backstory, but given he doesn't actually appear in that storyline and all the information you need is provided in the character's first appearance I can understand why it was left out.
Anyway, after the initial confrontation with the Black Suit, we finally get to Venom's first appearance and its quite fun. The character comes out quite fully formed, and it's easy to see why he struck such a cord with audiences. The book has a wonderful collection of artists including Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen and Mark Bagley.
As I mentioned, this book solely collects Venom's appearances in the Spider-Man title (and other series) meaning subplots brought up in an issue are resolved in-between the issues collected here, as a result I found myself skipping over these to focus on the Spidey/Venom stuff, but it's interesting seeing snapshots of how the Spidey Mythos is developing in the background.
Now given this book's nature I will say it does start to feel a bit repetitive (at least for the first half). Venom will escape the Vault (he must have broke a record for how often he does that), target Spider-Man, fail, and get sent back to prison. The book even shows this happening in a few other characters' series (Quasar, Darkhawk, Ghost Rider (my beloved) and Deathtrap: The Vault). However, around the book's midpoint we're introduced to another symbiote character named Carnage, who's appearances are also collected here.
Carnage really gave the book a breath of fresh air and adds a bit of depth to the slowly developing Venom lore. The Maximum Carnage storyline at the end of the book really is the exclamation mark showing how popular the symbiote characters had become. The storyline is a little long but well written and definitely worth reading if you're a fan of these characters. There's a good quality to the stories here despite them being from the 90s. Unlike Danny Ketch: Ghost Rider for example, which had fantastic art with very little plot or characterisation, the stories here (mostly) have a good balance of quality that make them stand above over Marvel titles at the same time. Maximum Carnage actually deconstructs the edgy 90s anti hero zeitgeist on a thematic level, which is more than any issue of Ghost Rider can say.
Overall, if you're interested in getting right into Venom I'd recommend this book. From what I understand these issues are also collected in the David Michelinie Spider-Man omnibuses, but those take place over several volumes (some of which are out of print) with most of the issues in there not featuring Venom at all.
As I said, this book collects Venom's appearances right up to (and slightly after) his first solo miniseries, and while that isn't collected here - being in his first solo omni - I never felt I was missing context for what was happening.
Overall this was a fun, solid read and I genuinely enjoyed my time with it. Not sure if I'll continue with Venom right away, but these issues gave me a good appreciation for the character.
The first couple issues collected in here bridge quite nicely with the Spider-Man: The Complete Black Costume Saga Omnibus. We see the issues of Peter realising the suit is alive and how he goes about removing it. What I really liked about the book is that after this it also collects the pages from other Spider-Man issues teasing/setting up Venom's first appearance, it does a wonderful job setting the character up and building tension (it also does this for the alien costume escaping from its confinement early on).
A slight knock against the book (but an ultimately understandable one) is that the Spider-Man/Sin-Eater storyline isn't collected here. I thought this was a shame given its importance to Venom's backstory, but given he doesn't actually appear in that storyline and all the information you need is provided in the character's first appearance I can understand why it was left out.
Anyway, after the initial confrontation with the Black Suit, we finally get to Venom's first appearance and its quite fun. The character comes out quite fully formed, and it's easy to see why he struck such a cord with audiences. The book has a wonderful collection of artists including Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen and Mark Bagley.
As I mentioned, this book solely collects Venom's appearances in the Spider-Man title (and other series) meaning subplots brought up in an issue are resolved in-between the issues collected here, as a result I found myself skipping over these to focus on the Spidey/Venom stuff, but it's interesting seeing snapshots of how the Spidey Mythos is developing in the background.
Now given this book's nature I will say it does start to feel a bit repetitive (at least for the first half). Venom will escape the Vault (he must have broke a record for how often he does that), target Spider-Man, fail, and get sent back to prison. The book even shows this happening in a few other characters' series (Quasar, Darkhawk, Ghost Rider (my beloved) and Deathtrap: The Vault). However, around the book's midpoint we're introduced to another symbiote character named Carnage, who's appearances are also collected here.
Carnage really gave the book a breath of fresh air and adds a bit of depth to the slowly developing Venom lore. The Maximum Carnage storyline at the end of the book really is the exclamation mark showing how popular the symbiote characters had become. The storyline is a little long but well written and definitely worth reading if you're a fan of these characters. There's a good quality to the stories here despite them being from the 90s. Unlike Danny Ketch: Ghost Rider for example, which had fantastic art with very little plot or characterisation, the stories here (mostly) have a good balance of quality that make them stand above over Marvel titles at the same time. Maximum Carnage actually deconstructs the edgy 90s anti hero zeitgeist on a thematic level, which is more than any issue of Ghost Rider can say.
Overall, if you're interested in getting right into Venom I'd recommend this book. From what I understand these issues are also collected in the David Michelinie Spider-Man omnibuses, but those take place over several volumes (some of which are out of print) with most of the issues in there not featuring Venom at all.
As I said, this book collects Venom's appearances right up to (and slightly after) his first solo miniseries, and while that isn't collected here - being in his first solo omni - I never felt I was missing context for what was happening.
Overall this was a fun, solid read and I genuinely enjoyed my time with it. Not sure if I'll continue with Venom right away, but these issues gave me a good appreciation for the character.
April 7, 2022
A VERY good collection of Spider-Man and Venom's battles in the '90s...well, MOST of them, except for Ben Reilly and Spider-Man 2099....still good though. From Todd Macfarlane, to Erik Larson, to an uneasy truce, to the horrors of "Maximum Carnage", it's good stuff.
If you're a fan of both the webslinger, and the lethal protector, give it a shot!
If you're a fan of both the webslinger, and the lethal protector, give it a shot!
March 12, 2024
Great Omnibus. I really enjoyed the origin story of Venom & Carnage.
Some stories fall flat in-between but they come to a close fairly quick. The main chunk of the Omni is fun & easy to read. A fantastic start for a Venom fan.
Some stories fall flat in-between but they come to a close fairly quick. The main chunk of the Omni is fun & easy to read. A fantastic start for a Venom fan.
December 28, 2019
Some really fun stuff here, Mark Bagley art is so damn good.
September 9, 2023
A fantastic omnibus for the origin of Venom & Carnage. Some of the best stories.
January 3, 2024
This collects the various Spider-Man comics from the early 90s where he fought Venom as well as the first appearance of Carnage and the entire Maximum Carnage crossover. A must read if you're a fan of these characters or that era of comics.
August 2, 2023
Maximum Carnage comic run is legendary. It was fun reading the story that inspired the SEGA Genesis video game.
Venom is such a cool character. His twisted moral and ethical code keeps you on your toes. You never know who will be spared or if he will play the hero or the villain. Personally, I prefer when he teams up with the good guys. Especially Wolverine and Spidy. This omnibus is worth the money and is a solid addition to the collection.
Venom is such a cool character. His twisted moral and ethical code keeps you on your toes. You never know who will be spared or if he will play the hero or the villain. Personally, I prefer when he teams up with the good guys. Especially Wolverine and Spidy. This omnibus is worth the money and is a solid addition to the collection.
May 21, 2023
The 60s comics were surprisingly entertaining
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews