I am not a big fan of Venom. No particular reason—it’s just not all fans like all things. In fact, until about a year ago, I had never read a Venom comic book. With that said, with today’s new crop of Marvel releases, I found myself reading Venom 257 first. What raised this fanboy’s curiosity was the question of why.
A more jaded fan would say that the best part of the issue, second to last issue of “Death Spiral” arc, and we can all move past it. While there are some creators, like all fans, we will follow and read whatever comics they put out. And sometimes there are comics where he might not pay attention to the “who’s” and just wants to read a good comic.
And that’s where I am with Venom. Last year, I decided to give the latest series a try because I thought it was a nice jumping-on point, with the mystery of who the new Venom was. No big spoiler: it ended up being Mary Jane. Along the way, I became a bit more invested, to my surprise, as a fan.
Unfortunately, I can’t honestly say I can’t say that about many of Marvel’s titles. That isn’t an opinion, but it is based on the chunk of their titles that don’t make it past a year. Marvel seems to be a bit of a train wreck these days, with no clear path to fixing the problems. While Marvel continues the countdown to Amazing Spider-Man 1000, I feel a bit like a train wreck, with things going on in the title that many fans are unhappy about.
Back to Venom 257: while it is not exactly one of my favorite books, I was going along and enjoying most of the issue. It didn’t occur to me until after I read it that Venom doesn’t actually show up until page 19. Those first eighteen pages were a bit of a mixed bag, but I did enjoy the scenes at the hospital with a recovering Eddie Brock and his son, Dylan.
That I can say I “enjoyed” Dylan shows how the character has changed and evolved from the little %$@ he was a year ago. For the past year, I have found myself unexpectedly surprised by the book. Again, I am factoring out the creative team, only to show Marvel can make interesting comics—no matter the creators involved.
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