Posted in: Comics, Spider-Man, Venom | Tagged: Comics, HRL

Preview and Review: Amazing Spider-Man: Venom Inc. Alpha #1

Published Thu, 30 Nov 2017 13:00:53 -0600

Courtesy of Marvel's Legacy Previews, because it seems quite a few folk didn't get them, here's a preview of the first issue of Amazing Spider-Man: Venom Inc. Alpha #1 by Dan Slott, Mike Costa and Ryan Stegman… out next week.

We have an advance review by Joshua Davison, reproduced below:

Flash Thompson hasn't given up on retrieving the Venom symbiote and returning to his life as Agent Venom, Avenger, Space Knight, and Guardian of the Galaxy. To do this, he asks Peter Parker to get his "pal" Spider-Man to help him discover who stole the symbiote from him months back.

Meanwhile, Eddie Brock, who has the Venom symbiote, is struggling to maintain control over it. This leads him back to Alchemax in the hopes they can solve this problem.

It excites me to no end that Flash Thompson, my personal favorite incarnation of Venom, is back in a Venom comic. Oddly enough, one of the most compelling actors in this story is the symbiote itself, which loves both Eddie and Flash so much that it wants to bond with them both.

Spider-Man comes off as the douchebag in all of this. He doesn't want either man to have it, despite both having used it for good in recent years. He just wants the thing dead — which isn't very heroic, if we're being honest.

This comic does hit the hang-up that comes from using a morally ambivalent character with a writer not accustomed to the current status quo of said character. To put it another way, Eddie Brock is depicted like a borderline psychopath barely in control of his emotions here. This contrasts Venom, which shows a troubled but more composed Eddie Brock treating the symbiote with more kindness. The Eddie we get here is just as unlikable as a possessive boyfriend.

The humor here doesn't work for the most part. Spider-Man makes a weird conjugal visit joke, and there is a running gag about a guard named Hugo that never lands a good punchline. Everyone just hates this faceless Hugo for some reason.

The art is pretty hit or miss. Ryan Stegman lands some good shots of Spider-Man and Venom, but actual faces tend to look a bit weird. Eddie Brock in particular has a forehead and eyebrows unlike anything I've ever seen. He's more eyebrows than man, now. They're also black to starkly contrast his blonde hair. It's incredibly distracting. The color work is alright beyond Eddie's face. There's a nice balance, but much of it looks washed-out.

Venom Inc. Alpha presents a cool return with Flash Thompson, but he's the only likable character in the runtime. Spider-Man acts like an ass. Eddie Brock is an abusive boyfriend to an alien parasite. It seems to be retreading some old stories that didn't go over so well the first time, too.

It's not an atrocious read; it is fun at times. However, it doesn't excite with the exception of one moment that had me aghast as a Flash Thompson fan. I can recommend it to the most devoted Venom fans, but even that is a tentative recommendation.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN VENOM INC ALPHA #1
(W) Dan Slott, Mike Costa (A/CA) Ryan Stegman
VENOM INC. Part 1
Peter Parker, Eddie Brock and Flash Thompson have one major thing in common – the Venom symbiote changed all of their lives. The inky black alien life-form is doubling down on our heroes – and they're not the only ones about to be put through the ringer. VENOM INC. kicks off here and rolls into AMAZING SPIDER-MAN & VENOM as a familiar face rises to new levels of villainy!
Rated T In Shops: Dec 06, 2017
SRP: $4.99

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!