
Out of all the 'Ultimizations' that Bendis has done over the years, I think Eddie Brock/Venom was one of the best. Bendis had always been hesitant to use Venom but the demand had been great and then EIC Bill Jemas pretty much had to push him to do it. To Bendis's credit, rather than holding his nose and putting out a mediocre depiction (like Sam Raimi did with the character) he did a full on rehaul of everything about the character and made him work.
Also this story is, while building off on the characters, a stand-alone story (which was probably intentional given that Marvel wanted new readers to pick this up) so you don't need to be up to date with everything that has come before.
( Scans under the cut... )