Venom #26

[cyberghostface]

First up is the Venom story from this year's FCBD issue, so I'm posting the whole thing.





















#26...

Comments

[speedingtortoise]

I've got to say, I find Knull's design incredibly underwhelming. To me he looks like a generic creepy bad guy, and not even the main one, more like a bad guy's minion.

[arilou_skiff]

I just cant take Knull seriously. Not only is it an inherently silly word, it also literally means "fuck" (as a noun in this case, like, "I had myself a nice fuck yesterday") in swedish.

[speedingtortoise]

That's the key to his defeat coincidentally. He arrives on Earth and lands in Sweden where he introduces himself, gets roundly mocked by the locals, and tearfully flees the planet never to return.

[scorntx]

Eventually, burning with humiliation, the terrible god of the symbiotes renames himself, and all the stars tremble at the sight of... NAWB!

[deh_tommy]

That’s fitting, I suppose. When he finally arrives, everyone is well and truly knulled. Plus, Knull’s offspring are a race of sticky, gooey substances that stimulate the body and thrive through mutually beneficial, emotionally honest and primarily monogamous loving relationships.

[cainofdreaming]

Yeah, come back Chaos King. All is forgiven.

Err, I guess I should specify that I liked Mikaboshi's traditional Japanese look well enough. The Chaos King form was just kinda uninspired. Still better than nothing though.

Nothing = null, get it? ... I'll get my coat.

[thanekos]

The Tradd Moore rendition of the character from Silver Surfer: Black is probably the most immediately impressive one.

[arilou_skiff]

isn't that just Hordak?

[mastermahan]

He still looks like an edgy 14-year-old's OC, but the art style makes him look a lot more otherworldly. It's not making a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but maybe a satin handbag. Nice.

[cainofdreaming]

Oh, I always thought that was from Knull: The Glam Rock Years.

[lizard_of_aus]

I don't know. The combination of barbie doll chest, Marilyn Monroe dress and thunder thighs is a little off for me.

[super_fly]

Now those are what I call legs that go on for days

[silverhammerman]

He just looks like the villain of a bad fantasy series.

[speedingtortoise]

Right though? Like, I thought the "GOD OF THE SYMBIOTES" would be more fluid in form and alien in appearance . . . not look like a backup for a member of Thanos' squad in the MCU.

[deh_tommy]

I don’t mind him too much, but he’s a lot more Thorish than he is Symbiote (which I guess makes sense, but still). I hope he’s like Mr. Bloom or Darkest Knight, whose fairly simple designs bely all the cool and creepy ways they can look and behave on the page.

[dan_ingram]

I wonder if Virus is a member of The Jury. They haven't been seen in a while

[deh_tommy]

Donny, I love ya, but for fudge’s sake why you always gotta destroy or kill off characters and things no one’s using?

[silverhammerman]

I know Cates has talked about wanting to revisit the Ultimate Universe for a while, and I dig the general idea, but this fails to live up to my admittedly overinflated hopes for a couple of reasons: For one thing, it's more Knull stuff, and I really don't connect with Knull as a character. For another, this has the same problem that most of the later era Ultimate comics did, which is that given the opportunity to do any story in this slightly skewed Marvel Universe, writers seem to default to doing uninspired bad future storylines. The twist of the planet being overtaken by Knull and presumably having some gnarly symbiote-wearing takes on the Ultimate characters breathes some life into it, but I'm always going to feel like there's more that can be done with the Ultimate Universe.

Also, Virus sure exists, huh?

[zachbeacon]

Doesn't the Maker exist in every universe now?

*1610 Maker shows up with his own symbiote and eyes 616 Maker*

"One of us will have to change."


Also props to Steve for being the only Avenger who isn't a total dick here. Tony and Carol especially just aren't in a good position to throw stones.

Wasn't Thor there in the previous issue's lead-in, though?

[deepspaceartist]

Also props to Steve for being the only Avenger who isn't a total dick here. Tony and Carol especially just aren't in a good position to throw stones.

I mean, I can forgive a bad reaction in the face of "I tried to solo some eldritch shit, and now an ancient unspeakably powerful evil could be here at literally any second". That's some day-ruining bad news if I've ever heard it.

[zachbeacon]

For a normal person, sure. For the Avengers it's just Wednesday.

I know we occasionally get stories about how much superhero life takes a toll on people like Scarlet Witch or Daredevil but it's really a wonder it doesn't happen more often.

[zerocaloriecola]

Carol is in a fine position to be upset.
Tony may not be, mainly because of the illuminati and incursions and not telling anyone about the existence of an incoming existential crisis, but atleast the reasoning was better.

Eddie's seems to be that he doesn't deserve it.

This is not another wednesday, knull has taken down entire celestials, and dominated all of earth's forces, that's why cap's unsure if they can even win.

No one is upset at eddie for choosing his kid, but that does give a timeframe, which was a month ago from this point. He might not have had contacts prior, but he certainly did have them at that point and knows peter as well with his own contacts.

[phantomfo]

Their skepticism makes sense. Eddie and his Symbiote at least have the distinction of having been someone the Avengers had to fight during one of his escapes from the Vault. He'd killed several innocents prior to his face turn, Symbiote has also been attached to at least two full-bore villains in Gargan and Price.

[zachbeacon]

It WOULD make sense if Captain Marvel hadn't been flirting with him earlier. He seemed to be treated as less of a criminal than a minor nuisance* until Thor vouched for him.

(Also the symbiote was attached to Flash too and he was one of them and if you want to talk about their willingness to accept people who change sides a lot I have one word for you; Quicksilver)

*Which kinda makes sense given that - putting aside the Venom stuff - Eddie Brock is best known for being a terrible journalist who doesn't check his facts.

[scelestus]

You gotta admit, Stark's line about relying on Spiderman's old clothes and sending up the bat-signal was pretty good, though!

[zachbeacon]

Look, when your dirty laundry gets up and starts walking around on its own its time to do something about that.

I was speaking more about them apparently being being disappointed with Eddie for letting the bad guy go so he could save an innocent even though its pretty standard for superheroes.

[deepspaceartist]

See, I'm reading that not as Tony criticizing Eddie for saving his son, but for not getting help BEFORE he reached the 'possible universe ending threat' stage. He's saying that if Eddie had gotten help from the Avengers or Spider-Man somebody maybe he would have been able so save his son and keep Knull contained. Which is not an unfair criticism, I think. Bit hypocritical from Tony, but he's always been better at preaching that kinda thing than practicing it.

[zachbeacon]

I've only read what's in the scans but ... did he ever get a chance to call for help?

If so, who would he have called? Flash was the one with all the connections. I'm still surprised the Avengers let Eddie walk in the front door.

[deepspaceartist]

I've also only read the scans, so I also have no idea how the timeline went and whether Eddie could reasonably have called for help. But considering he apparently ended up going to another planet to deal with Cletus and Knull, I feel like he likely did have the time somewhere in there.

As for who he'd call, I did mention Spider-Man. Peter is on reasonably good terms with Eddie at the moment IIRC and would take his call. And from there Peter has the ins with just about anyone else they could need in the Superhero community. And really even without Knull involved calling in backup when dealing with Carnage is just good sense.

[aperturedreams]

...What? He didn't go to another planet, in fact he literally went to Spider-Man who then went to the Avengers back in Absolute Carnage.

[deepspaceartist]

Like I said, haven't actually read the book, I'm just guessing from the scans. Since Eddie specifically says that Knull isn't on Earth but is on his way, I assumed Eddie was also not on Earth when Knull was released. My bad.

[aperturedreams]

Sorry I missed that part of your comment, I'm still groggy this morning

[mastermahan]

There's something stupidly hilarious about the Maker punching Eddie out of the symbiote. Apparently Reed upgraded his suit with toon physics.

[zachbeacon]

Cartoonish clobbering does seem like a pretty natural consequence of all that time around Johnny and Ben.

[jaxjyls]

I'd take boring Knull year long teasing over LOLBats facial shoving

[deh_tommy]

LOLbats face-shoving?

[lordultimus]

Batman Who Laughs, I presume.