Venom #1 (2021)

[laughing_tree]

I’ll tell you what really attracted me to the character was when Donny told me how he was going to end his run, and basically just leaving Eddie in this completely untenable place that was way too powerful, way too overpowered, nobody could keep that up. He’d obviously be put back in the box at the earliest possible opportunity. And I was listening to this and going like – not that Donny was saying this or anything – but I was listening to this and going, “Oh man. Oh man, what if you ran with that?” -- Al Ewing

Comments

[numeronone]

I mean, making a character vastly, impossibly powerful is kinda Cates' entire deal (see also Cosmic Ghost Rider, Thanos, the King in Black).

Which makes me realise he'd probably be a terrible DnD player.

[deh_tommy]

To be fair, they’re all antagonists of their respective stories.

[numeronone]

Which somehow makes me even *more* dubious about how his "Hulk" run has started, given that it completely ignores Ewing's "Banner and the Hulks have an uneasy alliance" for more of the clichéd "Bruce is the REAL monster and he's happy to just wall off the Big Guy and treat him like a prisoner".

Ewing had the respect to immediately build on what Cates left and expand it without going tabula rasa. Why can't Cates do the same? "Immortal Hulk" is a tough act to follow, but not impossible...

[bruinsfan]

Isn't Cates also the one that souped up Thor with the Power Cosmic (after he'd already been promoted to Skyfather and been given the Odinforce at the end of the previous run) to heal his missing arm and eye? And souped up Dr. Strange with Asgardian magic that let him resurrect thousands of dead people in Las Vegas? (Not to mention trying to retcon Galactus' origin, which has been comics bedrock since the 60s, in order to job him in the Thor run?)

He'd totally show up to the table with the most twinked-out multiclass demon/angel hybrid anyone has ever seen.

[blues32]

Doesn't this mean that, eventually, Thor is going to lose that same arm and same eye again? Unless, in healing him, Galactus undid the entire known future of Thor.

[numeronone]

Thor's eye: the new Xavier's legs/spine

[bruinsfan]

Under the current model, those would have been possible futures that the prime universe might have made impossible between the two stories. I wouldn't bet a lot of money on Thor's future turning out as it's been depicted, such things have been retconned away before.

Also, Jason Aaron still has Thor appearing in the Avengers, so these discrepancies might be minor compared to him becoming a giant Phoenix-powered Autobot mecha with matching cosmic jetski or whatever the hell gets done with him next.

[numeronone]

Technically Kang is *everyone's* oldest friend. Or can be.

[numeronone]

I was worried about the weird lumpiness and tries-too-hard-to-be-photorealistic aspects of Hitch's art. But having read this, it's kind of like the weird mo-cap Grand Moff Tarkin in "Rogue One" - many were arguing that he *ought* to look a little off-putting and frightening, because after all, the man is Space Goebbels and wouldn't hesitate to blow up a planet to make a point.

Similarly, Hitch's work is beautifully ugly and thus very well suited to Venom, a character who is by definition beautifully ugly. It's worked before with Chris Bachalo. Heck, it could work with Frank Quitely, if he wanted.

[blues32]

Hmm. More like a Space Himmler, really. Goebbels was just a mouth piece. Churning out propaganda. Tarkin does a LOT more than that. I'd have gone with Space Goering, but Tarkin doesn't come off as a drug addled ninny.