So soon after Venom? I don’t remember this at all. MJ blowing up, I remember, obviously. This, nothin’. This month, Lee Weeks pencils, Robert Campanella inks and Gregory Wright colors.I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about the weird, baseless connections between these artists in my mind here before, but to me, Lee Weeks kind of draws a little like John Romita, Jr. Not that you’d ever get them confused, but there’s something there, a shared something. And then Ron Garney kind of draws like Lee Weeks, but you’d never confuse them, either. And Ron Garney does not draw like John Romita, Jr. Just a quality of really solidly 3D art runs through their stuff, maybe. It’s hard to describe and kind of dumb, but it’s a thing in my mind. All of which makes Weeks a good guy to sub for Jr. Weeks actually followed his landmark Daredevil run, even.
Like you’d never think Romita drew that page, and yet, that Venom looks more like Romita’s than anyone else’s. Carnage is killing Venom and Spider-Man in a baseball stadium for a cheering crowd, but he’s just dreaming, of course. Cletus is still in his cell from when Venom stole his symbiote in PPSM 10. But, he tells a guard, he’ll be whole again soon. But we don’t care about that, we care about this:
Remember when Gwen died, and Peter was all despondent and miserable while also still having to go be Spider-Man every issue? Hard to imagine someone going “Let’s do that again.” But heeeeere we go. Not yet, tho, because our man doesn’t know what’s happened yet. He’s swinging around thinking he’s about to go home and tell MJ’s manager to book him a flight to wherever she went so he can get their problems sorted out. He sees a bus that’s crashed off the side of a bridge and is on fire, and as he leaps in to rescue people, all he’s thinking about is the whereabouts of his blue shirt that MJ loves, which is kinda fun. He’s saving lives on autopilot.
But, again, the real story is…
When did Anna go back to Florida? Pretty cool of Robbie and JJJ to be there, altho it makes you wonder where, like, Betty or Flash or MJ’s friends are. Spider-Man’s still at the wreck, recapping Carnage’s recent deal, thinking Cletus is dangerous even without the symbiote, and then we cut to him painting himself red with the blood of some cops and rambling about feeling some kind of calling to be somewhere.
Kasaday, meanwhile, is rampaging through the street, trying to make Spider-Man or Venom appear. A mook grabs him and is about to shoot him, because this is improbably happening outside a building Kingpin is having lunch in, but Fisk countermands the kill and just points up.
Doesn’t much sound like Cletus to me. Taking all this way too seriously. Spidey punches him out and webs him up, thinking all the while that he’s got to stop letting this stuff get between him and Mary Jane. As he swings off, Venom is watching.
Let the misery begin! Nothin’ good’s happening for the foreseeable future. Also, the notion that these 2 titles are separate goes right out the window. When I decided to do this blog, I went into it dreading Maximum Carnage, The Clone Saga, this, and the year 2007. It’s never fun to hit one of them. In the letters, a guy raves about Romita, Jr’s take on Venom (Correct!) and editorial says they loved it, too, and “now what do you think about his Carnage?” Um. Not only did he not draw this issue, but Carnage didn’t really appear in it. Whoops?