Venom! Venom? Venom. Bendis was very upfront about not liking Venom. He had no desire to do this, and I was on his side 100%. But Bill Jemas challenged him to come up with a version of the character he actually could get excited about, and here we are. And, once again, they’re lucky to have Bagley, because at this point, no one had drawn more Venom than him, so who better to reinterpret the character? We open this issue on Peter laying on the floor of his basement lab, moping about being dumped. He thinks he’s now screwed up everything, that he’s screwing up at school and at home and now this. He does at least admit MJ was right about everything she said. He’s not been paying attention, but he sees it now. He wants to call her, but realizes that would be dumb and angrily throws his phone.
Richard having ASM Peter Parker hair is nice. Peter goes upstairs, where May is telling Gwen how she yelled a marriage proposal at Jimi Hendrix at a concert one time as Peter walks past them, almost in a fog, carrying the VHS tape. Gwen and May discuss how he’s not doing well post-break up, not yet knowing what he’s up to. Peter puts on the tape, and the first thing he sees is himself as a child, getting hit in the head with a frisbee at the park. Some things never change. His mom runs in to see if he’s ok, once again making him catch his breath.
Obligatory reminder that that Reed Richards does not exist.
Richard finally agreed that if they get to “phase two,” they’ll talk press, as Peter told Mary all about penguins until Eddie said they should go to the pond to find frogs. Then the tape runs out.
So that’s a weird thing. Is the idea that Richard and Ben Parker married Mary and May Reilly? What luck. Great little moment for May there, tho.
And there you have it. A much more elegant and interesting way to bring in Eddie Brock than the original version. But because you know about the original version, it’s already messing with you. Peter looks his old friend up, finding he’s a student at ESU, and gives him a call Eddie is super excited to hear from him, and immediately says they should get together. As this conversation continues, we pan over to the stuff in that box in the basement, including files on “The Venom Project” that their dads were working on, just in time for Eddie to say they should “paint the town red or something.” Really messing with us.
I feel like this issue is really showing the twice-a-month schedule getting to Bags. Some weird stuff going on all through it. Eddie continues to tell Peter how all of this will fade away, how it hurts so bad now because he has nothing else to compare it to, which is all sound advice. Then he just gets happy to see Peter again. He starts to talk about how sometimes it’s hard to picture his mom’s face, how it’s hard to remember back then, and Peter fishes a VHS out of his bag and explains what it is, saying he thought Eddie would want a copy. Eddie says it’s just about the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for him. Then he says he has something to show Peter, too…
Uh-oh! Nothing good can come of that in a comic with Venom on the cover.