{"id":19340,"date":"2023-12-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=19340"},"modified":"2022-06-14T23:11:11","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T03:11:11","slug":"venom-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2023\/12\/12\/venom-agenda\/","title":{"rendered":"Venom Agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Not sure how this is gonna go, what with Venom a \u201chero\u201d now. But it\u2019s written by the legend, Larry Hama, drawn by Tom Lyle, inked by Robert JHones and colored by Steve Oliff. Hama did a lot of cool stuff around Marvel in the 80s, but is probably best known for a long and beloved run on GI Joe and for being on the solo Wolverine with Marc Silvestri when the Image guys were blowing up. I didn\u2019t know it, but he also wrote a lot, if not most, of the Venom miniseries that were secretly an ongoing series, starting with the 3rd one, I guess. So I guess if anyone knows where Venom\u2019s head\u2019s at at this moment, he\u2019s our man. Aside from the previously posted Spider-Man Team-Up #6<\/a>, I think this is his only other Spider-Man credit. Well, someone has cut the gatefold off this cover. Guess it\u2019s not gonna fetch thousands when CGC\u2019d now. Helpfully, tho, the important part is still here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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WOW THAT HAIR. I am unaware of this status quo. Funny how this isn\u2019t the last time Venom will be a Fed. And, look, a tie-in to X-Men 346<\/a>, which was in our last block from this era, which seems like it was thousands of years ago. We open on Peter Parker taking the E train to work with a terrible cold, making evergreen references to Tyson vs. Holyfield and the latter 90s Batman movies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Uncle Sam\u2019s gonna knock off JJJ? That\u2019s pretty wild. Hama could get into some provocative stuff, but this seems like something that might not have passed muster in 1997. Maybe with the bankruptcy, no one was looking.  It takes 3 pages for Peter to get up to JJJ\u2019s office via the elevator and Venom to get there by scaling the building, Peter complaining about JJJ calling him in during the evening, Venom being weirdly onboard with killing \u201cvillainous traitors\u201d and fully assuming JJJ is one. Before Peter can even find out what JJJ wants, Venom comes smashing through the window in a 2-page splash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I wonder what Tom Lyle got up to after Spider-Man. He keeps popping back up. Looks like a year and a half on Punisher, and then just bouncing around the Marvel U for a bit, including several Spidey things, 3 of which are coming up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ok! Spidey comes leaping back into JJJ\u2019s office in a panel more or less recreating the cover, only inside. Venom brings up how he beat up \u201cthat impostor,\u201d meaning Ben, like it happened recently and like the 3 of them hadn\u2019t teamed up since then, which is weird, before saying he\u2019s going to put JJJ down like the mad dog he is. Downstairs, as MJ approaches the building, the 2 suits discuss how Venom may have misinterpreted their dumb doublespeak, which was meant to tell him to scare JJJ, not kill him. Suddenly, they decide he did and get freaked out. Don\u2019t give vague instructions to a crazy person, guys. Upstairs, Venom mentions Spider-Man not wanting him to blab his little secret, and JJJ offers him a front page headline for Eddie Brock to reveal it, which is delightfully on brand, but Venom throws him out the window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s weird that there\u2019s a special word for throwing someone through a window. Jonah begins to regret all his failures and mistakes out loud as he plummets to the ground, but Spidey manages to grab him and swing them up at the last second, swinging right by MJ on the sidewalk. Spidey dumps JJJ in a convenient nearby construction site, pauses to lift his mask and sneeze, and then gets back into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Seems like Hama\u2019s take on Venom was exactly as nuanced and subtle as he deserved. This is pretty amusing. Venom is such an empty character, you might as well have fun with it. As the battle continues, the Fed who caused this shoots a lock off the fence of the construction site and MJ rants about how Peter shouldn\u2019t be doing this. Her part in this seems very weird. Fighting continues, Venom references ASM 347<\/a>, Hama is really going for random history here, and the Fed is running up the stairs of the unfinished building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What?? Why is MJ doing this!? This just got super strange. But it\u2019s pretty funny that the Fed didn\u2019t think to turn the power on. Venom bashes Spider-Man\u2019s head against a bar repeatedly while babbling about how Spider-Man ruined his career, then leaps up much higher to\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spider-Man Must Lift a Heavy Thing TWICE IN THE SAME MONTH! Wow! I mean, Hama and Mackie almost certainly didn\u2019t know they were doing this, but editorial should have! Good grief. MJ is about to reach them, the Fed is about to reach them, JJJ is bargaining, and just as MJ reaches the correct floor, Spider-Man is really doing the whole bit from ASM 33 (Too bad it\u2019s not been on the blog yet). It\u2019s ridiculous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Man, this sure is playing fast and loose with Peter\u2019s secret. Spider-Man tackles Venom, taking them all the way to ground floor, saying the gloves are off and beating him relentlessly. Venom beings to say he\u2019s going to tell the world Spider-Man\u2019s secret as Spidey notices a sparking power cable is about to set off some dynamite (Why is there dynamite??)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What an incredibly rushed and confusing ending. I wonder whose fault that is, how \u201cMarvel Style\u201d this was. Goodness. And now Eddie\u2019s forgotten who Spider-Man is? Why the hate, I thought they worked it out? This was all very confusing. Pretty wild ride, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not sure how this is gonna go, what with Venom a \u201chero\u201d now. But it\u2019s written by the legend, Larry Hama, drawn by Tom Lyle, inked by Robert JHones and colored by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[13,978,21,1700,2,1692,416,409],"class_list":["post-19340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-j-jonah-jameson","tag-larry-hama","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-robert-jones","tag-spider-man","tag-steve-oliff","tag-tom-lyle","tag-venom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19340"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19585,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19340\/revisions\/19585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}