{"id":9698,"date":"2021-07-13T00:00:11","date_gmt":"2021-07-13T04:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=9698"},"modified":"2020-06-23T13:10:21","modified_gmt":"2020-06-23T17:10:21","slug":"venom-super-special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2021\/07\/13\/venom-super-special\/","title":{"rendered":"Venom Super Special"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Why put the Venom one in the middle? For that matter, why are the specials not coming out in the monthly order of Web, ASM, SM, TAC? Who knows? Line art for today\u2019s show is by Kyle Hotz and Armando Gil. Hotz is perhaps an acquired taste, but he will go on to do a lot of stuff, including co-creating perennial 21st Century villain The Hood with Brian K. Vaughan, but\u2026 he\u2019s not there yet in this. So the thing was a portal and Spider-Man, Scarlet Spider & Eddie Brock went through it, and\u2026 and it\u2019s just Alien on the other side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The symbiotes look like the xenomorph, the walls look like the ship\u2026 it\u2019s Alien. How much of that was Hotz and how much of that was Michelinie? The aliens are super not happy to see our trio, and the battle begins. Eddie is frozen in place as the symbiotes seem to be targeting Ben. Ben still has a symbiote on him, and when he takes a hit, Eddie feels the impact. It\u2019s the Venom symbiote. That wakes him up finally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Well, that\u2019s weird. We cut to MJ, exercising so hard in a gym that a woman tells her she\u2019s going to break the machine. This is how she\u2019s dealing with the fact that Peter didn\u2019t come home last night, and then we\u2019re back to space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Venom reluctantly reforms. Eddie and the alien both don\u2019t want to do this, but it allows Eddie to tell the others what\u2019s up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The other felt that Ben was basically Peter when they fought, so once separated from Eddie, it tried its luck with him. But when it sensed the other symbiotes, it began trying to get the heroes on the job. It is further explained that the symbiote\u2019s psychic scream upon being separated from Eddi in part 1 was heard by marauders in a nearby solar system, and they built this stargate as the first step of a full scale invasion of Earth. We cut away again to see Cleuts Kasady has been transferred to a high security government facility for safety, and get indications that he\u2019ll be breaking loose any day now. Back in space, our heroes are trying to sneak back to the stargate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So I guess the symbiotes have possessed a bunch of not-xenomorphs instead of just naturally looking like them. Ok. The gang reaches the gate, and decide only Venom can close it behind them, but it\u2019s a trap, and soon they\u2019re being swarmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The fire gives the Venom symbiote time to come off Eddie and work the controls. While he shoots sonics at the others, it begins closing the gate behind the Spiders. Then it flows back onto Eddie and they escape. Except the gate doesn\u2019t close. And Eddie says the creatures share \u201ca genetic memory,\u201d and that they must\u2019ve learned the good guys\u2019 plan from being in contact with his symbiote. Spidey asks if this means they can\u2019t close the gate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hotz\u2019s stuff is kind of wild, but even here he\u2019s got a better handle on things like anatomy and page construction than the guy last issue. To be continued. Feature #2 is a shock to the system. For one thing, Bagley draws it, and getting reasonable art again is amazing. If that\u2019s not enough, it\u2019s written by Dan Slott who, some 12 years from here, will begin a 10-year run on ASM. Inks are by Anre Starr & colors by Joe Andreani. But also, it\u2019s the story of what the symbiote did with Peter when he was sleeping. Oddly, this is not the last time someone will tell this story. And as we\u2019re flashing back to the symbiote period, an old familiar face shows up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The unconscious Spider-Man dives into a bunch of goons, and Bagley\u2019s black suit in action really brings Rick Leonardi\u2019s to mind, high praise in my book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But\u2026 she did love him, as we have seen not too long ago. Weird. The suit drove him home and put him back to sleep. Then we flash forward to now for some reason to see Peter visiting Aunt May\u2019s grave and walking by Jean\u2019s on his way out of the cemetery but not seeing or commenting on it. That\u2019s weird, right? What\u2019s the point of that? Much more recently, like 2019, a Spider-Man annual revealed that the symbiote took Spidey around brutally beating and even killing criminals while he was asleep, which made no sense at all. How did Spider-Man not end up wanted for murder when he was literally out murdering people? I prefer this version. But we still have to look at that Scarlet Spider story. I am so not excited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Terrible cover! You can barely put together that a hand is grabbing his throat. Ugh. Line art for this post is by Kevin J. West and Hector Collazo. The Lizard (Who we\u2019ve since seen retconned to be not-The-Lizard) has made it to New Jersey. Meanwhile, Ben Reilly is reading The Bugle, kinda happy that \u201cStrongarm\u201d guy from last issue is getting all the credit for the heroics, when his only friend arrives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hey, this art is pretty competent! Thank you so much, Kevin J. West! Sort of a Dale Keown vibe. Over in Jersey, The Lizard is killing a bunch of people when a SWAT team shows up, so it starts killing them, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It can glide?? That\u2019s so funny. Some unspecified time later in New York, The Scarlet Spider helps save some guys from a burning building, lowering them to safety before going back for more people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Don\u2019t worry, he makes a web net for them. Then we learn he was on the way to his first day of work when he did this, and then we jump to late that night, when a tuxedo\u2019d Ben Reilly and similarly fancy Gabrielle head to a party at the mansion of Ben\u2019s new boss. Armstrong is there, and Gabrielle is smitten. Ben runs into 2 coworkers who I guess were meant to be supporting cast members some day, and then sees Martha Connors. That can\u2019t bode well. Ben is so worried about being recognized that he hops on his motorcycle and abandons Gabrielle at this party he invited her to!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ben Reilly is such a jerk! Man, after 2 stories that don\u2019t look like a sloppy mess, I\u2019m revitalized. Dare I hope the main feature looks nice next issue?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why put the Venom one in the middle? For that matter, why are the specials not coming out in the monthly order of Web, ASM, SM, TAC? Who knows? Line art for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[853,934,455,458,413,933,259,592,936,158,453,935,932,339,21,2,423,43,409],"class_list":["post-9698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-armando-gil","tag-arne-starr","tag-ben-reilly","tag-carnage","tag-chia-chi-wang","tag-dan-slott","tag-david-michelinie","tag-gabrielle-greer","tag-hector-collazo","tag-jean-dewolff","tag-joe-andreani","tag-kevin-j-west","tag-kyle-hotz","tag-mark-bagley","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-spider-man","tag-terry-kavanagh","tag-the-lizard","tag-venom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9719,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9698\/revisions\/9719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}