Welcome back Beat readers to our weekly coverage of all things Marvel, the Marvel Rundown. This week we’re covering the launch of All New Venom and seeing how things shaped up after Venom War. Additionally, this week’s Rapid Rundown features reviews of Miles Morales: Spider-Man, X-Men, and we spread some early holiday cheer with a look at Holiday Tales to Astonish.
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All-New Venom #1
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Carlos Gomez
Colorist: Frank D’Armata
Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles
A legitimate criticism of current Marvel is how hard they’ve come to rely on event books. These books with their declarations of “EVERYTHING YOU KNOW WILL CHANGE” are meant to shake up the status quo for Wednesday warriors (and eventually pad out a publisher’s back catalogue). Since their inception with the original Jim Shooter/Mike Zeck Secret Wars although, event books rarely carried the weight they purported to have. Their consequences tend to only be short term than truly far reaching. The plot strand from Secret Wars to truly stick forty years later is Spider-Man’s black costume, which of course became Venom.
This year alone you have seen three “events” come and go; gang war, Blood Huntand now VenomWar. There were complaints when these were just yearly events. Now it’s an event every quarter. How world shaking can these stories be when they happen multiple times a year? Surely creative teams must get exhausted having to tie their stories into so many books. Maybe reader fatigue will set in at some point and we’ll go back to fewer of these types of books? Possibly they have a brief moratorium? A man can dream.
Anyways, venom war is over and the dust has cleared. The big consequence is that neither Eddie Brock nor his son Dylan have possession of the Venom symbiote. It’s gone to ground. Now someone else has it and of course, it’s a mystery. The title All-New Venom is a tongue in cheek nod to Marvel’s now decadent old All-New initiative and the fact someone else is now Venom. Seemingly everyone has been Venom at this point but as a conveniently helpful AIM scientist points out here, whoever has it now hasn’t.
The mystery means to draw you in but honestly, who cares who Venom is at this point. This is a character that started with the simple premise of being the antithesis of Spider-Man. Now they’re a character with a massive and confusing cosmic mythology. And apparently 90% of the characters in the Marvel universe have been a host to the Venom symbiote. In the future, we’ll all be Venom for 15 minutes.
Also this isn’t actually the start of a new reader friendly story arc. It’s the middle of a now thirty plus issue Venom run by Al Ewing. That also follows up on gang war. Remember gang war the event that kicked off Marvel’s 2024 calendar year? Well I hope you remember Madame Masque was a big deal in that story and if you didn’t read gang war…well there’s a wikipedia article you can read. At least artists Carlos Gomezfresh off a run on Fantastic Fourand colorist Frank D’armata make things look lively.
It’s kind of crazy over thirty issues of an Al Ewing written Venom run exist. Five of those issues are a massive event that likely will only hold relevance to this particular. What should be a first issue really is just another issue in that run. Really anyone who hasn’t read the previous series, or consciously objected to venom war (and apparently gang war), this probably won’t provide incentive to do so.
Verdict: SKIP
RAPID RUNDOWN!
- Holiday Tales to Astonish #1
- More often than not, these kinds of seasonal anthology books are disposable junk food. A few fun stories that don’t take themselves seriously and focus more on vibes than being genuine stories. If you’re lucky, one will be touching or stand out among the dregs. But Holiday Tales to Astonish bucks tradition by giving us three short stories that not only treat the material seriously but are genuinely funny and sweet! The creator list here is strong: Gerry Duggan write the Fantastic Four story, with artist Phil Noto. Daniel Kibblesmith writes a throwbackMenu Hanukkah tale that fits in between the pages of classic Claremont, which Pat Oliffe draws with superb skill. The final story is my favorite, a New Years Eve tale featuring the Spectacular Spider-Men, written by the criminally underrated Gene Luen Yang and drawn by Dylan Burnetta talented cartoonist who created one of my favorite books of 2023, Arcade Kings. John Kalisz colors the X-Men story while KJ Diaz colors the Spider-Story. VC’s Ariana Maher letters all three and impressively adapts to the distinct visuals of the individual artists. Each of these tales are lighthearted capers but nail the voice of the characters and the dynamic interplay between them. The stakes are low and silly in most cases but these are not gag stories. Yang and Burnett’s Spider-Man story is especially strong, nailing the mentor/mentee relationship that we so rarely see in the 616 between Peter and Miles. The final pages are a touching human moment where Peter is able to give Miles something he never had as a young hero. I wish this was what we were getting from the current Spectacular Spider-Men series, which after half a year’s worth of issues still cannot find a distinct voice for either hero. Kibblesmith and Oliffe’s story is a loving tribute to the era without ever falling into treacly nostalgia. Duggan and Noto’s Fantastic Four is the goofiest but the script doesn’t go overly broad and Noto’s art is so good at emotion and expression you can’t help but delight in it. This is a great package, a warm hug from the Marvel Universe as the days get colder. Marvel invested real effort into this and the result is worth the time and money! –TR
Next Week the Rundown team talks all things Ultimate Universe One Year In! While you wait, check out previous editions of the Marvel Rundown here!
