Um… let’s not make eye-contact. Just move on.

To bring us up to speed, Venom left his life in San Francisco as a Lethal Protector to the secret underground city behind so he could visit New York City and throw down with Carnage. Carnage was already taken care of, so Venom fought the newly-christened Scarlet Spider, who knocked him out and led to his apprehension. Now Eddie Brock and the symbiote are separated and incarcerated by the government.

This brings us to Separation Anxiety (Venom #23-26) written by Howard Mackie and drawn by Ron Randall.

In a bout with splitting hairs, I always found it interesting that they named a videogame after this story. For one, the game’s story isn’t based on Separation Anxiety, but Lethal Protector. Second, the game is meant to be a sequel to Maximum Carnage, even though that story came after Lethal Protector. Third, even though Carnage had nothing to do with Lethal Protector, they toss him in as the final boss for the hell of it. Hey, they did have those sprites lying around from the last game.

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I don’t care much about Mark Millar’s Old Man Logan arc in the pages of Wolverine one way or the other, but I don’t get this part. Logan and Hawkeye drive around South Dakota and pass this.

The Venom symbiote just chilling on the side of a mountain. No reference to it anywhere. It’s just that panel. The hell is that about?

Anyway, before I get into the next Venom arc, we should take a look at Marvel Comics Presents #160-163. There were no Venom appearances in these issues. There were stories involving Tigra, Slapstick, Hawkeye and Vengeance, but nothing with Venom. Why is it so important? Because it introduces a character named Mace.

Mace is a character created by Carl Potts. Through the four issues, he writes an origin for him as basically the Japanese Wolverine. A criminal organization called the Sunrise Society takes the cloned DNA of a skilled martial artist and has it genetically engineered to create the perfect warrior. Since the Society is paranoid and thinks the scientist that created Mace is a traitor, they have him killed. The scientist is quick to destroy all of his notes, making Mace one-of-a-kind. Using his new cyber ninja skills, Mace escapes the Sunrise Society and knows freedom for the first time in his life.

He’s armed with a cybernetic mace, a healing factor, a laser gun that’s fine-tuned to the tattoo on his arm so it only works when he’s holding it, special vision abilities and… you don’t care. I don’t care. Nobody cares. Nobody has ever cared about Mace other than Carl Potts. That’s why we have Venom: The Mace (Venom #16-18 for those keeping track), featuring the superhero team-up that NOBODY asked for.

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Halloween was just a couple days ago, but I still feel the need to post this from one of today’s stories.

The Spider-Man and Captain America costumes are sort of okay, but that Wolverine kid’s got the height accuracy.

We’ve seen Venom deal with Spider-Man a couple times, then cross paths with the Punisher and at some point help put an end to Carnage’s plot to destroy New York City. Now what?

Well… more crossovers, I’m afraid. First off is The Madness, a 3-parter by Ann Nocenti (words) and Kelley Jones (art). In on-going terms, this would be Venom #10-12, ending off his first year as an anti-hero.

The Madness centers around two very strong concepts that appeal to me, but unfortunately they’re bogged down by ridiculousness. The first idea is Venom vs. Juggernaut. That’s just my character bias.

Then there’s the idea of more Parker-to-Brock escalation. In that last story, Pyre was to Venom as Venom was to Spider-Man. Same concept here. Spider-Man’s a pretty sane guy, so the idea of a sentient costume added to his person messed with his head and forced him to take action. Brock, on the other hand, was totally cool with it. So this story goes to the next step. Instead of Venom being made of two beings, he’s suddenly made of three. This third being, while granting extra strength, is so extreme that even Eddie Brock needs to take notice.

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In the prologue, I discussed Venom: Deathtrap: The Vault, which reader Mark Cook was quick to point out was just an Avengers graphic novel that Marvel re-released with Venom’s name stamped on it. I forgot to bring up one panel that always stuck out at me featuring Iron Man. He seemed to resemble a certain cartoon talkshow host.

“Look, listen everybody… please? Listen to me. I have a hit song about a knife and, yes, I am the head of an international peacekeeping organization.”

Venom had spent several years terrorizing Spider-Man whenever he could, but Marvel deemed him popular enough to get his own series. That would be all well and good, but he’s driven by his insatiable hunger for Spider-Man’s brains. How do you cut away from that?

The answer is to get character creator David Michelinie together with Mark Bagley and write two issues of Amazing Spider-Man. Of course, Michelinie is the creator in theory. There’s a lot of debate over who truly created the concept, but at the very least, Michelinie came up with who he was as a character. Between this story and the one following, he’d lay down the groundwork for the other writers intent on writing Venom.

It takes place in Amazing Spider-Man #374 and #375. Look at that cover. People talk about how great MacFarlane’s Venom is, but I personally consider Bagley’s take to be the definitive version.

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(WE CARE A LOT!) About the gamblers and the pushers and the geeks
(WE CARE A LOT!) About the smack and crack and whack that hits the streets
(WE CARE A LOT!) About the welfare of all you boys and girls
(WE CARE A LOT!) About you people ‘cause we’re out to save the world! Yeah!
Well, it’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it

— Faith No More, “We Care a Lot”

I’m going to do a little history lesson here. While yes, it is about Venom, for this first part, it’s more about me, my interest in comics and this very site.

We all have our stories about how we got into comics. Whether it be because someone lent you a copy of Killing Joke or your father read you issues of Rom: Spaceknight when you just a kid, we all have something to say about it. For me, it was sometime in early 1994. In our neighborhood, we had this place called The Great American Party Store which had party supplies and was THE place to go every October for Halloween costumes and decorations.

They also sold comics and as I looked through the area out of boredom, I came across Venom: The Madness #3.

I may not have been into comics, but thanks to television and videogames, I knew who Venom and Juggernaut were. Juggernaut was that awesome domed dude from that X-Men cartoon that I watched all the time and Venom was that bastard who would randomly jump out and attack me in the Genesis Spider-Man game. I never was able to beat him on the Daily Bugle level. Still, I found his evil Spider-Man design magnetic. When I saw this cover, it blew my mind.

Venom’s a good guy now? And he’s fighting the Juggernaut?! This rules!

What, I was 13 at the time. What do you expect?

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If it wasn’t for the fact that Frank Cho apparently needs ten hours to draw each female butt cheek and get it just right, the current arc in Mighty Avengers would be long over and we would be getting ready for the symbiote invasion. That’s not stopping New Avengers, where the underdog superheroes have already been possessed by the liquid nightmares. Not too much of the story is revealed yet. We still don’t totally understand what is going on and how all this came to be. Instead, New Avengers focuses more on the Hood hanging back with old Luke Cage villains and a Punisher bad guy Bendis has taken a shining to.

We do know that in the story, we will eventually see what looks like the Carnage symbiote take over Wasp and become giant. Bendis has also spilled the beans long ago that Doctor Doom is behind this for some reason. The first place my mind goes to is the old Spider-Man arcade game from the early 90’s. Not only did that game feature a 40-foot Venom, but the gist of the plot is that Doom was trying to take over the world with an army of symbiotes.

But that’s not what this article is about. This is about the first time New York City was under siege by the toothy, gooey monstrosities. As much as it might pain you to do this, let’s take a trip back to 1995, for the Planet of the Symbiotes.

The story thus far: Venom was in the midst of his anti-hero run, which only I enjoyed, apparently. Though stationed in San Francisco for a while, he relocated to New York City because the crossover potential was stronger. Enter Ben Reilly, the Scarlet Spider. This clone of Peter Parker heard Venom was in the area and made his superhero debut by defeating him. By removing the symbiote from Eddie Brock with his impact webbing (remember that?), he was able to dominate Venom in a way Spider-Man never could at that point. Eddie and the symbiote stayed separated for quite a while, until getting involved in an adventure with his colorful symbiote children introduced in the Lethal Protector story. Eventually, Eddie and the symbiote became one again.

Here’s the thing that few people realize about Eddie Brock, or at least Eddie Brock in the 90’s. Eddie never really was all that crazy. He was never the picture of perfect mental health, yes, but he wasn’t a raving lunatic. All of that came from the symbiote and being Venom. When the symbiote and its influence were taken away during that period of time, Eddie had time to reflect. He realized all the death he’s caused and how pointless his hatred of Spider-Man was. He didn’t intend to ever wear the costume again and instead just wanted to die. After being forced to don the symbiote again, the subtle control over his actions returned. This time, he’s more aware of it and wants to investigate it.

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SPIDER-MAN AND POWER PACK #4 (of 4)
Written by MARC SUMERAK
Pencils and Cover by GURIHIRU
It’s siblings vs. symbiotes as Spider-Man and Power Pack find themselves up against a new enemy they never expected — one of their own teammates! Has sweet little Katie Power finally gone to the dark side…and if so, will she ever want to come back?! Find out in the spine-tingling conclusion to this team-up tale!
32 PGS./All Ages …$2.99

Is it just me or is this the single most adorable comics cover to ever come out of Marvel? Gurihiru did a bang-up job on it. Katie Power as Venom (though she may be afraid of spiders) is a pretty funny idea. I look at this comic and think, “Now this is a comic I want to read!”

I’ve got some catching up to do for 4l. Got some new headers to upload, most of them courtesy of the big G-A-V-O-K, a couple posts to make, and hopefully pull off something special for our one-year anniversary for the relaunch.

Busy bee.