Welcome back to another week of panels. Again, I’m joined by my usual panel of panel panelists in David Brothers, Was Taters and Space Jawa. Pretty full week this time around so let’s get to it.
Azrael #15
David Hine and Cliff Richards
Batman, Inc. #2
Grant Morrison and Yanick Paquette
It’s been announced today that Rick Remender and Tony Moore — the guys who game us Fear Agent and Frankencastle — are joining forces once again for another ongoing.
Yes, Venom #1 will be released this coming March. Although the host is a secret (from what I hear, it’s totally John Jameson), the alien/human hybrid will be off trying to save the world under the government’s watch. Sure, this is the third time Venom’s worked as a government lackey, but I don’t stop eating pizza because I’ve had it twice before. Here’s a look at Venom-Wolf’s not-slobbering-and-crazy-for-human-flesh appearance.
So, yeah. I’m completely on board.
The real question is what do I have to do to become the guy who writes the “Venom Saga” backup in the first issue?
As I talked about in my article about NYCC ’10, I decided to make use of Artist Alley after three years of passing it by. The question was, what did I want out of it? Asking for a sketch of just a comic character wasn’t enticing enough for me. I needed something just a little extra.
Therefore, I came up with the Venom Plus Prop Challenge, based on fulfilling my own typecast. Each artist would be tasked with drawing Venom along with another object. Any object. What will the prop be? That’s up to the artist his/herself. I had a lot of fun with this and got a good pile of sketches out of it.
Let the showcase begin.
Venom with Lobster Bib
by Todd Nauck
Venom with Handlebar Mustache
by Jacob Chabot
For the past week, Marvel’s been revealing the upcoming What If stories and creative teams. We have a story about Norman Osborn winning the Siege. We have a backup where Stan Lee tells what would have happened if the Watcher killed Galactus during their original debuts. What would have happened had Spider-Man killed Kraven during the Grim Hunt? Or if Clint Barton assassinated Norman Osborn? Or if Dr. Doom and Tony Stark were roommates and… uh… they switch brains and Tony loses his memory and… oh, who knows.
One of the issues is about Wolverine raising Daken. An interesting comic on its own, but keep reading.
WHAT IF? WOLVERINE: FATHER
Written by ROB WILLIAMS
Penciled by GREG TOCCHINI
Cover by LEINIL FRANCIS YU
Back-Up Story By RICK REMENDER & SHAWN MOLL
If there’s one person who shouldn’t raise a child, it’s a berserker killing machine. In the regular Marvel Universe, Logan wasn’t there for Daken, and his son grew up to become the murderous Dark Wolverine. But what would have happened if Logan had known of Daken’s existence as a child, and had taken him under his wing from his first moments? Can a child with Logan’s blood running through his veins ever turn his back on murder? Can Logan find redemption and be a good father? Raising Daken will be Wolverine’s greatest battle. PLUS, What If: The Venom Symbiote Possessed Deadpool – Part 2!
40 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99
So let’s review for a second.
THE GUY WHO WRITES FRANKENCASTLE.
WHAT IF.
VENOM.
DEADPOOL.
It’s official. I have a secret admirer at Marvel.
Speaking of Frank Castle, alternate realities, Deadpool and I guess Venom, I should probably get around to writing that one review…
An online discussion about Spidey Super Stories led to someone making the joke about how Sesame Street and Marvel share continuity and how he’d like to see the Venom symbiote latch onto the Cookie Monster. We all had a laugh, but a guy named Carl the Shivan decided to go the extra mile. What followed is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Venom Nom Nom is brought to you by the letter V.
If you ever get paint spilled all over you or you fall into a big pile of mud, all you need is a really strong person to pull you out of it in one go!
I’m off for a couple days. CHIKARA’s King of Trios starts today in Philly. When I do come back, after the usual This Week in Panels update, I’m going to be starting up a 5-part series relating to a great man who relates to a movie coming out this summer. And if you don’t come back to read about him… well, I pity you.
Sorry for the long break there. For the past few months I was more busy writing about Eddie Guerrero and Brock Lesnar than Eddie Brock, so I had to let the whole We Care a Lot thing fall to the waysides. Now, then. Where were we? Ah, yes. I was talking about alternate reality versions of Venom for the sake of completion. Now it’s time to look into the future.
I was originally going to call this installment “Brock to the Future”, but I noticed that no matter what alternate future you look at, Eddie’s days are almost always numbered. Even in the futures where he could still be theoretically alive, he’s not only dead, but they don’t feel the need to explain how he bit the dust. Same goes for Mac Gargan, except for when he appears as Scorpion in Spider-Man: Reign.
I’ll go farther out into the future and inch my way back towards the present. That means starting with All-New Savage She-Hulk, a miniseries by rocking writer Fred Van Lente. The new She-Hulk is Lyra, who has come to Earth from an alternate future, hundreds or thousands of years from now. Her mother is Thundra, a warrior leader in the never-ending war between barbarian men and amazon women. Thundra went back to the present, scraped some DNA off the Hulk’s face during a fight, went back to her time and created Lyra. Lyra is the bane of her people for having a father, despite her great strength. That strength, by the way, comes from a zen mentality. If she gets angry, she becomes increasingly weaker.
So what does she have to do with Venom? In her time, the men are mostly split into tribes that worship the long-dead superheroes. Since her reality seems to be based on Osborn never being dethroned, the tribes are mostly copycats of different Dark Avengers. They have the clawed Howlers, the Goblinkin, the Men of Gold, the War Gods and, of course, the Crawlers.
Not only that, but the Venom symbiote still exists in her time. Man, what kind of life expectancy do these creatures have, anyway? The women warriors have their home protected by a moat with the creature now known as “The Black Bloom” residing. The women are treated with a pheromone that renders them invisible to the symbiote, meaning that when the tribes of Crawlers, Goblinkin and so on chase Lyra, they end up getting devoured by the hungry pool of black.
Later on the story, when Lyra is in the present, she fights the Dark Avengers. She’s amused that Venom wears the Black Bloom and easily disposes of him. After all, her pheromones make her into Venom’s kryptonite.
For those who haven’t noticed or forgot, a nasty storm caused me to lose my cable connection last week and rather than wait a day to post TWiP, I made the dumbass decision to add it onto the next week. Apparently I was too busy to notice that this week was a huge one regardless, making this a gigantic update. Welp, let’s get moving.
The A-Team: Shotgun Wedding #1
Joe Carnahan, Tom Waltz, Stephen Mooney
Amazing Spider-Man #624
Mark Waid, Tom Peyer, Paul Azaceta and Javier Rodriguez
So, Street Fighter II Turbo #11 came out last week, but I’m putting it here anyway. My shop got it late and hermanos’s SF2 Valentine thing means I kind of have to include it. Besides, half of the issue is Akuma showing M. Bison how he ranks. That makes it worth looking at more than anything.
Amazing Spider-Man #620
Dan Slott, Marcos Martin and Javier Pulido
Batman and Robin #8
Grant Morrison, Cameron Stewart
It’s time for the second part of the journey to check out the other alternate universe takes on Venom. We should probably start off with—wait, a sec.
What about Exiles? That’s a series that’s all about different Marvel universes. From what I’ve seen, Venom got shafted throughout. There was an inclusion of Peter Parker with the Carnage symbiote (I think), but Venom wouldn’t appear until the very last issue.
You see, Marvel always has to give Chris Claremont something to do… or else. He’s like the incompetent nephew that Quesada always has to give work to or else his sister will give him hell. They tend to give him stories that take place outside of Marvel 616, such as Exiles. The series became New Exiles and Claremont ran it into the ground, all while fulfilling his rampant [insert female X-Men member] fantasies. They relaunched it with Jeff Parker at the helm, where Morph would lead a team made up of Blink, Scarlet Witch, Beast, Black Panther, Forge and Polaris. It was fun, but nobody cared because of the stigma attached to the previous run. It was canceled by #6.
Venom appeared for a single panel. Why did I go through all that explanation to cover a single stinking panel? Because in it, the team sees another Exiles supergroup and I just know that Jeff Parker made the wrong choice.
Look at that team! I swear, if Parker went with that lineup instead of mutants and wacky Black Panther, it would be outselling Blackest Night.
