"Venom: Sting of the Scorpion"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Venom: Sting of the Scorpion” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            Eddie Brock’s mother died giving birth to Eddie, something that Eddie’s sister Mary and father Carl struggled to get past as Eddie grew up. As a child, Eddie was a pathological liar, making things up to seem more impressive to others, particularly girls. Eddie always had an interest in the news, and one night, Eddie’s father joked that Eddie should report the news, something that Eddie took to heart. To appear impressive to the Director of Admissions at Empire State University, Eddie lied about an internship at the San Franscisco Chronicle, which helped him get into college. While on a walk at night, Eddie and a female co-ed named Ann Weying, whom Eddie was trying to impress, were attacked by muggers. Ann was knocked unconscious during the struggle. Spider-Man was in the neighborhood and swung to their rescue and knocked out the muggers, then left the scene, leaving Eddie to falsely take credit for protecting Ann when Ann came to. After college, Eddie and Ann got married, and Eddie got a job as an intern at the Daily Globe, but Eddie lied to Ann and said he was a reporter. While going through mail for the letters column, Eddie found a letter to the editor from a man calling himself the Sin-Eater, taking credit for the murder of New York Police Department Captain Jean DeWolff and leaving a date and location of where the killer next planned to make contact. Rather than deliver the letter to the editor, Eddie went to the payphone the Sin-Eater called, and Eddie interviewed the Sin-Eater. The editor would not run Eddie’s interview unless the Sin-Eater killed again, and when the Sin-Eater struck again, Eddie made the front page. Sin-Eater liked the sensitivity Eddie portrayed to the Sin-Eater’s plight in the article and Sin-Eater asked to meet Eddie at a church. Eddie met the Sin-Eater, who told Eddie the Sin-Eater’s next target would be Reverend Bernard Finn, and that the Sin-Eater’s true identity was Emil Gregg. After Reverend Finn’s murder, Sin-Eater contacted Eddie again and told Eddie Sin-Eater’s next target would be J. Jonah Jameson, published or rival newspaper The Daily Bugle. The NYPD found out Eddie had become Sin-Eater’s contact, and the police arrested Eddie as an accessory to murder. While awaiting trial, Eddie’s father made contact with Eddie to voice Carl’s disappointment in Eddie protecting a murderer. This led Eddie to publish Gregg’s identity as the Sin-Eater. Gregg was arrested attempting to assassinate Jameson, but with the help of Spider-Man, Stan Carter was arrested as the Sin-Eater, and Eddie’s source was revealed to be a copycat and not the actual Sin-Eater. The Globe had to recall the edition Eddie’s story broke out on and Eddie was fired. Following this, Ann filed for a divorce from Eddie. At a total low, Eddie went to the church he met Gregg in, and the alien symbiote that had previously been attached to Spider-Man bonded with Eddie. Hearing Eddie, the priest called the police. The police suspected Eddie to be on drugs and attempted to apprehend him, but the symbiote reacted and the two police officers did not survive the encounter while Eddie and the symbiote walked away. Eddie signed the divorce papers and ended Eddie’s marriage to Ann. The symbiote revealed to Eddie that the symbiote’s former host Spider-Man’s true identity was Peter Parker. Both Eddie and the symbiote nursed a hatred for Spider-Man and vowed revenge on Spider-Man. Eddie and the symbiote went to Peter Parker’s apartment and attacked Peter’s wife Mary Jane and told Mary Jane that Eddie was going to kill Spider-Man. Spider-Man fought Eddie and the symbiote, who now called themselves Venom, but this battle only the beginning of Spider-Man and Venom’s war.

            Years later, Carnage, the result of the bonding between the symbiote offspring of Venom and serial killer Cletus Kasady, was going to give birth. Carnage was not happy that he was going to reproduce and was planning to eliminate his offspring. Symbiote fathers never had loving relationships with their children. Following the birth of the symbiote, NYPD officer Patrick Mulligan had come to the scene of a disturbance caused by Carnage, and the symbiote attached to Mulligan. Mulligan, not knowing he was hosting a symbiote, went home to his pregnant wife Gina. Venom went to Mulligan’s apartment to protect Mulligan and Gina from an attack by Carnage. Spider-Man also came to the fight, and saved Gina, who went into labor. After pulling off a successful art robbery, Felicia Hardy/Black Cat came to Mulligan’s rescue. Venom vowed an allegiance with his grandson, whom he dubbed Toxin. Edward Mulligan was born. Mulligan was informed of the art robbery and recognized Black Cat in the surveillance photograph. Mulligan arranged a meeting with Black Cat, where the two were attacked by Carnage. Mulligan became Toxin and fought off Carnage. Mulligan was horrified that he had become a monster but decided to keep this fact a secret. Toxin went back to fight Carnage but held back on causing a fatality. Venom and Carnage realized Toxin was on the path of becoming a superhero and decided to team up to end him. Toxin stopped an armed robbery, and almost went fatal on the robbers, but with the help of Spider-Man, got the situation under control. Venom and Carnage attacked Toxin and overpowered Toxin, but Spider-Man and Black Cat came to Toxin’s rescue. After the villains were defeated, Mulligan realized that for his whole life, he would now be a target of Venom and Carnage and left Gina and Edward for their own protection while he went on the run.

            Peter’s Aunt May Parker had been abducted by a supervillain and was possibly dead. The Daily Bugle was offering a five million dollar cash prize for a photo of Spider-Man’s secret identity. Eddie received a cancer diagnosis and found religion. Eddie decided to get rid of the Venom symbiote and let the cancer do its work, so Eddie went to Phineas Mason/Tinkerer to hold an auction, the lot being the Venom symbiote. An assortment of super criminals and mob figures, including crime boss Don Fortunato, attended the auction. Spider-Man stopped at a diner where he met a waitress named Ramona, who had a sick grandson. The child’s grandfather was Adrian Toomes/Vulture, and Spider-Man had just stopped the Vulture from committing a robbery that Vulture would have given the money to Vulture’s grandson. To take Peter’s mind off of Aunt May, Mary Jane suggested Peter and Mary Jane attend Peter’s high school reunion. Don Fortunato won the Venom symbiote auction and gave the symbiote to Fortunato’s weakling son Angelo Fortunato. The new Venom attacked Spider-Man at Peter’s high school reunion. After taking it to the streets, Venom tried to kill Spider-Man, succeeding in killing an impersonator seeking to make the five million dollar prize. This only angered Spider-Man further, and Angelo proved to the symbiote that Angelo didn’t have what it took to be Venom, so the symbiote abandoned Angelo. Eddie had a bad reaction to Angelo and Venom’s split up. Peter found a way to end the Spider-Man secret identity photo contest and settle things with Ramona. Mac Gargan/Scorpion contacted Peter, revealing he was Aunt May’s kidnapper. He demanded that Spider-Man would break Norman Osborn/Green Goblin out of prison or Aunt May would face the consequences. Spider-Man agreed, and with Black Cat’s help, was able to break Osborn out of jail. Osborn double-crossed Spider-Man with an attack by an army of Spider-Man’s worst enemies. Scorpion was supposed to appear. Osborn had sent Gargan a new Scorpion suit. The Venom symbiote found Gargan, and Gargan attended Osborn’s attack on Spider-Man and Black Cat not as Scorpion, but as Venom. Osborn was not happy with Venom’s appearance, but continued Osborn’s plan of revenge on Spider-Man by going after Mary Jane as Spider-Man fought Spider-Man’s enemies. Just as Spider-Man and Black Cat were losing, a group of Spider-Man’s allies, summoned by Mary Jane, joined the fight. Spider-Man attempted to go after Osborn but was halted by Venom. Spider-Man was able to defeat Venom, but Osborn had already reached Mary Jane. Spider-Man was able to prevail, Peter was reunited with Aunt May, Gargan was apprehended, and Eddie was hospitalized.

            After Peter unmasked as Spider-Man on live television, Aunt May was shot and clung to life in the hospital. Eddie was still residually haunted by Venom, despite no longer being physically bonded to the symbiote. Eddie discovered that Peter’s Aunt May was dying in the same hospital Eddie was dying in. Venom saw this as a perfect opportunity for revenge on Spider-Man. Peter wanted to reach Aunt May on the astral plane and bring May back to consciousness. Peter went to the clairvoyant Cassandra Webb/Madame Web to ask for Madame Web’s help in contacting May. With the aid of Mary Jane and Aunt Anna Watson, Peter was able to reach Aunt May. Aunt May told Peter she was ready to die. Eddie could not go through with Venom’s plan to get revenge on Spider-Man.

            Carmilla Black debuted as the new Scorpion. Venom was not happy that his former namesake had been taken and wished to defend his trademark by eliminating Scorpion. Scorpion had to defend herself with her power to absorb toxins to survive Venom’s assault.

The Cape Killers came after Venom in violation of the Superhuman Registration Act. After Venom took them out, Songbird and Radioactive Man, representing the Thunderbolts, came to Gargan with the offer of joining the team. Venom accepted the offer.

While the Thunderbolts battled Biohazard, Venom was pulled aside by Whirlwind, who arranged Gargan to be able to leave Thunderbolts Mountain without consequence. Gargan met with Whirlwind, Tiger Shark, Boomerang, and Mister Hyde, who blackmailed Gargan into arranging a meeting between the quartet of villains and Norman Osborn. Gargan agreed. The villains found out what it was like to cross Norman Osborn.

Okay, we have that rather lengthy plot summary out of the way, now it’s time to move onto my individual bits in this review. Let’s start where we usually do, with my own personal opinions on the book. For the purposes of making this review make sense, I arranged the stories chronologically, they were not presented in this order in the collection itself. So, the verdict is… I loved the stories in this book. The “Venom Vs. Carnage” storyline was great, I loved the debut of Toxin. I enjoyed the “Venomous” segments, I liked how Spider-Man made good with Vulture’s ex. “The Last Stand” segments were enjoyable, Gargan’s debut as Venom was a great start. “The Last Temptation of Eddie Brock” was brilliant, with Eddie struggling with the remnants of being Venom, and the ending was so touching, with Eddie trying to be a better person, and Peter reaching Aunt May and what May told Peter. “Switching Sides” was a fun little bit with Venom fighting the Cape Killers and surprising Songbird and Radioactive Man by accepting the Thunderbolts offer. “Namesake” was entertaining, seeing Venom trying to defend his Scorpion trademark, and the fight was rather unexpected. “Reason in Madness” was enjoyable, seeing Norman Osborn in action as a human and not as the Green Goblin and still kicking butt was exciting. “Dark Origin” was my favorite story in the book, getting to look back at Eddie’s history and seeing what led him on his path to being who he was as both Eddie Brock and Venom was so much fun. Overall, I thought this book was very well written. Now, since this is a graphic novel, we also have to look at the artwork as well as the story. For the most part, I enjoyed the artwork. I thought most of it was relatively good, if not better. My favorites were Terry Dodson, Frank Cho, and Angel Medina, and I also enjoyed the work of Leonard Kirk. I generally enjoyed the work of Clayton Crain, but there were moments when Crain’s work did go wrong. Lee Weeks, Rick Hoberg and Ben Oliver did decent work, sometimes it was a little gritty, but I still found it enjoyable. And I did not care for the art from Leinil Francis Yu on “Switching Sides” at all. Now, I know this is being nitpicky, but I also evaluate the appropriateness of title and cover applied to graphic novels as well. And I will say that I don’t feel that “Sting of the Scorpion” was the perfect title for this book. It’s true that this book does involve Mac Gargan, the former Scorpion, but he’s not active as Scorpion in this book at all, and he also doesn’t hold as much of a majority of appearance as Venom as Eddie Brock did in this collection. I feel like a better title for this collection would have been “Dark Origin,” which would have been more fitting to the overall content for not only having the five issue “Venom: Dark Origin” limited series, but for featuring the birth of Toxin, and Angelo Fortunato and Mac Gargan both becoming Venom. As for the cover, this collection is fronted with Spider-Man perched on a building in the rain with Angelo Fortunato as Venom standing menacingly behind him. I feel like this was poor representation as Angelo appeared as Venom in only two issues in this entire book. As far as marketing goes, I feel the branding is not proper for the majority of the content in this particular collection.

Next up, we’re going to talk about accessibility. I’ve done over seven dozen reviews like this at this point, and in each one, I’ve been obligated to explain the usage of that word every single time. I know some of you have been to these reviews before and know what I’m about to say, so if you do, bear with me while I explain it to the newbs who are reading a Tim Cubbin review for the first time. So, essentially, accessibility means how easy it is to understand the material contained in this volume with no outside or prior knowledge of the characters or storylines. So, when asking the question of if this book is accessible, I will say that it really isn’t. This book has issues of “Marvel Knights Spider-Man” that are part of a twelve-issue storyline, but this book only contains excerpts and three entire issues, with only blurbs explaining the pieces that are missing. I feel like this book is extremely incomplete in that particular story. It also has tie-ins to other events like “Civil War” and “Back in Black,” detracting from making this easily accessible to beginners. I feel like if you are looking to get into reading Marvel Comics for the first time and are looking for a place to start, this book is not a good choice for you.

We’re up to the point where I give this book the ultimate evaluation: my numeric score. To some people, this is the key reason they come to read my reviews: to find out exactly how good I feel a book is. My scoring system is extremely simple: I score on a scale of exact whole numbers ranging from one through ten. The lowest score I can give is a one. That score means that this is one of the worst things I have ever read in my entire life, and the money I spent buying it and time I spent reading it were such a colossal waste and I totally regret all of it and wish I could go back and undo it. My highest score is ten. That score is reserved only for sheer perfection. That means that the story was exciting and engaging and entertaining the whole way through; the art was consistently visually appealing; the title fits the main theme of the book; and that what is shown on the cover is actually a proper representation of the content of this book. It also means that the time I spent reading this book was some of the best time of my life while consuming a form of entertainment. I’m not in the business of just handing out a ten to a book that doesn’t deserve it, and I am very hard to please. But in terms of what I’m looking for when I evaluate a book, the story was an enjoyable read, the art was, for the most part, relatively decent, but the title and cover, while are delivered upon in the book itself, don’t capture the totality of the essence of this book. So, when taking all the ingredients that make up the book, pouring them into my metaphorical blender, and blending them until they are completely fluid, then pouring the liquid out into a cup, the liquid represents a score of… an eight! This book was an enjoyable read, but the marketing does seem a little off in my opinion.

Our next stop on our journey through this review is the recommendation segment. This segment focuses on two topics. The first is to answer the question of, do I, Tim Cubbin, personally recommend this book to you, my readers, or to anyone unfortunate enough to get caught in a conversation with me about this book? The second topic is to discuss what aspects of this book would appeal to specific readers, based on the content and what a person looks for when they read a book, and not looking at the obvious of fans of Venom, Marvel, or the creative team. In answer to the question, if you are reading this review, and now, based solely on the words you’ve just spent the past few minutes reading and my personal recommendation that you want to read this book, I would tell you to definitely read this book. Hop onto your favorite online retailer, head over to your favorite bookstore, your local comic book shop, your local library, or hit up a friend or family member with this book and get your hands on a copy as soon as you can. As far as the content that readers might find appealing, if you like stories about aliens, you’d probably find this book appealing. This book is also appealing to fans of horror comics. Also, fans of stories about people dealing with depression and other psychological issues might find something to relate to in this book. And people with an interest in journalism could be interested in this book.

Okay, we’re at the point where we’re just about ready to say goodbye for now. There are a bunch of things I do have to say first. If you liked this post and want to check out more of my work, keep looking at timcubbin.blogspot.com for more content. I’ve been doing this blog for almost six years now. During that time, I’ve published over 190 posts. While I have posted short stories and poetry, this blog favors a journalistic approach, and I’ve also featured articles, essays, and editorials, but my primary focus is reviews. I’ve reviewed some prose novels, manga, and comic book events, but the majority of the reviews have been of graphic novels, particularly Marvel Epic Collections. I have done over seven dozen such reviews. I purchase every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection as soon as I can after it is released, and if possible, put up a review of it. At the moment, there are only four Modern Era Epic Collections I haven’t reviewed, three because I didn’t have a laptop to type a review on at the time, and one due to scheduling issues that made writing a review a problem and by the time I got around to being able to write a review I wasn’t able to properly recall the book to do an accurate review, but that should be amended by around the start of next year. I have reviewed every Ultimate Epic Collection released thus far. If you liked this review and want to read more similar posts, feel free to search for my reviews of “Venom: Shiver” “Venom: Agent Venom” “Venom: The Savage Six” and “Venom: Space Knight” for more Venom content. I post on a very frequent basis, at least once every two months, but usually more often than that, depending on releases of books to review and my scheduling. Just so you know, my next review is going to be on “Spider-Girl: Comes the Carnage!” You can expect to see it posted within the next two months following the publication of this post. Everything I say on this blog is strictly my opinion. I respect that you might not agree with what I have to say, and if you have ever read anything I’ve reviewed or have anything you’d like to say, like you disagreed with anything I’ve posted, or if you agree with me, or if you just want to let me know what you think of my post, feel free to leave a comment or a response or a post of some kind. I’d love to hear from you guys as I value all my readers and their opinions. Please follow, like, share, retweet, do something to spread me around the internet to your friends, that would be greatly appreciated. I’ll be doing this blog for as long as I can, so don’t expect me to stop anytime soon. I’m looking forward to posting again and hope you’ll come back to join me. That’s all I have to say for now. Until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!