Venom War has a sense of finality. I knew this was going to be the closure of the symbiote / Brock boys saga, which helped raise the stakes and made me want to push to the end, even as the panel-to-panel storytelling faltered.
The event represents the best and worst of Marvel editorials’ decision to hold as much continuity as they can in the main 616 universe. On one hand, you get an interesting retrospective from the Venom symbiote talking about all of its hosts, which is a positive reflection of Marvel consistently bucking the status quo with the character, but on the other hand you have the board room subplot, which contains an evil Eddie Brock, Carnage, but not quite real carnage (I think?), and a slew of other characters that had minimal impact but had to be there for the finale.
Marvel
Issue #1 is the standout of the event. It sets the tone on page 1 panel 1 — Camp with a capital C – had a strong multi-page symbiote monologue and ensuing conversation with Peter Parker that sold me on the characters, and the momentum of the storytelling establishing this as the final chapter of a 35+ year story that started in Secret Wars #8.
The alien theme starts strong. The symbiote questioning its place in the world and grappling with its intent of enhancing the hosts it has occupied over the years is destroying them. By issue #5, they landed the plane on the theme, but there is turbulence on the way. I wanted to connect with the Dylan and Eddie story. It was years in the making, and Al Ewing did everything he could…but I just couldn’t get there. They are fun, complex characters that hopefully stay in the forefront of the venom-verse moving forward, but I only enjoyed them as a vehicle to move from fight to fight here.
Issue #5 neatly wraps up Venom War. I am satisfied with five issues. I don’t know how much juice they could have squeezed out of this story if they upped the issue count. By the end, the structure was wearing thin, and it managed to end at the right time. No spoilers, but the two major new threads that come from this soft reset of the Venom-verse, a mystery for one character and a massive decision for another, will be fun to continue in 2025.
I could tell Al Ewing had a solid hold on the large stable characters and motivations, and did everything to try and quickly introduce them to a larger audience who would tune into the event. Some of it worked, some didn’t. And this might just be me not connecting with the dialogue style, but there would be phrases or words that felt so out of place that it would take me out of the story. Even used in the correct context, I’m still trying to wrap my brain around Eddie Brock using the term “kayfabe”.
Iban Coello’s art is a true standout of Venom War. Every other panel could be cropped and turned into an iPhone background. Each hit carried weight, and the up-close, detailed views of the violence let you see the faces crumble from the force. Coello created a larger-than-life world with more muscle than a human, or symbiote, could realistically have. They carry that unrestrained style into the violence, and the event is all the better for it. Another interesting part of the art was the ‘zombiote’ (you have to read it, guys) subplot and how inventive the ‘turning’ process was as the infection spread.
Marvel
The ‘rule of cool’ was often followed in each issue of Venom Wars, which was the best decision for the story. The plot struggled to ramp up the emotional character stakes, but I gladly stuck around to see what awesome splash panel or costume redesign they would throw at me when I turned the page.
Venom War is a popcorn summer blockbuster in the form of a comic book event. It might lack the depth of the more popular events, but damn does the punching and kicking look beautiful.
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