Black Widow: Venomous blew me away, making Venom War: Venomous my most anticipated comic out this week. Erica Schultz and Luciano Vecchio take us on a wild ride with Black Widow and her new symbiote Sliver. Along the way is a Flash Thompson team-up, mindless symbiote drones, and a new poison that can kill symbiotes on sight. It packs a punch, with great art and plenty of action.
Venom War: Venomous #1 opens with an auction. The richest of the rich are in attendance, along with Black Widow, looking to be the buyer of rare things. Enter a doctor who has the only vile of symbiote-neutralizing medicine. Black Widow and Sliver hope to extinguish it to save symbiote lives.
This leads to the test of the stuff, and a symbiote showdown. Vecchio gets to design a monstrous symbiote that’s all teeth and streaky goo which looks formidable. Black Widow’s new look with the symbiote is gorgeous, with a cool mask aspect and clean lines in the symbol on her chest. Expect some cool layout design that’s organic and kinetic. It’s well-suited for symbiote fights. Well-placed panels draw your eye to small objects, and streaking diagonal panels make for eye-catching moments.
How cool is that masking-up moment?
Credit: Marvel
Schultz’ character writing is solid, with an interesting relationship building between Sliver and Black Widow. The dialogue is sharp and to the point with Sliver and Black Widow stealing the show for coolness and depth. It’s subtle, but it’s there. You can tell these two are bonding.
The second half of the book gets the team up aspect going, with Flash entering the story and the big cliffhanger build up. These scenes help define the fighting style of the two heroes, with Flash taking on a bruiser role. Not much time is spent on their dynamic, although I’m sure it’ll flesh out next issue. That said, one can see the convenient plotting to get the tie-in aspect going. The pace moves so fast in these final scenes one is left wanting.
As far as a larger story, this isn’t delivering a lot, but that’s because it’s a fight comic. The relationship between Black Widow and Sliver is the most interesting aspect, while the actual “Venom War” of it all seems distant and unimportant. One might argue that’s a failing on this tie-in book, but it’s still early.
The creative team is firing on all cylinders with Venom War: Venomous #1, which is an action focused issue with good bits of character moments.
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