Venom #4 – Review

by Rick Remender (writer), Tony Moore (pencils), Danny Miki (inks), John Rauch (colors), and Joe Caramagna (letters)

The Story: It’s Venom vs. Spider-Man in the race to save Betty Brant.

What’s Good: Hurray, Tony Moore is back.  Tom Fowler is a solid enough artist, but there really isn’t any replacing Moore’s likable, characterful, and slightly goofy style.  His work is naturally fun and both his characters and action scenes look solid.  That said, a lot of credit is due to the inking and coloring of Danny Miki and John Rauch, respectively.  Together, they’ve really helped give Venom it’s distinctive look, one that’s feels dirty, smudged, and sci-fi pulpy.

As far as Remender’s writing goes this month, his strongest work is done with Flash’s narration.  It’s intense and really close to the action and it’s rather nice to see how the action actually has a direct effect on the narration and Flash’s stream of thought.  It’s a nice change from the usual detachment that narration usually has.  More than ever, Remender also does an awesome job using the narration to show the symbiote’s effect on Flash’s psyche.  It’s most effective when Flash himself doesn’t realize small things like his referring to himself as “we.”

What’s especially cool this month is how Remender is giving the symbiote itself an increasing amount of its own sentience.  Flash essentially has a running conversation with the symbiote, who responds primarily with wordless emotion that he intuitively senses.  More creepily fun still is how the symbiote subtly does things, unbeknownst to Flash, such as how it deals with the failsafe device.  Remender is slowly building the relationship between the two and the symbiote’s attachment to Thompson.