Venom #12 – Review

By: Rick Remender (writer), Lan Medina Nelson DeCastro (artists), Marte Gracia (colors)

The Story: What happens in Vegas…could get all your loved-ones killed.

The Good: I have a confession to make: this is the issue of Venom I have been waiting for. Don’t get me wrong, I love what Rick Remender has done to rehabilitate the character. Making the main source of tension the interplay between symbiote and host allows Venom to have a purpose outside of being a Spider-Man support character. Flash’s complicated past and stressed relationships give him compelling motivations and a pathos Eddie Brock never achieved. But honestly, I have really wanted to see Venom absolutely rage out. In this issue, Lan Medina finally gives us that release, and it feels like a dam has been broken. After surviving a road trip with his nemesis, Venom is forced to break into a casino and steal an item for the Crime Master. Unfortunately for everyone, the symbiote guesses what the package is, and that sends it into a rage. We’ve seen Flash lose control of Venom a few times in this run, but never like this. Here, Jekyll is completely stripped away to give us raw, unadulterated Hyde. Venom looks monstrous, grotesque, and more intimidating here than he ever has since this ongoing began. When Jack O’Lantern sees that Flash has lost control he steps in to try to bring Venom to heel; boy, is it gratifying to watch Jack realize he’s bitten off more than he can chew.

It’s fascinating to watch Flash resist, struggle, and finally succumb to the symbiote. There’s a moment where Venom is gracefully smashing down an armored door that encapsulates beautiful contrast between rage and serenity in this takeover; as he soars through the air, Flash thinks, “Something in my system…a reward…an opiate…the symbiote is putting me to sleep.” Then the door comes down, and all hell breaks loose. It’s truly an operatic moment. From there, the narration stops, and it’s Venom’s show. When the narration returns at the very end, saying nothing but the words, “Do it,” it’s hard to say who’s issuing the command.

Venom #10 – Review

By: Rick Remender (writer), Len Medina (pencils), Nelson Decastro (inker), Marty Gracia (colorist)

The Story: Flash attends his father’s funeral, and mourns his losses.

What’s Good: I’m a big fan of Tony Moore, so when I heard that he would be doing the art for Venom, I started picking up the book basically to see more of his work. Likewise, when Tom Fowler was first brought in as a substitute artist, I was pleasantly surprised by how close Fowler stayed to Moore’s aesthetic without compromising too much of his own sensibilities. But in this issue, Len Medina brings in fine, smooth pencil work and clean, open settings that present the biggest departure yet on the art front. It’s a risk for a book previously noteworthy for dense, rich textures, and it pays off beautifully.

“Austere” best sums up the atmosphere of this issue. From the opening in the cemetery, to Crime Lord’s den, to Project: Rebirth itself, everything feels cold and unwelcoming, and even eerily quiet. The fight on the snowy cliffs actually had me feeling chilly as I read it. For an issue with less nail-biting action and more verbal confrontations than we’ve seen in previous issues, the effect is great.

On the writing side, I’m similarly impressed. Matching a one-note villain like Venom with the complex character of Flash Thompson has turned out to be mutually beneficial, as I suppose befits a story about a symbiote. But given how stale most incarnations of Venom have been, this is a truly welcome change. Rick Remender uses this issue to deal with the fallout of three plot threads: the death of Flash’s father, Jack O’Lantern and Crime Master’s knowledge of Flash’s identity, and Captain America’s discovery of the true purpose of Project: Rebirth. Remender does a great job with each thread, and weaves them together deftly. Particularly well handled is the very cruel and very clever way Jack returns to the scene. In the face of the ensuing confrontations, Flash makes some decisions that really shatter the status quo for the series, and take our hero on the first steps toward the upcoming “Venom Event” in February. I can’t wait.

X-Men Legacy #251 – Review

By: Mike Carey (writer), Khoi Pham (pencils), Tom Palmer, Craig Yeung & Nelson DeCastro (inks), Marte Gracia (colors), Cory Petit (letters), Sebastian Girner (assistant editor) & Daniel Ketchum (editor)

The Story: An X-team consisting of Magneto, Rogue, Gambit, Frenzy, Legion and the Professor head off to “capture” several of Legion’s personalities that have broken free.

What’s Good: The various Legion personalities are kinda neat.  I do have a fundamental problem with them that I’ll talk about below, but seeing new mutants introduced who have weird and wacky powers is fun and a good call-back to the old days when it seemed like new mutants were turning up every issue.  I don’t want to go back to those days, but it’s still fun to see new characters sometimes.  It’s only a slight spoiler, but there’s one guy named Chain who turns everyone he touches into a clone of himself except with a different weapon, so when Rogue and Magneto fight “him” they’re really fighting an entire city.  Then there’s another personality that is a little girl that feed off and manipulates emotion.  Seeing these new characters is kinda fun.  Can’t wait to see what Styx can do!

The pacing of this issue is also pretty solid as the team resolves a few of the wayward Legion personalities in this issue.  When I first heard that Legion had 6 breakaway personalities, I groaned a little bit in fear that we might have a 6-issue story arc, but that appears not to be the case.  And, to his credit, Carey hasn’t given us many overly long stories during his multi-year tenure on the title.

The remaining positive is just the freshness of this team.  These are all characters that aren’t getting much to do in the other X-books AND the issue is completely devoid of Cyclops and Wolverine.  Even if a few of these characters aren’t my favorites, there are fans who enjoy them and it makes sense for at least one of the X-books to focus on “other” characters.  Heck, each book should focus on unique sets of characters, but that would be asking too much.

Incredible Hercules #136 – Review

By Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente (writers), Reilly Brown (artist), Nelson DeCastro (inker), Guillem Mari & Ulises Areola (colorists)

The Story: As Queen Alfyse prepares to lead her kingdom to war against Asgard, the epic saga of Thorcules and Hercuthor ends the only way it can, with the bad boys of polytheism throwing down and giving each other the gift of battle!

The Good: This latest storyline is easily one of the finest crafted by Pak and Van Lente, and that’s high praise for a book that is telling consistently good stories month after month.  Part of what makes this comic, and this storyline in particular; so successful is that for the time being at least both Hercules and Thor have the benefit of being kept at a relatively safe distance from the mainstream Marvel universe.  Since neither character is currently mired in continuity they are both free to enjoy a certain degree of latitude, which the creative team takes full advantage of to great effect.  This issue sees the delightfully absurd premise of Hercules pretending to be Thor taken to its logical extreme as Thor does unto Herc what’s already been done to him.  Presumably this is done in order to somehow stem the tide of Queen Alfyse’s impending war, but we know the real reason is simply to give the guys a chance to beat on each other while wearing each other’s clothes, and oddly enough I am so okay with that.  The battle royal between Herc and Thor is as much a raucous comedy as it is an epic, glorious brawl, and you’ll find it hard not to chuckle as each champion resorts to a string of dirty tricks to best the other.  The best part is that you can still pick up this issue without having read the previous ones and still follow along just fine, and in my opinion that is one of the hallmarks of some great storytelling.  I would of course be remiss if I didn’t compliment Brown and the art team for brilliant rendering this tale of balderdash and bravura, as their efforts made every page a pleasure to take in and enjoy.

The Not So Good:  You’ll notice soon that the brawl between Hercules and Thor devolves into a series of progressively infantile jokes and will either find them to be thoroughly amusing or just a tad too juvenile and out of character.  You wouldn’t be wrong either way though, just be forewarned that this is not your typical superhero battle.  Then again, maybe that’s a good thing.

Conclusion:  Wow, what a damn good comic!  You can’t go wrong with picking up Incredible Hercules 136 this week.  Not to be missed!

Grade:  A

-Tony Rakittke

Incredible Hercules #134 – Review

By Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente (writers), Reilly Brown (artist), Nelson DeCastro (inker), Guillem Mari (colors)

The Story: The Mighty Thorcules and his child-father Zeus continue their excellent adventure through the realms of Asgard, stopping along the way to give the gift of battle to a band of trolls, share double entendres with the queen of the dark elves, and find yet more ridiculously amusing ways to ruin their best laid plans.

The Good: Everything, I kid you not, but especially the fine folks making this comic.  With the addition of the art team of Brown, DeCastro, and Mari, I feel like Incredible Hercules has finally found the quality of talent it needs to bring to life the light-hearted kinds of stories Pak and Van Lente are knocking out of the ballpark month after month.  If every single person producing this book hasn’t yet been offered an exclusive contract, then Marvel is making a huge mistake, since they have the right people for this book. I’d love to see them all stay on it for as long as possible. That said, this continues to be a very funny comic, and while the rest of the Marvel Universe seems to be drowning in a sea of grim melodrama, I really appreciate that I can turn to this book to escape all the bleakness and simply have some fun.

The Not So Good: The only thing that slightly annoyed me with this issue was DeCastro’s heavy-handed inks, especially the way he seemed to outline characters thick, black lines.  This approach often made pages look like they were animation cels, which in turn made the overall story a little too cute and a little light-hearted at times.  If DeCastro would ease up a little on the ink, this would easily be corrected.  Even if he doesn’t though, I didn’t find it to be a big enough problem to detract from the story.

Conclusion: Incredible Hercules is a great book made even better with a  stellar creative team now firmly in place.  Longtime fans of the character, and anyone familiar with his rivalry with Thor, will surely bust a gut laughing throughout storyline. And judging from the last page, I’d say things are about to become funnier than ever.

Grade:  B+

-Tony Rakittke