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.

Weekly Comic Book Review’s Top Picks

Alex’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Batman: Gates of Gotham #2 – Detective work and an overarching sense of mythos and history that serves to enhance the story and provide atmosphere without overwhelming the reader makes for an awesome read.  Really fun artwork makes it an even more awesome read.

Most Anticipated: Scalped #50 – Though it doesn’t get as much press as it should, make no mistake, issue after issue, Scalped is continually among the best of the month.  If you at all enjoy Jason Aaron’s other work, you need to be reading this; it’s the man’s best work by far.And here we are, at 50 issues.  Not at all shabby for a creator-owned Vertigo series.  I’m really interested to see what Aaron has in store for us in this sure to be special, landmark issue.

Other Picks: Detective Comics #878, THUNDER Agents #8, American Vampire #16, Amazing Spider-Man #664, FF #5, Venom #4

Dean’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: 2000 AD June “Pack” Progs 1732 – 1735 – This is kinda a weird pick because it isn’t one comic…..it’s four.  I just started reading 2000 AD for the first time and really enjoyed my first exposure.  If you aren’t familiar, 2000 AD is a weekly anthology comic that has been published in England since 1977, so the numbers get high really fast.  Here in the United States, we get them in monthly “packs” of 4 issues at once although they are going to weekly publication in the US in August I believe.  I can’t tell you how satisfying these were to read.  Even though I was picking up in the middle of an anthology series and many stories were 3-4 episodes into a tale, they had just enough exposition that I knew basically what was going on.  Bravo!  Really strong art too!  Why can’t American comics be more like this?

Most Anticipated: American Vampire #16 – Good Lord is this a packed week.  As I stared at my pull list about the only thing I was sure of was that X-Men: Prelude to Schism #4 would NOT be my most anticipated comics of the week.  Picking AV #16 off this list is like asking which of your 10 children do you love the most.  Still, Scott Snyder and Rafa Albuquerque’s tale of vampirism on a Japanese occupied Pacific island in WWII was taking some very cool twists toward the end of AV #15 and I’m very eager to see how things begin to resolve themselves.  American Vampire should be on everyone’s pull list.

Other Picks: Creepy Comics #6, Detective Comics #878, Scalped #50, Butcher Baker the Righteous Maker #4, The Walking Dead #86, Amazing Spider-Man #664, FF #5, Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #6