With Death Spiral moving merrily along its murdery way, we’ve already gotten a bit of groundwork established with our main cast of costumed comrades as they navigate their new status quos amidst a killing spree of nefarious proportions. If the first part of the event was meant to set the stakes, and the second part was meant to unify at least some of the players on the same page, then the third part continues that trajectory by bringing Venom and Spidey face to face with the other black sheep of the family: that being Eddie Brock, or Carnage as he’s known better these days.
In that respect, Venom #255 manages to commit to a balancing act of two particular areas: the first being a Venom/Spider-Man team up with a dynamic that we’ve honestly never seen before with the whole “Hey, I’m Spider-Man! Have you met my ex-girlfriend AND my other alien ex-girlfriend? They’re both Venom now and we solve crimes together!” vibe of it all. But the second thread is a bit more on the concerning side, as Eddie Brock and Carnage attempt to catch up to the newest serial killing kid on the block. This issue manages to balance a good mix of sunshine and rainbows with the doom and gloom you’d expect from this moment, but there are some surprisingly grim stakes, and after what happened to Shocker last book, be more than ready for another life to be cut short….this time a little closer to home than we’ve had so far.
It’s a Small World After All
Venom #255 starts off with our ever-lovable himbo Eddie Brock and his homicidal crimson buddy Carnage still trying to piece together Torment’s whereabouts. Far from the best kind of buddy cop duos of the 80s, Eddie’s already suspecting his “partner” is upto something on the side and knows a little too much about Torment than he’s letting on. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the big bloody Carnage Rules that was written using Shocker’s blood, but that could be a hint. Either way, Eddie does what he does best: he snoops, putting those old detective skills to use until he finds out what we all did back in issue #1 of this event: that Torment likes going after families, starting from the most distant relatives and working his way to his target. And also that Carnage is the one who put Torment on everyone’s trails. Realizing that his grumpy old, distant daddy dearest, Carl Brock Sr. is now at risk, Eddie races off to save the old man from an extra early retirement.
Meanwhile, Spidey and Venom are off on their own little excursion to find more info on Shocker’s killer. The Bar With No Name is their first stop, and it’s an understandably somber mood with all the villains mourning Shocker’s passing – mainstay costumed villain that he was. While the villains are initially reluctant to help our “heroes” out, Spidey appeals to Boomerang’s sense of honor and former friendship. This gets them an audience with the head honcho Tombstone who points Spidey and Venom in the right direction (even though the heroes seem to think that it’s Carnage who’s actually doing the killings instead of some new threat). They also learn over the course of their discussion that Shocker’s gauntlets were stolen by the killer – which seems to indicate that Torment has an understanding of how symbiote weaknesses work.
This of course inevitably leads our dynamic duo to confronting Carnage on a rooftop, leading the kind of fisticuffs you’d expect from a 90’s Venom book. Venom, still armed with the gold Anti-Carnage matter, puts a right beating on the scarlet symbiote – still not knowing who the real killer is. It’s only Spidey who quickly finds out that Carnage isn’t the one that took Shocker’s gloves and his being framed, that gives Eddie the opportunity to reveal himself to our heroes as Carnage’s new host. In a rush to save his father, Eddie doesn’t stick around to explain things further before racing off to his dad’s home. Unfortunately for him, Torment’s already waiting there for him. And he’s pruned the Brock family tree just a little bit in the meantime.
A Thrilling Team Up Of Tumultuous Proportions
After having spent months wading through some of the slowest, time-killing, mind-numbingly stalling storylines for this Venom book, Al Ewing finally seems to have been let off the leash to write Venom with more energy and direction than ever before. The absence of all the interfamily drama to a sickening degree, plus more tempered usage of jokes instead of throwing them around will nilly like this a live-action Venom movie are all put to the side. But best of all, Ewing manages to use the whole new toybox of characters, namely Spidey and Eddie Brock (along with a select collection of other mainstays) to really push the Death Spiral event forward in a meaningful and thrilling way.
Spidey and Venom’s team up dynamic for this book is probably one of the biggest highlights, considering the relationship they now have. This is a far cry from the old Lethal Protector days of the 90s or all the previous times Venom and Spidey have put their heads together to face the likes Carnage or some other bigger threat. While still retaining that core synergy on the surface, there’s an amusing sense of walking on eggshells as Peter tries to reckon with MJ as Venom, while Venom and MJ also grapple with having to work with their shared ex. While I’m certain a couples’ therapist somewhere could make an absolute mint out of this situation, for now its Ewing making bank with the cards he has to play with. There’s a stunningly hilarious rom-com vibe to the dynamic, along with Peter having to navigate his own overprotective tendencies vs Venom feeling offended by Peter’s patronizing assumptions on their wellbeing. It’s a gloriously fun premise, and Ewing knows just how to get out of it in that respect. It’s also interesting to note that neither Venom nor Spider-Man ever take off their masks in this issue, almost as if they’re keeping their defenses up against each other to avoid making things any more awkward than it is. It’s a nice, and subtle touch alongside the more overt sense of discomfort that manifests in the symbiote or Peter occassionaly stepping on each other’s toes, so to speak. My one gripe probably, would be with how Spider-Man (and Eddie Brock to a greater extent) take up more screentime in a book that’s essentially Venom’s. Would’ve preferred to have more of the symbiote’s perspective on the recent killings and Carnage’s return, and Venom almost starts to feel like a secondary character in their own chapter of this greater event. It’s a fairly glaring error, all things considered and is one of only a couple major blights on an otherwise excellent narrative.
Peter Parker, on the other hand, is a character that Ewing seems to have an exceptional understanding of when writing him in this chapter. While Joe Kelly seemed to write Venom annoying out of character in the previous issue, Ewing not only maintains Peter’s energy from the Kelly’s Amazing Spider-Man run, he amplifies it by adding some truly unexpected avenues for emotion. And he does this by once again, pulling from the character’s old history to use relationships and references that work in that respect. Spidey reminiscing about Shocker’s death, telling Boomerang straight up that Shocker wasn’t some psychopath but just a down on their luck bad guy who was still human at the end of the day, is one of the best moments of this book (and possibly any spidey book) because it does so much to humanize what should be a throwaway death in any circumstance. It stresses on the value Peter places on the lives of even the villains he tussles with every day, to the point of genuine concern and remorse when someone he knows dies. This is something he acknowledges as well with his old relationship with Boomerang from the old Nick Spencer run of Amazing Spider-Man and even Boomerang’s death in Venom War (something which the latter is still mad about). Similarly, Spidey’s interaction with Tombstone is also weighed on character beats, because Tombstone realizes that this isn’t the same brutal Spider-Man who was beating on him and his goons a few months ago (that was Norman, of course) and instantly goes back to treating Peter with both relief and childlike condescension, but still eventually helps out by providing information to both Venom and Spidey. The whole extended sequence in the Bar With No Name lets Ewing show the deeper connections of respect that Spidey shares with his rogues gallery, where everyone at the end of the day is still willing to put aside their differences when the situation feels most dire.
Finally, we have Eddie Brock as Carnage, and for all intents and purposes his B-side story seems to be the main driving force for this issue (and possibly the next part 4 of the Death Spiral event as well, if the solicits are to be believed). It’s understandable that all the writers in this event are keen to give Eddie some of the spotlight since he’s the only character in the event who doesn’t have a book of his own anymore (thanks for that, Marvel) while being probably the most pivotal element of this entire thriller narrative. Eddie and Carnage are still hot on Torment’s trail, each for their own goals, and I appreciate the fact that Eddie is written smart enough and astute enough by Ewing to quickly put two and two together to uncover that Carnage is the one responsible for pretty much all the crap they’re dealing with right now. While some readers might feel it’s too fast to reveal Carnage’s role in Torment being on everyone’s trail, but personally I think dragging that point out any longer would’ve just made everyone look terminally stupid. And most importantly it lets Eddie and Carnage make the first move towards facing the latest killer on the block. It’s always great to see Eddie grappling in realistic ways with how his relationships with the more darker aspects of his symbiote partners is still consistent vs say MJ and Venom’s more amicable recent interactions. It’s a nice contrast, all things considered and builds up to Eddie and Carnage’s inevitable conflict of interest to come. I also appreciate the fact that Eddie’s immediate course of action once he finds out Torment’s pattern is to go to save his dad, a man who for all intents and purposes made his life hellish enough to shape him into the man he is today (retcons aside and whatnot). At the end of the day, it’s still his father, and even though we know that Eddie won’t make it in time, there’s a breathtaking sense of fear and desperation in his motives – to the point where he even swiftly side-steps a fight against both Venom and Spider-Man – to save someone who he doesn’t have the best relationship with that really just speaks to the heart of the character.
Ultimately, Ewing really does manage to hit this issue out of the park, for the most part. Avoiding the annoying patterns of earlier issues with oversaturated MCU humor and glacially slow pacing, while having every character understand the assignment and play their roles perfectly to carry the story forward in a meaningful way are abundant in this issue, and I’m all here for it. While Torment is still not exactly front and center for our heroes in this issue either, I think Ewing and the other writers have by the end of this issue removed all the safety brakes keeping our trio away from the titular serial killer, so that from the next issue onwards, readers can REALLY get down to the action with more of Torment. Minor quibbles of Venom not getting enough focus in their own book, and some questionable lore mismatches about symbiote weaknesses i.e. symbiote supposedly being more weak to sonics to the point of death (for both host and symbiote) while fire can be “tolerated” kind of contradicts…a lot, because shouldn’t that be the other way around? And having the symbiote of all characters be the one to list these weaknesses just makes it even more annoying, because aren’t you supposed to be the one who knows your weaknesses better? Unless this is some 4D misdirect chess move to not give other villains a clear cut idea of what Venom’s real weaknesses are, it’s still kind of a nitpick that gets more annoying the more I think of it. So I’ll just drop it for now, because otherwise Venom #255 was a solid bit of narrative storytelling on Ewing’s part.
Let’s Smear a Little Colour on This, Shall We?
Carlos Gomez continues to do some really fun work in this book, exceeding even the already gorgeous work he’s done with Venom throughout this series. Just like Ewing, Gomez has a whole new host of characters to illustrate this time around, and he really goes for it. While Venom is drawn in the same signature style that he’s established for the series, giving some real kinetic energy to the fight between him and Carnage later on in the book, it’s Spidey and Carnage who are the real highlights.
While yes, this is a book that’s light on the Spider-Man action, Gomez emphasizes the humanizing writing for Spidey by really playing up the emotion on the character’s costumed face. Even with the mask on, you can get Peter’s own sadness about Shocker’s death, or when he’s concerned about MJ’s safety (much to Venom’s annoyance). It’s an interesting development when you consider that for the entirety of this issue, you never see MJ or Peter out of costume at all, so it’s an admirable example of Gomez being able to play with emotions the way he does here with them. When it comes to Carnage and Eddie though, Gomez really goes wild with some of the art. There’s a particularly hilarious but also gross page where Carnage, as a joke, steals Eddie’s eyeball to make a point. The visual is as goofy but also icky as it sounds, and anytime Carnage appears as the “angel” on Eddie’s shoulder, he's got an almost cancerous, almost tumor like vibe that Gomez captures perfectly – taking the kind of liquid and overt way that Venom would speak to Eddie in the live-action movies and twisting that to fit Carnage’s style. True to Ewing’s love for old character easter eggs as well, Gomez follows suit as well with Eddie’s “disguise” when he’s looking for information. Now I don’t know if y’all remember when Eddie and Venom used to be government agents in the 90s, but the mustachioed blonde secret agent getup was a throwback I wasn’t expecting, but did give me a nice little chuckle to that particular time period as well.
Not to be left aside, Frank D’Armata also brings some really vibrant colors into the fray. Venom’s black and golds are still as solid as ever, both in the motion of fights and during more imposing stoic sequences. That gold really does shine in the fight with carnage, harkening back to the whole “Anti-Carnage” shtick that I’m still trying to remember and wish I could forget. That aside, red is another color that’s all over this issue between Spidey and Carnage hustling for top billing. Spidey’s iconic colors are on full display throughout, and the use of shadows works will with Gomez’s art to further accentuate Spidey’s stressed out emotions when the mask stays on. In contrast, Carnage’s lethal liquid energy is captured in the kind of gore-soaked reds and dried out blood blacks that are so signature for the character. All in all, it’s a real visual treat that makes this a gorgeous book at the end of the day.
Everyone’s On the Same Page Now
Honestly, if it weren’t for Marvel having overhyped Torment as the second coming of Ted Bundy and as a killer that “Spider-Man and friends have never faced the likes of before” at every given moment, the slow burn towards the serial killer’s eventual reveal wouldn’t have been treated with such frustration. Editorial and marketing moronics aside, Venom #255 does an exceptional job of putting the title back on track while also pushing the story and characters forward in meaningful ways. It’s very clear that all the writers involved with this project know and love the characters they’re writing, and it really shows in this issue in particular with Ewing and Gomez expertly juggling three separate characters well enough in this 3rd chapter of the Death Spiral narrative arc.
And yes, the sidelining of Venom and some questionable lore discussions are there, but that’s simply not enough to detract from a surprisingly emotional and tense issue that actually does a great deal in addressing some of the fallout Torment’s murder wave has on people. While I can’t be expect Eddie or MJ or Peter to feel particularly connected to the deaths of distant relatives or relations they never knew in Torment’s murder wave, I was genuinely glad to see how Shocker’s death managed to be such a strong emotional underpin for this issue, giving readers some of the best moments, while Eddie’s own panic over his father’s fate also further fit the theme of how the connections we keep can define so much. Especially when they’re lost to us.
Final Verdict: Venom #255, while lacking a little in the title character having a say, manages to keep the momentum of Death Spiral going strong, with Spidey and Eddie Brock really bringing a brisk pace and sense of both urgency and humanity to the current predicament.