Saturday, 25 August 2012

Venom #23: Monsters Of Evil Part 1

Written by Cullen Bunn
Pencils by Thony Silas
Inks by Nelson Decastro
Colours by Chris Sotomayor

The Story

Cullen Bunn's run on Venom kicks off with an introspective Flash Thompson swinging through the city towards an underground car park and thinking about all the events that lead him to this point. He meets up with Daily Inquisitor reporter, Katy Kiernan, who has some information that Flash's “connections” failed to come up with. It is revealed that Flash is tracking the Department of Occult Armaments – a group of Nazi demon-worshippers gathering magical artifacts. Ignoring Hawkeye's orders not to engage the enemy, Flash goes in all guns blazing, taking down “the robe-and-hood gang”, as flash calls them, and finds people in pods attatched to the wall. Flash frees one who goes on to attack him, but suddenly stops, begs Flash for forgiveness and asks him to command him. Flash commands him to “get the @#&% out of here!” and the man is surrounded by a green haze that “leaves him”. There is an explosion and Flash and the man, now incinerated, are blown clear, revealing Damon Hellstrom. Damon and Flash fight with Damon having the upper hand. Damon tells Flash he is marked with Mephisto's brand and says to Flash that we're all monsters. Flash then goes through a bit of a transformation.

The Writing

I heard of Cullen Bunn's upcoming solo run on Venom last week and I've been enjoying his writing on Deadpool Kills The Marvel Universe and his recent team-up wit Rick Remender on the recent “Savage Six” storyline, so I got a little excited – I wasn't disappointed. The story is well-paced from the introspection at the start right through to the fight with Hellstrom. I'll certainly be looking forward to part 2 of this story.

The Art

I really liked Thony Silas's pencils on the Spider-Man: Ends of The Earth one-shot and Venom #23 is no different. The panels are easy to follow (always a plus) and even the huge and potentially confusing double-page is laid out in such a way that confusion is easily avoided. I particularly like the last page, but I won't spoil it.

My Verdict

I'm a Venom fan so it would be very difficult for anyone to do an issue that I didn't like. I liked this, though, and can't wait for part 2.

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