Venom #24 Review
Written by Cullen Bunn
Pencils by Thony Silas
Inks by Nelson Decastro
Colours by Chris
Sotomayor
Story
Flash has lost control
of the symbiote and it's hungry. After eating a cultist, Flash
reasserts control and flees Hellstrom into the woods where he
promptly throw up. Flash hunts down Katy Kiernan and asks her for
help to get the demon out of him. Luckily, Katy knows a former priest
that could help. Turns out that the demon wants out of Flash as much
as Flash wants it gone. Problem is that the symbiote isn't letting it
go. Flash heads to the Bronx zoo where he disguises himself as a
robed monk in Hellstrom's party and goes on the offensive. He is then
introduced to The Monsters Of Evil – a huge bull with a scorpion
tail, a three-headed sphinx beast, a fire breating King Kong-esque
beast, a lizard beast, and a giant pygmy with little pygmies jumping
out of his head.
Review
A winged, horned,
hungry, toothy symbiote – what could go wrong? Well, not a lot
really. In my opinion, there should have been more than
three-and-a-half pages of Venom being more than his badass former
self, as opposed to the lobotomised symbiote we have been getting
recently. That said, though, this title isn't about the symbiote;
it's about Flash and his struggles with his past, his daddy issues,
and his alcoholism, and, in that respect, it succeeds. However, there
wasn't much of the Flash's inner voice in this issue than we have
become used to.
The exorcism scene was
fun, and a nice break from the heavy occult themes that the current
story is exploring and the idea of the demon wanting to leave Flash
as much as Flash wants him gone is interesting to me. My only
complaint with the scene, though, is the art. On the whole it's
fantastic, but I'm not too keen on the out of proportion-ness when
the head goes all toothy and attacks Reggie the former priest.
My complaints about the
art are quickly evaporated in the next section of the issue when
Agent Venom hunts down Hellstrom at the zoo. The reveal of the Flash
being one of the monks really impressed me and I loved the panel
where Flash has Hellstrom and two monks subdued with his tendrils and
is walking forward with his guns by his sides. It reminds me of a
movie but I can't think of which one right now.
Now my major issue with
this...um...issue: The Monsters themselves. Don't get me wrong, I
like the way they were drawn and, indeed, the concept of them as a
whole, but I didn't like the way they were introduced. It was a bit
cheesey. When I turned the page and saw them with the huge speech
bubble, and the red writing that says “...THE MONSTERS OF EVIL!”
reminded me of a Judge Dredd comic from the 80s that I read when I
had swine flu a couple years ago. In that story there was a scene
with two criminals in a building discussing their plans, when they
suddenly hear a crashing from outside. One says to the other “Oh
no! It can't be! It's...” move to the next panel, Dredd's standing
in the doorway, hands on his hips: “JUDGE DREDD!!!”.
Despite the cheesiness,
I enjoyed this issue, and this story arc as a whole. I loved the
Circle of Four arc from earlier this year, and the ties to that story
are really promising. I've enjoyed everything else that Bunn has
written that I've read, so I'm really hoping he won't let me down.
