Why do I have to hate Venom now? Like, I don't understand why the world wants me to hate Venom. He looks cool, he has cool powers, he has a cool history. But for some reason the universe doesn't want me to like Venom anymore. It seems like the only time it was ever okay to like Venom was when everybody else didn't treat him like freaking Christ! Venom: Born Again, coming soon.
If you came here thinking this was about the Venom movie, hold your horses. I'll get there. First, I'd like to address Marvel Comic's annoying resurgence of Venom obsession. An obsession unseen since Venom's creation in 1988. In the 90's, Venom was the cock of the walk for Marvel Comics. People loved his design, they loved his rivalry with Spider-Man, and they wanted to see more of the character. Supplying the demand, Marvel Editorial put Venom everywhere. We're not just talking toys and cartoons, we're talking cameos in other Marvel titles like Daredevil, Scarlet Spider, and many more. If his sudden appearances aren't enough, do you want to know how many series Venom got in the 1990's? Can you guess. From 1993 to 1998, Venom starred in TWENTY-THREE different miniseries. Within five years characters like Spider-Man and The X-Men got around too, but this was Venom! A Spider-Man villain with a badass design and a overly inconsistent personality. Twenty-three books all staring Venom, isn't that crazy? After the 90's Venom would get a miniseries every year or so, but didn't get a full series until 2003 and then another in 2011. And unheard of drop in frequency.
Until now, that is. How's Venom doing in the comics now? Well, in 2017 alone Venom has had one current series and two events, one having a prelude, a companion piece, and was advertised with "Venomized" variant covers depicting Marvel characters having The Venom Symbiot. Now what does the Venom craze of the 90's and the upstart of 2017 have in common? Same guy in the suit. Eddie Brock was Venom in the 90's and, as of volume three of the series, is back to being Venom again. And wouldn't you know it, the version of Venom Sony is using is the Eddie Brock one too! You'll also put it together that between Mac Gargan and Flash Thompson there have been five Venom series. Five. Not even five because two of those stories were about Eddie Brock even though Mac was Venom during that time. So three. That from 2009 to 2016. In five years Eddie Brock got twenty more series than Mac and Flash got in seven. And this isn't a case of character superiority, well, maybe with Mac Gargan it is. But myself and many others will tell you straight up-Flash Thompson isn't just the best Venom, he's probably one of the best Spider-Man characters hands down. His story is sympathetic, his goals are noble, and his struggle is tragic. His past is metaphorically venomous. Writers always tried to make Eddie sympathetic. They wrote him a tough childhood in 2008, in his many miniseries they wrote him to be a more talkative Punisher, and they tried to make you feel bad for him between his divorce and his cancer and his desire to be a hero. But none of that matters when the think Eddie Brock is associated with most is being "a Spider-Man villain" or "the evil Spider-Man" or "one of the four literal monsters Spider-Man fights". But Flash? He's the anti-hero Marvel wanted Eddie to be, but because Flash is an actual character instead of a tattoo with a brain, people liked him more.
This fame train isn't going to stop anytime soon either, Venom has already shown up in an X-Men book, will likely show up more in Spider-Man related titles, Norman Osborn is using the Carnage Symbiot, Spider-Gwen is still using a Venom Symbiot, and the Venom 2018 movie JUST released a teaser trailer! Even after that god awful film comes out we're going to see an overabundance of Venom. And look, Marvel likes to advertise their characters when a film comes out. They're doing it with Black Panther, they'll do it with Ant-Man, they'll do it in ten years with Hercules. But the Venom film is a Sony production, it's not part of the MCU. Making money from advertisement makes sense, but by putting Venom in everything and putting Eddie Brock on a pedestal all you're doing is trying to capitalize on a film nobody is going to like. And all that tells us readers is that you haven't changed, Marvel Comics. You may never change.
And I'll tell you why nobody is going to like it....next week!
Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment