Venom: Along Came A Spider #1 (Story 1)

Background

At the end of the Clone Saga, the newly minted Spider-Man took on Venom, who didn't recognize him as the former Scarlet Spider. The story stakes place right after the original Planet of the Symbiotes.

Story 'Along Came a Spider...'

Venom was sloshing home through the sewers after defeating the invading symbiotes with Spider-Man and the Scarlet Spider. His home at the time was an abandoned subway station with a phone that they had tapped into. (It's an old fashioned land line, which believe it or not, is an important detail in this story.) Worried about the safety of his ex-wife, Anne Weying, Brock called her apartment and the call was relayed to police headquarters. Meanwhile, Anne was being coerced into complying with the police by detectives Clark and Steen. Clark is the "bad cop" that told Anne that if she didn't help them, she'd be committing a class A felony and would throw her law career away. As Anne hesitated to answer, Eddie sent the symbiote through the phone line and it arrived at police headquarters. It partially bonded to her, creating a three way mind meld between the group. There were no more secrets between them as they could all read each other's minds. The experience was too intense for Eddie but was near ecstasy for Anne.

At the Daily Grind coffee house, Ben Reilly overheard a news report about a SWAT team incident at the police station that was holding Anne Weying. (A confused group of Seinfeld look alike customers at the coffee house discussed the various Spider-Men that have been seen lately.) He was soon on his way as Spider-Man. At the same time, an enraged Venom was back in the sewer and determined to save Anne. (There was also an alligator there that Venom was throwing around.) Spider-Man was also traveling through the sewer and found torn apart alligator bodies, cluing him into who had just passed through.

Venom arrived while disguised as detective Clark and grabbed Anne. Once they got to the rooftop, Anne refused to go any further as she had wanted to keep the police from capturing Eddie but she had no interest in running away with him. In fact she had learned things about him during the mind meld that she didn't like. That's when Spider-Man arrived and Venom went after him.

General Comments

I really can't get over the art in this thing. Maybe some people can enjoy simple and cartoony art but it just looks ridiculous to me. The amount of green drool flying from Venom's tongue makes me wonder how he can see. This was the era of Venom being even more over used than he is now, and his books sold insane amounts of numbers. Obviously no effort was required to make a good book.

The story has a lot of walking around in the sewer, which seems pointless since Venom can change his image and disguise himself. No need to use such a crazy way to sneak around. Spider-Man did the same thing and I'm pretty sure he can get around NYC without needing the sewer. The story is pretty much: "Eddie misses Anne but she's mad at him. Spider-Man is there, too."

Overall Rating

It's going to be a long four issues.