Venom: Along Came A Spider #4 (Story 1)

Background

Venom has been trying to save his ex-wife, Anne Weying, from the police. Spider-Man arrived to protect her even though she didn't want his help. Eddie helped Anne escape by sending the symbiote over the phone to her, creating She-Venom. She escaped to Thrill World at Eddie's orders, and Spider-Man followed her. At Thrill World the D.E.A. was staking out a gang called LD-50 and She-Venom went after them. When Eddie arrived he was set on fire by one of LD-50s guards.

Story '...and Frightened Miss Muffet Away'

She-Venom begged Eddie to not die and he told her to send him the symbiote because it would heal him. It rebonded to Eddie and immediately restored his to health. Anne dramatically put her hand to her head and told Eddie to not let Venom take over. Venom took on the LD-50 gang and Spider-Man joined him, while the D.E.A. continued to watch. They were only there for the leader of the gang, not the vigilantes.

The gang member that torched Eddie then captured Anne and reported back to the boss. Here is what the boss said, "Am I expected to expire in paroxysms of ecstasy at these tidings? Hardly! Maintain the trollop incommunicado, my good man...my pugnacious cohorts and I are alleviating the onerous dilemma with vehicular behemoths and massed firepower!"

The leader immediately realized his mistake and called his therapist, saying he was having a psychotic delusion. Meanwhile the D.E.A. agents argued among themselves about what to do and Venom and Spider-Man fought each other. Venom got hit by an anti-tank rocket. Spider-Man pulled him to safety and then he shrugged it off and went after Anne. He told Anne that he loved her and would do anything for her. Detective Clark arrived before the D.E.A. did and was going to help Spidey and Venom go after the gang, when Venom got the idea to turn off the lights on them. In the dark, one of the gang members lit a match and blew themselves up, along with the rest of the amusement park. (The drugs that they were making were very flammable.)

Venom and Anne escaped and Clark and Spider-Man admitted that Venom pulled a fast one on them. He got away and killed all the bad guys. Spider-Man said he'd take him down of he even found him. Privately, Anne told him to never see her again, even to save her life. Meanwhile, the D.E.A. kept arguing amongst itself.

General Comments

It's like...they were smart enough to put together a Waco, Texas, analogy regarding the incompentent D.E.A. agents but still had a comic full of pointless fight scenes. The symbiote figured out that Ben wasn't the original Spider-Man at some point but that idea wasn't explored at all. Venom got hit by a missile and oh well.

The art still sucks and it's weird seeing Anne pantomining after the alien goes back to Eddie.

Overall Rating

WTF. That's all I can say.