Comics Korner

TPB Pick of the Week- Venom: Lethal Protector

By jayq - October 5, 2016
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JayQ's TPB of the WeekThis is the first miniseries in which Venom appears where he is the main character, instead of Spider-man. It’s one of the first steps in which Marvel tried to turn Eddie Brock a.k.a. as Venom from a villain into an antihero.

venomFirst and foremost I always wanted Venom, since the beginning to be and anti hero.This story in itself is fairly enjoyable still to this day, although it’s nothing ground shattering. A short while before the events that take place in this trade, Venom and Spider-man made a deal. They both swore to leave the other alone as long as both didn’t interfere with the other. AND as long as Venom would stay on the right side of the law. The news tells Peter Parker otherwise. Venom moved to California and found out about an underground homeless group of people that made a little mini-society, hidden from the world.
Eddie thinks he can become happy there and tries to find a way to make these people want him in their group. However, shortly after arriving in the town, he’s immediately recognized by the local authorities and the eye of Roland Treece; a man bent on destroying an underground homeless community in his quest to find gold! Treece deploys his own task force called the Jury to stop Venom from ruining his plans and Venom aims to protect the innocents of San Fran all while Spider-Man hunts him down. However, upon learning Venom’s aim to protect and not kill, Spider-Man teams up with him to combat a new batch of symbiotic killers that spawned from the Venom suit! The team up of Spider-man and Venom is like a good cop/bad cop action comedy but they end up getting the job done and we meet some pretty cool characters a long the way.570full-venom-lethal-protector
In the end it all comes together rather standard. For fans of the character Venom there’s some nice stuff in here though. The art by Mark Bagley and Ron Lim is your typical 90’s muscular stuff but not bad, just typical. The dialogue and story have moments of pure cheesiness. David Micheline tried to go somewhere with this but fell kind of flat. I expected a little more out of Venom’s first solo adventure given how popular he was during this time period.
I loved this book when I first read it but after reading it again all these years later this comic did not age well with the times. I am sure it still is a fun read for the first timers and die hard fans. JQ gives this book a 6/10.

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