Venom #8

And NOW I get to Venom, even though I've already read the last part of Spider-Island and as such have a pretty good feel for what happens in this issue... Oh well, Rick Remender has been on a roll with this series, so even though I know how the main points of this story turn out, I'm still expecting great things here.

Venom #8:

Summary: Before getting the orders from the army to go and kill the Queen, Flash is given a letter written by his father that Betty Brant was holding. While Flash heads to the Queen's headquarters, the army is busy working on an antidote that would cure Captain America of his current spidery appearance. Flash(as Venom) attacks the Queen, but is at a great disadvantage due to the Queen possessing a sonic scream, seeing as that loud noises are one of the Venom symbiote's greatest weaknesses. The Queen manages to get the upper hand on Flash, but the now cured Cap swings over to lend a hand. Cap manages to distract the Queen long enough for Flash to stab her through the back with Cap's shield, presumably killing her. But as we saw in the beginning of Amazing Spider-Man #672, that injury actually causes the Queen to mutate into a gigantic monstrosity.

Thoughts: I really enjoyed the letter from Flash's father. Remender did a great job with writing that and showing how sorry Flash's father was as he faced his end. He also scripted the Venom/Queen battle very well, as Venom was at a HUGE disadvantage due to the Queen's sonic powers. So that was what I enjoyed. I didn't like the way the Queen was written here... She was oddly sensual towards first Venom and then Cap. Now I only know the Queen from these Spider-Island issues(I think I have her first appearance from a few years back but I don't remember it at all), but she wasn't written anything like that in the Amazing Spidey books... So that was really weird, and a bit disconcerting. But as usual, this was a good, strong comic and as such gets a good, strong score from me.

Score: 8 out of 10.Heh... Cap said “fornication”...

Amazing Spider-Man #672

Next up is the final part of Spider-Island... Now I SHOULD have read Venom #8 before reading this issue(and a special thanks to Jermox and JT for trying to warn me to do just that), but unfortunately I put this issue higher in my comic pile and as such read it first. Whoops!

Amazing Spider-Man #672:

Summary: This issue gets started with Venom and Captain America battling the Queen in Central Park... So THAT'S why I was supposed to read Venom #8 first! Anyway, the two manage to floor the Queen, which leads to her tapping into all of the human spiders she's created over the course of this storyline and becoming a 20 story tall walking spider of doom!!! Meanwhile, Spider-Man and Kaine switch outfits(Kaine switches into the Spidey costume and Peter switches into his underwear) at Horizon Labs so people wouldn't wonder why Peter(Kaine) looked so disheveled. From there the duo head into Peter's private lab, Peter takes back his Spidey outfit and Kaine puts on Peter's sonic Spidey suit... All of this clothes swapping is like something out of a bad identical twins comedy... From there the duo head to the gigantic Queen and Spidey gets slammed by the Queen, but is saved at the last second by spider-powered Mary Jane. MJ implores Peter to use his brains to stop the Queen as opposed to his brawn, which gives Peter an idea, at which point he heads to a police station with MJ while Kaine teams up with the Avengers, the FF and the X-Men to try to halt the Queen's rampage. At the police station, Spidey grabs some of Dr. Octopus's impounded gear and sends out thousand of Doc Ock's octo-bots to gather the Anti-Venom cure and spread it amongst the spider-infected citizens of Manhattan. Spidey heads to the top of the Empire State Building to get the best reception and begins to cure New Yorkers by the hundred, rapidly depriving the Queen of her powers. Realizing what was occurring, the weakening Queen sends a small army of human spiders to the Empire State Building to stop Spidey's plan. MJ manages to hold off the horde while Kaine is able to deliver the deathblow to the Queen. With that, the Queen's menace has ended, Manhattan has been saved and this storyline has ended.

Thoughts: Okay, first let me get the positive out of the way. I really enjoyed this storyline, and LOVE the fact that it gave us Kaine back in what I'm hoping will be a prominent role moving forward(Scarlet Spider anybody?). BUT(you had to see that coming!), this issue felt really rushed for whatever reason... It starts with the Queen turning enormous, she rampages off page for most of this issue, and then gets killed... I mean we really didn't get a Peter/Queen showdown. Sure she bitch-slapped him, but that doesn't constitute a real battle to me. So overall this was a good storyline, but for me, the ending was a bit anticlimactic.

Score: 7 out of 10.Huh, this is the second underwear scan I've posted tonight... That's... something, I guess...

Amazing Spider-Man #669

And now we'll switch back to Marvel for a few issues starting with the latest issue of Amazing Spider-Man, part three of Spider-Island. That's about as much of an intro as I have...

Amazing Spider-Man #669:

Summary: This issue gets under way with Peter Parker(now able to flagrantly use his Spidey powers in public due to the whole Spider-Island thing) and his girlfriend Carlie(who also has spider-powers) battling Chance, White Rabbit and Scorcher(who, you guessed it, ALSO have spider-powers!). The three spider-powered baddies manage to get the initial advantage until Peter busts out some of his fancy Spidey fighting moves to rapidly put an end to the fight. Carlie notices Peter's surprising expertise in fighting like Spidey, and tells Peter to call Spider-Man into her police station so the three of them could talk about Jackal... Meanwhile, Venom is dealing with the Spider-King at his army base, the Avengers are trying to keep the people currently in Manhattan confined in the city so they couldn't spread the weird spider-plague, Mayor Jameson is told that he has the spider-plague(you can imagine how well he takes THAT news), and Anti-Venom is going around Manhattan curing people of their spider-powers. Back at Carlie's station house, Peter sneaks off and changes into his Spidey clothes to meet with her. When she asks where Peter was, Spidey tells her he had just swung off. Needless to say, Carlie isn't exactly buying this, but luckily for Spidey, he gets a call that the Shocker was robbing a bank. Spidey swings off to deal with Shocker, figuring he'd be able to avoid Carlie's pointed questions, but is followed by Carlie, who as a cop feels it's her responsibility to help. Upon arriving at the bank, Spidey is surprised to find Shocker walking around with four extra arms, and four extra eyes. Shocker begs Spidey to let him take the money, since the Mad Thinker had claimed he could cure Shocker of his spidery condition. While Spidey is trying to figure out what to do about Shocker, Carlie begins to mutate into a horrible spider-creature. This issue ends with Jackal bowing to the woman who was behind all of his recent experimentations, the Queen.

Thoughts: The Queen? Really? If that's who I think it is, that's a pretty obscure character who only appeared in like 6 issues of the old Spectacular Spider-Man series. Then again, I guess if you use a character with like NO prior appearances, you can do just about anything you want with them without having to worry about fan backlash. Looking past the Queen thing, this was a pretty enjoyable comic, as usual. Now, it wasn't great, but it did set up three pretty important plot points, the first is the Queen reveal, the second is Carlie becoming increasingly suspicious of Peter and the third is Jameson finding out that he had the spider-plague. So for me this felt more or less like a set-up issue. As the next few issues delve deeper into these plot points, I'm sure my score for this series will continue to climb.

Score: 8 out of 10.Poor, poor, poor Mayor Jameson...

Amazing Spider-Man #668

Next up in the new comic pile, the latest installment of Amazing Spider-Man. The first two Spider-Island related issues of this series have been quite good, here's hoping we get more Jackal, and more Spider-Island goodness!

Amazing Spider-Man #668(Spider-Island tie-in):

Summary: Shang-Chi manages to convince New York's heroes(the FF, the Avengers, the Young Allies, etc) that the real Spider-Man had been attacked by the heroes during the massive Spider-Man attack last issue, which leads to Luke Cage telling Spidey to beat it, since he was just adding to the confusion. Bummed that he couldn't help his various friends and teammates battle the criminal Spideys, Spidey changes to his street clothes and decides to find his girlfriend, Carlie Cooper. While wandering around, Peter bumps into a reporter from the Daily Bugle(as well as Mary Jane), and decides that he was going to help out anyway, getting on the camera and revealing that he, like many New Yorkers, had “suddenly” acquired spider-powers, and that other law abiding New Yorkers with spider-powers should join him in helping take down the criminal Spideys. A bunch of New Yorkers listen to Peter's call and charge over to the criminal Spideys, helping the heroes defeat them. With the criminal Spideys taken care of and arrested, Mayor Jameson puts Manhattan under a quarantine and deputizes the heroes and citizens who helped defeat the criminal Spideys, telling them not to allow anybody to leave Manhattan, nor allow anybody to enter the island until they were able to cure the sinister spider-flu. From there, Carlie heads to her police station, while Peter heads to his job at Horizon Labs. Peter meets Reed Richards at the lab, who collects some blood from Peter, claiming he was collecting blood from as many infected New Yorkers as he could(so as to not cause anybody to suspect Peter was Spider-Man). Carlie has the Horizon send Peter over to her station house to go through the confiscated equipment of Spidey's enemies to see if he could rig anything up to help her with her battle against New York's criminals. While Peter is working, Carlie tells him that she thought she knew who was behind the Spider-related madness in New York, the Jackal. Peter immediately realizes that she was probably right, since the Jackal always had an obsession with Spidey's DNA. Meanwhile, Anti-Venom has entered the city to cure as many of the infected citizens as he could, seeing this as his new life's mission. At around the same time, Venom also enters the city... Back to Peter, he decides to tag along with Carlie as she checks out one of Jackal's last known hideouts. Peter and Carlie enter the warehouse and this issue ends with a trio of weirdos watching Peter and Carlie from the roof of the warehouse.

Thoughts: If I'm honest here, nothing really happened in this issue... From the first page to the last, there really wasn't anything that went down that I'd point at and say, “That was really important!” This was a solid comic and all, but it didn't really further the story... Plus there wasn't NEARLY enough Jackal here! That guy is awesome! He only appeared on one lousy page, and as usual, he stole the show with that one page! Bottom line, this was a very slightly above average comic for me, which is kind of a letdown since this series is usually WAY better than average. Here's hoping things pick up a bit come next issue.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.After his awesome "birds and the bees" talk, I think Jackal deserves his own series.