It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten to be part of a comic run from the start then all the way through the ending.
I have to note, from the start, that I read large chunks of this run as it was coming out. So not every single issue comes back to me with perfect clarity. On subsequent rereads, my opinions will very likely change.
Most of my primary complaints with the run are developmental in nature. Those structural elements start with the presence of Eddie Brock. Namely: why was he even here?
The Cates run, previous to this one, spent a significant part of its narrative creating an “ending arc” for Eddie. Probably not one where he dies, but clearly one where he’s removed from the narrative via cosmic King in Black responsibilities. They were setting up the strong possibility of Dylan being the next primary host. This is something that ’21 Ewing only partially delivers on. Dylan is a host for sections of the story, but he has to share it with both Eddie’s and Venom’s individual narratives. The result is that they don’t have a lot of breathing room to actually tell their stories.
And the why of this makes the analysis of this aspect of the story super tricky because comics are plagued with editorial oversight. The ’21 Ewing run does have a very transitionary quality to it in the same way the Cates run did. But where the Cates transitioned Eddie into a cosmic storyline, ’21 Ewing transitioned him back to status quo to prepare him for a new street-level Carnage story. This speaks to a level of editorial push, but as a response to what? Perceived fan backlash for removing Eddie from the story (which has happened before)? Dylan not being old enough to be Venom? Wanting to make sure Eddie is still in the comics when the last movie releases? Alignment with the rest of the 616 universe? Some other mysterious thing that we’ll never have transparency on?
Until the new run comes out and starts settling it, it’s going to be difficult to tell whether the transition was effective or ineffective. We haven’t completely lost the possibility of Dylan taking up the Venom mantle at some point in the future or becoming Codex unto himself. We don’t know how long Eddie as Carnage is going to last or what other things will emerge from that story. Venom War planted seeds for a handful of new smaller stories. Until those manifest, we don’t have access to the full bridge that ’21 Ewing was trying to build.
So let’s say we examine the run agnostic of its intention with the story provided. I think it would have been much better served by having Dylan’s story be the main-title Venom narrative with Eddie being a side-run that was a sort of optional but narratively satisfying read that sort of interleaved with the main story. And what I’d actually like to do on a re-read is rearrange the issue order to see how that changes the flow of the narrative.
As it’s currently structured, I don’t have as much beef, conceptually, as other people seem to with the time travel. Unless they do something with it later, I’m not overly impressed with the Kang and Doom time travel elements, right now. However, the garden in and of itself grew on me after some initial hesitation, particularly as it relates to Meridius. It’s a sort of semi-Borgesian contemplation on Eddie’s own worst enemy: himself. And in a weird way it reminds me a bit of The Female Man by Joanna Russ, in the idea of the same person from multiple realities coming together to figure out who they really are.
Even with middling execution in parts, I see the unsticking in time specifically as a metaphor for Eddie trying to overcome the cycle of abuse and self-destruction he’s in. He quite literally has to face himself. The irony being that in doing so, he’s actively neglecting his own son.
So that’s where I see Dylan’s own time travel at the very end of the series being a mirror to this. Through the forging of a weapon, future Dylan is also attempting to end the cycle of violence. Except Dylan only knows how to do this with full-on destruction because that’s all he was taught in that version of reality. So while both the stories within the time travel shell have their pros and cons, the time travel in and of itself and how it unfolds during Venom War carries cogent narrative parallels and broad allegorical connections to dealing with and healing from childhood trauma.
Venom, as an individual, jumps between being un-hosted and through a few different hosts over the span of the story. And I see this being a bit of a divisive narrative decision among at least a few other fans. Within the context of this story, the larger narrative, and the hinted at narrative to come, I see it as a sort of revisiting of old haunts. It’s Venom looking back at their life and going “my god, look what I’ve done. Look at how I’ve destroyed these people and how they’ve destroyed me.” When you consider the new story on the horizon, the host-hopping to me feels like a narrative bookend.
It also reads as Venom beginning to confront their own neglect of the people they’ve both spawned and claim to care about. Going back to revisit a previous hose prompts this self-reflection that “no, my family does need me.” It’s only at that last moment that they abandon them for what they believe to be their own safety. So that, too, parallels what Eddie and Dylan are going through: destroying parts of themselves to save each other and the world.
And while I recognize not having a stable host might create confusion in new 616 readers, the entire run isn’t very new reader friendly. I would never reccomend this to a new reader, ever. You have to at least start with Cates, but going back as far as Costa would hit with the full narrative impact. So if you make it to the point where Venom bonds with Lee Price you’ve already gotten through a lot more complicated stuff, and they explain backstory right on page. So I think that’s the more nuanced take on that specific critique.
Prosaically, I really enjoyed the flowing monologue elements. I love the choice to switch to present tense for Dylan in the future and Gronbeck’s narration flow through those sections. Both Meridius and Kang can get pretty exposition heavy. Not the most egregious offense I’ve ever seen, but it is notable. Some of the teenage dialogue is a little hit or miss, but within a sort of acceptable tolerance for adults writing teens in pretty much any media. Other than that, nothing really stands out, and I consider that a good thing. Couple of decent zingers. A number of poignant moments. The Venom Horse musings at the end brought me considerable joy.
The transition of Eddie to Carnage is a good thing for Carnage, I think. The character has stagnated a little, so a little infusion of a new host will give some new elements to that character. As far as being in alignment with Eddie’s character, that’s going to depend on how Eddie Brock: Carnage starts, I think. I imagine when faced with the possibility of death, you make decisions you might not otherwise make. So we’ll see how that goes.
From a bird’s eye view, I see this as a run with a lot of structure and pacing issues with a fair few pretty extraneous-feeling story beats. Eddie going to limbo and everything with Madelyn and Chasm and the X-Man tree didn’t really click with me. Everything with Dr. Doom and Kang felt like it was only there to serve the One World Under Doom event coming next year or some other editorial decision. While I’m still conflicted about the implications of Dylan’s journey to Cthon for the story going forward, it was at least interesting in an experimental nature. A sort of combo of alien tech, high tech, and magic. A bending of Clarke’s third law. So a broad combo of highs and lows overall plot wise.
This was a run that knew what it wanted to be about and it had a very specific story it wanted to tell, it just went about it in a very odd way.
That being said, in terms of character changes and exploration of themes, even with my qualms about the presence of Eddie, I saw a very reasonable and natural set of iterative progressions. It very much built on things that have already been established and just moved things farther down the line in terms of Venom being their own, more complex character, and Eddie actually needing to maybe deal with his shit for once. Even Dylan, while still a relatively new character, is starting to go through the tribulations that make a Venom host what they end up being, while also being given the chance to react in his own way and approach the concept of being a symbiote from a different direction. From here’s it’s just a matter of seeing how the next set of stories unfold because that’ll be the sort of final determining factor in what this run ends up doing for the long-running narrative in the end.
Pixels and Pins Studio 