Every good hero needs an equally as good villain, and that is exactly what Venom is to Spider-man. Ever since his first appearance in The Amazing Spider-man #299 in 1988, Venom has been a fan favorite and rival to Spider-man. With the upcoming Venom solo movie on October 5th 2018 Starring Tom Hardy, I am going to give a brief summary and review his newest solo title which just dropped on May 9th, 2018. There will be spoilers in case you haven’t read it or simply just do not care about buying it, but would like to know without reading the whole issue.

Everybody thought they new the whole story of the venom symbiote and how it came to be. Yeah, well that all changed in this latest issue. Turns out the symbiotes have been around on earth for centuries as opposed to Spider-man finding the symbiote on battle world in the Secret Wars story line in 1984. The first two pages show us some old knight/crusader looking men being attacked by a symbiote of some sort in the past. One of the men yells, “where is Beowulf?” We can only assume he is referring to the old Scandinavian hero Beowulf. The last panel shows us a giant set of teeth speaking some ancient language, then it cuts to modern day.

We see this Venom with the fan favorite Eddie Brock and it really shows the internal struggle of Eddie trying to control what he calls his “other.” He takes pills to suppress him so he can go about and try to live his life without a psychotic alien screaming in his head 24/7. Eddie then hears of a break in through his radio and hurries out of his apartment and soon arrives but not as Eddie. As soon as he arrives he changes back to Eddie to fulfill hi job as a reporter and takes pictures of the police carrying out the criminals. It is when the masked criminal known as The Jack O’lantern reaches for an officers firearm and that is when Venom swings in. As hes tearing at the criminals in an alleyway Venom starts to have red veins appear on his body while speaking some sort of ancient language. Then a mysterious figure shows up and subdues venom.

Shortly after Eddie wakes cuffed up to a chair only for the man to reveal himself as Rex Strickland. Rex tells Eddie that he used to be part of a group who were all bonded with symbiotes like Venom and went around the globe killing people for the government. Rex questions Eddie on the symbiote revealing that Eddie knows little to nothing about it and that he wants to teach Eddie. Rex then gives Eddie the coordinates to an underground highway system that is used by S.H.I.E.L.D. to transports other black ops “nightmares.” Eddie/Venom tries to stop these transport trucks, but out from the back comes four other symbiotes who we can assume to be Rex’s old team. They all had the same red veins running through them. Venom hears that ancient language again and is scared off leaving Eddie defenseless against four super aliens. Eddie is subdued and Venom crawls back to Eddie revealing that he was forced to unbond from him for a short while. He tells Eddie that the voice said, “God is coming” and on the last panel we see a red dragon fly up from the water.

After the beginning of the issue gave us the name Beowulf we can assume that this dragon at the end may be his nemesis names Grendel. I am very curious to see where they take this in the future issues and who exactly that red dragon may be. I am excited to see if this does happen to be Grendel how they tie that into the symbiotes and why Venom is presumably hearing his voice after all this time. I liked seeing an alternate history towards Venom and changing up the story a bit to keep readers on their toes and so that nobody thinks they know everything. Another subplot I thought was well played was the struggle between Eddie and Venom. If you have seen the newest trailer for the Venom movie you get a glimpse of that with Tom Hardy, and I think this series will be a good read for some people who would like to get to know more about Venom and ever veteran readers. It really showed a softer side to Venom you don’t normally see. Everyone thinks he is some rage monster, and while yes he still is and still wants to kill people, it shows us that Venom has some weaknesses when hes not in control of Eddies body.

I am very excited for the upcoming Venom movie, I think its time he deserves some cinematic spotlight after Topher Graces questionable portrayal in Spider-man 3. Venom has always been a fan favorite and even ranks 22 on ING’s list of top 100 comic villains. While Venom isn’t shown a whole lot and doing what he does best (killing) its still a great read and would highly recommend to anyone looking to start reading Venom comics or for someone who wants to know a little bit more and see his comic book roots before his movies comes out in October.

Next issue continuing this story comes out on June 13, 2018.