Rick Remender had decided to put Flash through a lot in the two previous arcs of his run. He had lost a father, struggled with his alcoholism to fall of the wagon eventually, have to handle a bomb constantly attached to him, go AWOL, be under the constant threat of black mail as Crime-Master discovered his identity, constantly disappoint and break up with Betty, stop Hell from coming to Earth and of course all while fighting Jack’O Lantern, Spiderman, Kraven, Fly, Hulk and Captain America. It has been a wild ride up to this point, and thankfully for Flash hings are starting to turn the corner. He is in good standing with the military and Captain america has even recruited him into the Secret Avengers. More importantly all the other life threatening situations are out of the way so he can focus on killing Crime-Master and Jack. However being Flash he still has a few things on his plate, Betty and him are not on good terms ( a precaution he took), Crime Master has a symbiote (in the form of Toxin), and unbeknownst to Flash, former host of his symbiote Eddie Brock is on a war path killing symbiotes and Venom is in his sights. To further compound all the matters Flash is growing more dependent on the symbiote and is out right addicted to it at this point. With things coming to a head, the stretch run of this story is most definitely action packed, and the ending does not disappoint.
Venom moving on up! An avenger! (in secret but still). Faster than Spidey!
Part 3 Overview :
Venom Vol.3 The Savage Six
Issues: 15-22
Collected and Trade Paper Back
Co Writers:
Cullen Bunn Issues 17-21
Artisits:
Lan Medina: Issues 15 ,18-21
Kev Walker: Issues 16-17
Decan Shavey: Issue 22
Flash is back on track and right off the bat has started to earn some trust with Cap and the Secret Avengers crew. Beast has infused the symbiote with some sedatives to calm some of its effects, however Flash is not being 100 % honest with the crew, as he has become completely addicted to the symbiote and craves it. We get a glimpse of his new team, and even see some flirtation with Valkyrie (a sign of things to come perhaps?). All the meanwhile we get glimpses of Eddie Brock on his crusade to kill all symbiotes, and he has Flash on the radar.
Back in New York Flash is getting advice from Peter Parker, who has been in quite similar ordeals (not that Flash knows it). This interaction is very intriguing as the reader obviously is aware that Flash is talking to his hero, but Flash can not see it, and Peter thinks Venom is his enemy, and he is unaware of the situation as well. Remender made this scene quite a tease for the fans because Flash at one point is about to confide in Peter the whole Venom bombshell, but is interrupted from a call with by his sister Jess. The fact that the run ended with Peter never finding out, in my humble opinion bolstered the legitimacy of the series, as it was not too reliant on Spidey’s presence, Venom was its own thing. Aside from their one brief early meeting they were pretty much separated throughout the entirety of the Marvel universe.
Flash then proceeds to work things out with his family as he visits his mom and sister to apologized for his absent behavior. His mother is fed up with the lies and demands Flash to tell the truth, to which he …lies again and says he’s been on a bender, rather than tell her about the symbiote. Flash has Betty visit and makes a attempt to patch things up, however Betty does not let him talk and gives a short but to the point speech of why she admires and loves the man who Flash became despite his childhood, she does not want to become Flash’s mother with Flash’s alcoholism getting in the way of a life. As Betty leaves and slams the door on their relationship, Flash is left there just to reflect on a picture of the two, the phone rings and again he is ready to go back to work help people.
The thing about this scene, which I feel is on of the strongest in the run, is it gives a strong sense of finality to Flash and Betty’s relationship. Unfortunate for a fan , because I really like Betty and fell like she balances Flash out so well. However I believe Remender made the right move here for Betty because it is true that if she went down this road she would be the wife of an addict, and essentially lose her freedom. It may not have been the alcohol (though Flash had done some of that to be fair), it would of been Flash’s dependency to the suit, which he has become just as reliant on as the bottle. The parallel works too perfectly, and Flash has all the symptons of addict when he has that symbiote. The constant need to have it despite what it does to him and especially those around him, the justification, the constant belief that he will be able to fix things and everything will get back on track. Remender gave the Betty/Flash relationship a resolution that while not the most ideal, completey justified and importantly one that was self contained so that Venom did not DIRECTLY effect the out come either way.
We then proceed to Flash protecting a prisoner movement of the Fly (seen in issue 5 of the run), however after Hob Goblin attempts to intervene and kill the Fly on behalf of Wilson Fisk. After they fight the Fly manages to escapes. Which leads to a separate day wherethe Fly being invited to see Crime-Master, who wants the Fly to join a team of super-villains he is forming known as the Savage Six. This also happens to be the day Flash decides to kill Crime Master and Jack. Flash has a snipers shot on Crime Master ready to shoot, where Eddie Brock ambushes Venom from behind causing his bullet to go astray, Crime Master realizes what is going on sees Venom. Venom escapes the situation as Brock has alot of anti-symbiote gear on hand. However Crime Master gets Brock and gives him the Toxin symbiote.
Eddie Brock as Toxin
Now Flash knows that Jack and the Savage six will be hot on his tail as well out to hurt his family and Betty. The members of the Savage six are Crime-Master and Jack O’Lantern, Toxin, The Fly and Remender Punisher run baddies Death Adder and Mega Tak. The stakes obviously have gone up ten fold as Flash has to deal with all sorts of problems now. The arc from this point becomes a frantic flurry of action and chaos in which Flash must save his friends and family. He first goes for Betty, who Jack has greeted, however Venom manages to get her out of harms way. He can no longer communicate with any family because Megatak has made the phone lines a weapon for the Savage Six. Venom also has to dela with Bety who is resisting him (as far as she knows he is the bad guy who tried to kill her) In order to gain her trust Flash reveals his secret to Betty.
Flash Reveals he is Venom
It is not received so well at first!
From here Flash and Betty head over to Jess’s house where they find out that Jack O’Lantern has killed Jess’s husband. He also has Jess and while Flash saves her , Toxin grabs Betty and him and Jack get away. Flash has to focus on protecting his mom, who he discovers is gone from her home and Death adder is waiting for him, Venom kill’s Death Adder, however knows the Fly has his mom because of his acid being at the scene, he goes to Fly’s old hideout and saves his mom and tortures Fly for info on where Crime Master is.
The Savage Six! Worthy foes of Agent Venom!
As things come to a head we finally get the Crime-Master identity reveal, as he explains to Betty that he is Bennet Brandt, Betty’s presumed to be dead brother. He was mysteriously resurrected by a crime organization to continue a legacy of Crime-Master’s who would run crime operations. (Admittedly this origin, was the weakest point of the story and did little to get the reader invested). At this point Venom infiltrates the base and has to deal with Mega-Tak , who admittedly is a powerful adversary. However Toxin wants to kill Venom for himself and bites Mega-Tak’s head off. Venom throws down with toxin, and uses a clever fire grenade to kill Toxin. Venom made a effort to remove Brock from the symbiote in order to save the man, however the toxin symbiotes dying action was to pull Brock into the explosion, seemingly killing Eddie Brock (this is comics however!).
Venoms reaches Crime-Master, Jack and Betty, he has no time for Jack and tosses him into a vat of acid. However Crime-Master was ready to fight with a heat gun. He has Flash removed from the symbiote dead to rights, then Betty shoots him in the back killing her brother to save Flash. Afterit all Flash and Betty talk on a rooftop, where Betty tells Flash not to carry all the burden of the blame, it all is not his fault, and she forgives him. However coming back to the certainty and finality of it, she never ever wants to see him again.
As Flashfaced with some closure in this ordeal goes to his Secret Avenger mates, and sits down to come clean with them, and tell them about all his stumbles with the suit. This would of been a nice ending to it all, however Remender did it one step further and gave us a PERFECT ending.
Issue 22 Fathers Day :
Venom v.s Jack O’Lantern the final round
Issue 22 of Venom is my favorite comic book issue period. I will argue it deserves to be in the discussion with the all time great single issues. The execution of it is perfect and it ends this story perfectly. Using flashbacks of Flash’s childhood and a present battle with Jack. Remender is able to illustrate the entire psychosis of Venom throughout this entire run, and why we have been so invested in the first place. The title is a nice touch two, as both Venom and Jack are fueled by their father’s and their importance shaped who they became, one good guy and one maniac.
The issue kicks off some time before Venom has a sit down with the Secret Avengers, he is out to wrap up the one loose end which is Jack O’Lantern who survived the acid (very resilient). Throughout the panels we see a glimpse into Flash’s dad abusing his family. Flash find’s Jack has taken his dad’s dead body and carved his signature into his insides for Flash to see, enraging Flash. When we get to the fight Jack gets a shot or two at the beginning, but Venom just goes into rage mode and essentially beats him mercilessly. The flashbacks give us a perfect contrast to Flash’s dad, adn he has essentially become his dad, and the Venom suit is just another alcohol, we get to the point where Flash has beat him to a pulp and is pretty much about to kill him once and for all. However through self reflecting he realizes what he has become and spares Jack. Then everything comes to a wrap nicely, Jack is then seen on the Raft being tossed in” Block D” with the rest of the “third rate nobodies” his ultimate legacy really. Flash has laid out all his dirty laundry to his team mates and has owned his mistakes, Betty has moved finally and Flash simply ends the issue staring at a photo of his family all together from childhood with a quote to end the run. “Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in. Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenley and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson. With that the story has come to end, and it did so brilliantly!
Flash breaks the cycle, ultimately sparing Jack’O Lantern
Legacy: It has only been just over a full year since this run ended. Venom as a series would continue on under Cullen Bunn until issue 42 , until it ultimately got cancelled. Bunn’s run had some interesting things, but honestly I will look a Remender’s run as the definitive Flash Thompson Venom story. Yes he can be found in other books ( the further issues of Venom, Secret Avengers, Thunderbolts and Guardians of the Galaxy coming up in 2014), but this story is Flash’s story at the core. It was everything you loved about the character along with all his faults. We got closure with Jack O’lantern, who turned out being a super fun villain to read, we got closure with Betty and Flash ultimately was able to break out of his dads shadow in issue 22. The following issues deal with magic and move Flash to Philadelphia where he has to take on a legion of hit men,it simply feels like a different story all together, and readers really should just separate this story from that one for all purposes.
Giving the middling sales this run had, I would imagine that this run has overall been underrated. I do envision in time, this run will be remembered fondly, as is with most quality work. I recommend this to anyone who has a interest in Venom, and comics in general. It is a perfect mix of action and character moments. You will actually care about Venom! Flash is impossible not to root for, and the rest of the supporting cast will grow on you, including that psycho Jack’ O Lantern (KUDOS to Remender for making gold out of that character).
Remender’s Venom is a intense thrill ride! If you missed out go and find the trades, you will be glad you did.
Under Remender, Venom was a explosive book!
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