Time for the Scorpion version of Venom to get his close up! In the Dark Reign era, Mac Gargan becomes Norman Osborn’s “official” Spider-Man, i.e., the one that is registered with HAMMER and is on the (Dark) Avengers.
Gargan is host to the Venom symbiote, and he’s proving no better at controlling it than Peter Parker. He kills a stripper and delivers the body to Mayor J. Jonah Jameson as revenge for JJJ’s role in turning him into Scorpion many years ago. His plan overall is to make the crime rate skyrocket, so Jonah will be pushed out of elected office.
He eats the arm off a Nazi genetic soldier named General Wolfram…
…Who will later be shown to have ties to Wolverine.
This is his first appearance. He eats parts of other villains, too. Like he takes a bite out of Hippo, who gets a one-page origin story…
Yes, she’s an actual hippo, evolved by High Evolutionary. Her name is “Mrs. Fluffy Lumpkins.” We see Venom eat her but she reappears in later stories so I guess she wasn’t completely consumed.
A guy named Redeemer gets the victims together and the plot gets a little confusing. He’s trying to “redeem” the villains through a kind of 12-Step intervention, but really is trying to use them to make Sinister Spider-Man look bad. He fails in the end–and then fades off into obscurity. He’s never seen again so no need to tag him. The good parts of this series are the violent/funny antics of Venom/Gargan, and they outweigh the pretty silly and far-fetched plot. Gargan’s never been portrayed as funny before, but he seems to have developed a teasing sense of humor since he took on Spider-Man’s identity.
Brian Reed is a solid writer and does a good job. Chris Bachalo’s art, as always, is highly stylized and obscure. It works pretty well for this series, but there are still some sequences where it’s hard to follow what’s going on.
English (US) · 