Spider-Man: Birth of Venom
by Jim Shooter, Tom DeFalco, John Byrne, Louise Simonson, David Michelinie
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Book Summary Information
Author: David Michelinie, Jim Shooter, John Byrne, Louise Simonson, Tom DeFalcoIllustrator: Mike Zeck
Illustrator: Ron Frenz
Illustrator: Rick Leonardi
Illustrator: Greg LaRocque
Illustrator: Todd McFarlane
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-04-04
ISBN: 0785124985
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Marvel
Book Reviews of Spider-Man: Birth of Venom
Book Review: A good source for info but not much else
Summary: 3 Stars
Perhaps I had overly high hopes for this collection, and to be fair, the "Birth of Venom" does exactly what it states: it explains and presents the origins of the black suit symbiote and its merger with Eddie Brock to become Venom. But as thankful as I am for those inclusions, this collection suffers from an incredibly disjointed, thrown-together feeling and approach. As a few others have mentioned, some "issues" are only one or two pages thrown in there to move the story along. It's disappointing since it gives the reader of something bigger going on, but without knowing the full story. On that same subject, 1/2 of Venom himself, Eddie Brock, is not even mentioned until his full appearance as Venom, despite being in previous issues. Why they didn't just throw a page or two of him in there, like they did earlier on, is baffling and undermines a big part of who Venom is and why he does what he does. Sure, he explains it through flashbacks, but flashbacks aren't quite the same as reading it in "realtime." Another big problem with the collection, and probably one that just couldn't be worked around, was the inclusion of issues with no closure. The symbiote suit, much more than the character "Venom", was the focus here, but several issues throw in plenty of villains, such as Kingpin, the Rose, Jack O'Lanter, and Hobgoblin, but never reaches a conclusion with any of them really. The issues at the time weren't focused on Venom, so their inclusions and conclusions feel especially jarring. A big part of the Spider-man mythos is the development of these stories and its characters, so it's a tad frustrating wondering what happened to Hobgoblin, or why Hydro-man suddenly popped up. The inclusion of a few issues that don't even HAVE any developments of the symbiote suit undermines the inclusion of the ones that do, as they could have been exercised in favor of more plot and drama.
Speaking of which, while the collection doesn't exactly flow, it does have some great old-time Spider-man moments that were a wonderful reminder of a time long passed. In this volume, Spider-man dates The Black Cat, Mary Jane confesses her knowledge that Peter's Spider-man, and Peter and Aunt May have a spat over college. But, like the rest of the volume, these dramas never reach fruition, but they're interesting scenarios.
Also, the art, as some mentioned, is a mixed bag. It goes from rather poor (early on) to phenomenal (later on.) Having read up on Todd McFarlane, it's interesting to see how his style evolved. With issues jumping forward by months and years, it's shocking to see his Spider-man go from lackluster to the artistic Renaissance man that established McFarlane as a power player in comics. Some of the later issues have poses and action scenes that are almost frame worth, and it's absolutely jarring to compare that to the earlier issues in this volume.
But, even that has its problems. Venom himself has evolved artistically since his introduction, and the Venom in this collection is a very rough version of the character. While he went on to be really overexposed later, he wasn't quite developed enough in this collection either. Visually, he just starts off as a bigger version of the black Spider-man with a toothy grin. Later, his teeth get sharper, he gets more developed, and looks much better... but as good as Todd draws him, Venom truly reached his peak later on, sporting a bluish hue to his costume and getting his trademark tongue and green spit. Those later incarnations are not included in this collection, which would have been a nice touch to see how he developed.
In the end, this collection does its job, but I can't help but feel it could have been done better. I can understand that trying to cram almost 10 years of development into one volume can be daunting, and cuts had to be made, but some inclusions and omissions are baffling, and the complete story feels distinctively lacking. If you're a Venom fan, I can give this a recommendation, but you'd do better reading "Maximum Carnage" or "Venom: Lethal Protector".
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