Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Cafu
Color Artist: Frank D’Armata
Cover Artists: Bryan Hitch & Alex Sinclair
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: StoryBabbler
Now that the events of Dark Web have finally wrapped up, Venom, or rather Eddie Brock has been left falling into Limbo. But Eddie Brock is not in his right mind thanks to Madelyne Pryor, the Goblin Queen, and now he’s left on his own in Limbo. Read Venom #17 to see what happens to Eddie Brock as Bedlam is unleashed in Limbo on his own.
If you’re interested in this comic, series, related trades, or any of the others mentioned, then simply click on the title/link to snag a copy through Amazon as you read the Venom #17 Review.
Review:
So, here’s some recap. Venom got caught up in the whole Dark Web event with Madelyne Pryor, aka the Goblin Queen, and the Spider-Clone Ben Parker turned villain (for some reason), aka Chasm. During this time he was, as this comic says, reset to factory settings, and then the Bedlam side of him comes out and wrecks shop a little for the villains and the heroes. Then Dylan gets his act together, teams up with Normie who has some symbiote powers, and they fight Eddie Brock as Bedlam and almost win. That is until Kamala Khan Miss Marvel of all people ends up stopping them from killing him, and then Bedlam was recalled by Madelyne and his fight in the event ends up leaving him in Limbo, and here we are.
Eddie Brock is stuck in Limbo with seemingly no way out, his mind has been altered so much that the Bedlam personality is in the driver’s seat while Eddie is not. From there, this whole comic is Al Ewing managing to tell a fine action comic that gets weird in a somewhat unique way. This is helped of course by Cafu’s excellent art with Frank D’Armata’s colors helping Bedlam stand out among the enemies and world of Limbo. The writing from Al Ewing is good when it comes to the dialogue, pacing, and action thanks to Cafu’s art that ends up being fun and dynamic.
There will be a quick SPOILER for this portion of the review, but it’ll be quick and brief and more about the art than it is the story. One cool thing that this comic does is that the story plays with time-travel in the story. Naturally, it gets a little complicated. But what Al Ewing and Cafu do here is have the comic split sideways where there’s a break in time and there are two tracks of the same battle going on and readers can follow these two divergent timelines as the fight develops differently in each one. It’s like reading two stories happening at once. And they both have cool conclusions, but since the story’s dealing with time travel of a sort, it gets a little confusing at the end. But it’s easy if readers just roll with it going forward.
Al Ewing takes things expectedly weird and abstract with this story, as he has every time he writes on the Eddie Brock issues in this series. As a result some things in the story make sense, some things don’t and are a bit of a headscratcher. And then there’s the ending that just leaves this reviewer at least questioning just what the heck is going on. It doesn’t help that the source of the narration throughout the entire comic is what’s revealed at the end. Now, I won’t spoil what happens at the end, but it definitely leaves me scratching my head as to what exactly is going on. I have some ideas but when it comes to Al Ewing Marvel stories, I never know what he’s going to give us most of the time. So, I’m willing to see how this unfolds and if it makes any sense within this series at least.
Final Thoughts:
Venom #17 takes place after the conclusion of Dark Web, but Eddie Brock is not out of the woods yet as he’s left stuck in Limbo as Bedlam of all things. The comic is pretty fun and it plays around with time in Limbo that ends up connecting it to a previous issue in the current Thor run. Meanwhile the main story goes into a weird direction that will confuse some readers while having enough intrigue to make others stick around to see what awaits Eddie Brock and the rest of this Venom run.