I’ve seen a number of posts floating around where people ask how to start reading the Venom comics, so here’s my little take on the subject. Given that the comics have been around for 30+ years, the “continuity” is a jumbled, nigh-meaningless mess, so let’s focus on the goods here. And by “the goods” I mean “Eddie and Venom being really gay and romantic with each other”. So here are a few series that DELIVER on that front. This list is by no means all inclusive– feel free to reblog and add more! I haven’t even come close to reading all the comics.
(Most of the links below are to Comixology, because that’s where I have them, but you know. Get them wherever.)
1. Venom (2018) written by Donny Cates – this is the current ongoing series, with 6 issues out so far (the 7th comes out on 10/10). The quality of the writing is top notch. Venom becomes very ill because of an evil symbiote god who looks like he stepped right out of a Castlevania game if Castlevania was made by David Cronenberg. Despite the unspeakably powerful goth energy radiating from the art, this series has many tender, soft moments between Eddie and Venom and it contains the crown jewel of any OTP: Venom says, right there on the page, “I love you, Eddie”.
2. Venom (2016) written by Mike Costa – collected into 4 volumes. This is the one where Eddie and Venom rekindle their relationship and then have a baby together, complete with on-panel birth. Has some cute slice-of-life scenes and lot of Eddie and Venom working on trust and communication in their relationship. They call each other romantic pet names. And fight dinosaur people. In the sewer. Like you do.
3. First Host (2018) written by Mike Costa – 5 issue miniseries. A direct continuation of the above. How fares Eddie and Venom’s bundle of joy? Highlights include Eddie in peak Dad Mode, Eddie being super protective of his spouse and child, and the entire plot ripped straight from a soap opera. Not even joking: the Venom symbiote’s ex suddenly shows up out of nowhere and demands Venom return to him. When Venom says it wants to be with Eddie now, the shitbag ex threatens their child! *mustachio twirl*
4. Venom: The Hunger (1996) written by Len Kaminski – 4 issue miniseries. Overflowing with X-Treme 90s Energy, Eddie is insufferably self-righteous and has He-Man hair, all bodily fluids are neon green, and Venom looks like an H.R. Giger painting. This little gem tells us the origin of Venom’s chocolate obsession. Eddie cuddles Venom a lot and there’s panels of Eddie basically moaning with pleasure while Venom wraps him in tentacles. The story revolves around Venom leaving Eddie because it needs certain brain chemicals, and Eddie’s brain alone can no longer provide it enough so it has to go on a vore spree. Eddie and Venom do, of course, make up and get back together again in the end, so fear not!
5. Venom: Lethal Protector (1993) written by David Michelinie. Not nearly as overtly gay as the more recent series, but the movie is (VERY) loosely based on this, so there ya go. Get ready to see Eddie bopping around San Francisco in a killer mullet, crop top, and mom jeans! Still very loud queer subtext between him and Venom, as with every Venom series. Except the most recent ones– only because it’s not subtext anymore, it’s canon!
Skill: Shows off the blacksmiths massive horse cock. In a time before modern machinery some crazy Germans and Swiss hammered beyond natural human limit. They probably did it as a meme then realised it was actually useful as a weapon. Sharpening a wavy blade would have been a nightmare.
Functional: Good for duelling sword vs sword. A traditional sword allows you to slide off an enemies blade if your swords clash, because the blade is straight. The waves in a flamberg blade creates vibrations which hurts the opponents hands, that doesn’t sound like much but it gives you an advantage. Very useful for parrying since the enemies sword will strike, then the blade gets stuck on your wavy blade or they pull away from the impact shock. Either way you will have an opening to attack. Also the waves cut much deeper similar to a serrated knife. If you got cut once by this blade, you would not be able to stitch your wound shut, you are pretty much sliced bread.
Aesthetic: Someone challenges you to a duel, while they unsheathe their boring longsword, you unwrap your wiggly sword. They immediately apologize and run because you are rich enough to afford a wiggly sword and probably have multiple wenches giving you ankle parchments.
Item:Flamberge; in addition to the old 3.5 stats at the link, while not everyone recognizes the dangers of fighting someone with a wiggleblade, +4 on Intimidation checks against Fighters and others with knowledge of weapons.
I still think that my favorite urban legend/folklore fact is that there are certain areas in New Orleans where you cannot get a taxi late at night not because it isn’t safe, but because taxi companies have had recurring problems of picking up ghosts in those areas who are not aware that they are dead and disappearing from the cab before reaching the destination and therefore stiffing the driver on the fare causing a loss for the company.
Do you ever think about how Jeff Bezos could feed literally more than a million food insecure people while losing an hour’s wage but you have to tell yourself no when you want to buy a coffee but can’t because that’s all your rent money?
I often hear the argument that having major characters die is more
realistic than having them always come through unscathed. Of course it
is. But I personally don’t want my fiction to necessarily be “realistic”
– I want my fiction to be entertaining. For me, that means watching
engaging characters I care about get into and out of dangerous
predicaments, working and thinking together in order to defeat the bad
guys. While some authors (and readers) like the tension of wondering who
will live and who will die, I prefer the tension of seeing how the
heroes are going to think or work their ways out of each difficult or
impossible situation they find themselves in. If I want realism and the
deaths of people I care about, I can turn on the news.
–Timothy Zahn, interviewed by TheForce.Net, 2008
Tim Zahn just summed up my entire issue with adult movies and fiction
I do not want to get invested in a character just to have them die or be violated or whatever, I don’t care that it’s dramatic. It’s not fun, it just leaves me angry and frustrated that I wasted my time on this media.
tora42's nonsensne 