makothebookdragon's review against another edition

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adventurous

4.0

librarimans's review against another edition

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3.0

This is a fine collection of Michelinie-era Spider-Man, but the volume is very misleadingly titled. If you're coming into this expecting a collection of Venom stories I'd recommend the Birth of Venom and Vengeance of Venom collections for Spider-Man stuff before going off to Venom's various miniseries. This collection only contains one actual Venom story - ASM #300 - and that's it.

jordandeanbaker's review against another edition

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4.0

Despite the fact that this collection has very little to do with the titular character (venom) is was still a really great run of comics. Peter gets to actually be happy and have some success (despite a few small setbacks), and that feels surprisingly rare.

crookedtreehouse's review against another edition

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4.0

If you're, like me, doing a deep dive on Venom, and you decide to pick up this volume called "Venom" to get some serious Venom reading on, you're going to be disappointed. There is only one full issue involving Venom in this book. He has two brief cameos before issue #300, which is his sole featured appearance.

It's a Great Venom issue. The first battle between Parker and the Eddie Brock version of the symbiote is a solid 80s issue, pulling together several long term threads to explain why Eddie Brock now wears the suit. It's a great read, but not worth buying the whole book if you want to read stories about the character whose name is the subtitle of the book.

It is, however, an all around great era of Spider-Man stories. Starting off Peter Parker's time in The Mad Dog Ward (an asylum the Kingpin uses for assassins and to stash away some of his employees' loved ones so that nobody squeals on him), reuniting Parker with his briefly estranged Aunt May, moving Parker and Maryjane to a nice condo, and throwing in the usual smorgasboard of other heroe and villains. It's also some of Mcfarlane's best art on the title. His later stuff gets a bit grotesquely cartoony for me, but this run looks excellent.

If you were ever a fan of the late 80s Spider-Man stories, then this is The Collection to pick up.

sans's review against another edition

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3.0

I haven't seen the Venom film (yet!) but I just about died over Sony's holidays DVD/Blue-ray advert so hell yes I'm going to read up on the Venom comics before I watch it next week.

I love Venom in these stories. I even love Eddie. He looks like a bruiser with an IQ of 10, but bro is erudite and is 100% on board with Venom's "no innocents are going to get hurt on my watch" attitude. It's all so over the top and hilarious.

So why only 3 stars? Because of the rest of the content. Specifically the 80's writing style of recapping All The Things and telling the reader Every Little Thought Peter Has. And the Parker's drama. So. Much. Drama. It's really difficult to care about anything that's going on in his "real life" when it reads like the worst soap opera of all time.

felyn's review against another edition

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1.0

Utterly terrible. I'm not going to get into the utter shit, sexist writing, or the even worse art. (Though heads up, Mary Jane exists for two purposes: sex and damsel in distress.) Instead, let's consider the name of this volume: Venom. He appears in all of 2-3 issues in the entire collection. They introduce him so briefly, but the intro of the symbiote, Peter's subsequent black suit, and Venom finding Eddie? None of that is here. Instead, we get a menagerie of other Spidey villains. But no Venom.

All in all, this isn't worth your money. Hard skip. It adds nothing to your comics knowledge/enjoyment.
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