First Look At The New Venom

Poor Venom.  He just hasn't been able to catch a break recently.  That Lethal Protector solo series never really caught on and I'm pretty sure most people want to forget about Spider-Man 3.  And then there was that solo movie he was supposed to star in, but hey, we still have the comics!  Today Marvel unveils the newest Venom, and they bring along a unique new twist on the character.  That's my polite way of saying I have no idea what the hell this thing is.

As any good comic fan can tell you, Venom is an alien symbiote from another planet that shares a twisted bond with it's owner.  This is just a bit weird, because nothing about this new costume says "alien life form" to me.  What it does scream out is "let's rip off Call of Duty".  It has some charm and is sort of funky, don't get me wrong, it's just something completely unexpected.  Now, we also have some artwork of the classic Venom costume.  We don't know exactly what this means.  Maybe when our beloved alien monstrosity needs a snack he reveals his inner self.  And it's one scary inner self.

Strangely enough, the description of the new series is pretty interesting.  This will be a covert, black ops hero out on international missions.  Personally, I love those kinds of stories and think we could use more of them in comics.  Okay Marvel you've got me a little interested.  Sadly, we don't know who will be donning the costume.  Originally, with Mac Gargan losing the costume I predicted Peter Parker's ex-room mate/convicted felon Vince Gonzalez would become Venom.  If you've reading the newest issues, you would have seen that Vince is now taking orders from Norman Osborn and has a new grudge against Harry.  And I don't know, he just looks like the kind of guy who would enjoy eating people.  He would have made for an exciting villain, but it's pretty clear this Venom is a good guy of some kind.  The writer describes the character as "a hero going in", so that narrows our choices a bit.  My guess is that the new Venom will be Peter's old high school nemesis Flash Thompson.  The guy proved himself to be a man of honor in the military, where he also damaged his legs.  Both of those would lead him to taking this role, and the character seems to have grown a pretty strong moral center.  I can see that working pretty well.

So here's our new Venom, in all his....glory?  This could be the symbiote's chance to make it solo, and with a writer like Rick Remender that's certainly a possibility.  Despite my reservations about the new look, I'm certainly interested enough to give this one a shot.