Venom: Dark Origin #1
By Zeb Wells
Published by Marvel Comics
Release Date: August 6, 2008

Venom: Dark Origin #1 is essentially a telling of how Eddie Brock grows up to be the man that eventually becomes Venom. The first issue in this series was a little weak on the action side, but that’s was pretty much to be expected and my guess is it only gets better from here. The nice thing about this issue is they covered Eddie’s childhood, teenage, and freshman years all in one issue so it won’t be dragged out across half the series before we get to some action and substance.

I found it extremely interesting how they decided to portray Mr. Brock and his childhood, he is a compulsive liar, a kid who gets picked on in high school (nice parallel to Peter Parker), and pretty much an all around pussy. The lying part plays a big role through this entire issue; he lies about stealing a girls cat and claims the glory when he “finds it”, he lies to get into college, and towards the end of the issue when he and a lady “friend” are attacked by muggers and are saved by Spider-Man… well, you get the idea. Eddie is apparently also very good at telling when people are lying, it’s a sort of “takes one to know one” thing.

I usually hate it when they retcon a villain’s backstory to make him a sympathetic villain, but this book seems to be doing the opposite: they are providing a back story which actually makes you dislike Eddie Brock himself, long before he even becomes Venom. Venom has always been a character I thought lacked much substance, and it seems like a lot of people agree, so hopefully this will add a little rhyme to the reason to the infamous symbiote and create a deeper, more interesting foil to Spider-Man.