Customer Reviews

Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 6: Venom

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This review refers to Ultimate Spider-Man vol. 6 paperback edition: Venom

After other Spider-Man villains, finally fans are treated to the coming of Ultimate Venom! My personal favorite out of Spidey's rogue's gallery, Eddie Brock is given a background and origin very different from the main stream character. Also, Spider-Man's black suit origin is much different. No longer is the grand space-opera of the Secret War mentioned. Now it is a life saving experiment gone wrong.

Not only does Bendis do a flawless job of presenting Venom, he further complicates Peter and MJ's relationship, and the hints of tension with Gwen grow.

My only gripe about Ultimate Spider-Man is a small one, but does EVERYONE know Peter Parker is Spider-Man? Whatever happened to a secret identity being secret, anyway? Yet another character learns Peter's secret in this volume, making me wonder who's next?

Bendis's scripting is very good, and I think this is Bagley's best art yet.

This volume reprints Ultimate Spider-Man #33-39, and can be enjoyed by all ages, by newcomers and established fans.

Highly recommended!

This book was pretty good, and was actually the reason why I started collecting Ultimate Spider-man comics. It introduced the Ultimate Universe to Eddie Brock, and old friend to Peter. When they learn of a suit that could cure cancer, Peter Parker (Spider-man) accidently put it on. His strength and attitude was increased. He got rid of the costume before it permantly changed him. Eddie Brock figured out that Peter was Spider-man and put the suit on himself. He became Venom, a very crazy, strong, and strange-looking monster. If your looking for a book that has Venom at his best, this is not it. This Venom is very different from the regular Marvel Universe's Venom. This story is basically a shortened version of a story that marvel did in more than 100 or so issues! Its still a good story, plus it has Ultimate Shocker and Ultimate Nick Fury! I hope this helped you in making your decision on getting this book.

The grand conceit of the "Ultimate Spider-Man" comics is that they go back to the beginning of the story when the bite of an irradiated spider granted high school student Peter Parker amazing arachnid-like powers. For those who remember the first 100 issues or so of "The Amazing Spider-Man," writer Brian Michael Bendis, penciler Mark Bagley, and inkers Art Thibert and Rodney Ramos have been providing a high intensity retelling of the tale. This time around Mary Jane Watson and Gwen Stacy are fellow high school students of Peter Parker and the fateful encounter with the Green Goblin comes early on. In this sixth collection of the "Ultimate Spider-Man," which brings together issues #33-39, there is a quantum leap beyond the Stan Lee days of the original comic to retell the story of Venom.

At this point in the tale Captain Stacy is killed while in pursuit of a burglar who had gone on a crime spree posing as Spider-Man, leaving Aunt May to offer his orphaned daughter Gwen a place to live. Meanwhile, after defeating the burglar who has been posing as Spider-Man, Peter is stunned to find out that Mary Jane, who has not only been his girlfriend but the one person he trusts who knows he is Spider-Man, can no longer stand the pressure and breaks up with him. In the wake of that shock Peter connects with Eddie Brock, now a student at Empire State University. It seems Peter and Eddie's dad worked together at the lab and Peter thinks Eddie would like a copy of a videotape of their families enjoying a picnic. Eddie is touched, and has something to show Peter as well, something he calls their "inheritance."

Of course, this is the "black costume," now no longer and alien parasite but a genetic bodysuit. While experimenting with it, the suit leaps onto Peter who discovers it has one big advantage over his regular Spidey suit: it repairs the damage done to him by bullets. But when Spider-Man catches up with the burglar who killed Uncle Ben, his new suit literally goes in for the kill. Eventually Peter will go to Eddie for help, and then it will be time for the suit to find a new person with whom to play and Venom, Spider-Man's evil twin, is truly born.

One of the improvements Bendis and Bagley came up with for their revisionist version of Spider-Man was the idea that it was Peter's father who was the scientific genius who came up with the webbing formula. They build on that foundation again by working in both Eddie Brock and the Venom costume into the fabric of the Parker family saga, not to mention Curt Connors. Knowing Eddie gives the conflict with Venom more depth and Peter gets to be a smart kid without being a genius on the level of Tom Swift. The subplot of Nick Fury being something of a quasi-guardian angel and part-time mentor for Spider-Man is continued, and watching Aunt May and Gwen bond is also going to make things interesting down the road.

The "Ultimate Spider-Man" comics lend themselves to being collected as trade paperbacks because the Ultimate titles focus on multi-issue story arcs. This allows for stories of greater depth that play upon the "original" stories on which they are based, and also helps avoid the problem when Spider-Man has to fight a different villain each month. I am curious as to what readers who missed out on the first decade of the original "Amazing Spider-Man" think about this retelling of the web-slingers saga think about these comics, given they missed everything the first time around. But I find them to be a thoughtful and rather ambitious reconceptualization.

When I first heard that the Symbiote was going to be a cure for cancer, I was dissapointed. But they managed to pull it off amazingly! It was a great comic, but I wish spidey had worn the Symbiote Suit a little longer before losing it. Overall, this was a great comic.

This is one of the greatest ultimate Spiderman book. My favouirate character was always venom if you like venom at all read this book.

It has the right idea putting eddie brock and peter parker as friends also peter with the suit was great but eddie was better the only problem was where was the white spider?

THE STORY IS BRILLIANT AS IS THE ART

After looking through some of his dads' old research, Peter Parker decides to look up his childhood friend, Eddie Brock. After the two catch up, Eddie shows Peter the experimental 'biological suit' that their fathers were working on before they died. Peter decides to try the 'suit' and chaos ensues.

Writer Brian Michael Bendis once again showcases his superb writing style with realistic dialogue and fantastic characterization (this book has an equal balance of dialogue and action; as many consider Bendis' work to have too much dialogue). Also Mark Bagley's pencils are as good as ever, accurately displaying the characters' emotions as well as clearly showing action scenes. Transparency Digital's colors are also quite good, showing a wide array of colors throughout the story.

Fans looking for more superb writing from Bendis and great artwork from Bagley will not be disappointed.
This book shows why Ultimate Spider-Man is the best book in Marvel's Ultimate line and also one of the best comics on the market.

The Ultimate Venom TPB is awesome, and a worthy read, however, once you get to the end, there are too many questions left unanswered. To get these answers you have to buy the Ultimate Spider-man video game for PS2, Xbox, or Gamecube. The videogame is the second half of the story. It's been confirmed by Marvel, Activision, and Bendis that the videogame is canon to the comicbook, so those who aren't gamers just lost 1/2 of the story.

Here's a good introduction to Eddie Brock with a strong continuation of the series. Peter Parker gets a whole new set of obstacles to conquer. This volume carries on the great pace and leads me right up to demanding the next installment.

Here's what I like:
Venom's Origin was well done.
Spider-man's character gets a little more complex
The story of Peter's father and Eddie's Father is very interesting.
Nick Fury's appearance is a strong-point in the comic.

What I didn't like:
Lizard's origin is without an origin.
I needed more explanation as to how the "venom" retained the Spider-man attributes.

Maybe these things will be explained more, but that's what crossed my mind as I was reading. It wasn't my favorite volume, but I still managed to stay hooked. I'm just glad I have over 20 volumes to read.

venom is like,my favorite spidey villan,so i expected this to be a great comic. and it certainly delivers!from spidey finding his childhood friend,to spidey wearing the suit,and finally eddie getting the venom suit.
it has great artwork(as always)depicts venom very well.it also shows how peter trys to pick up his fallen relationship with mj.i think that any spidey fan would love this comic!

ultimate spider-man by bendis and bagley is one of the best series out there. not as much action and non-stop bad guy fighting, but a good mix of that and a lot of peter parker being a teenager with problems (girls, bullies, being grounded, etc.) along with his spidey life.
the series is great great great. only a few minor things that could be better:
1. i don't like how nick fury comes in and tells spider-man he's going to work his whole life for him and shield. the idea of peter being...trapped in a web? haha...well it isn't too cool. superheroes need to fight the good fight because they want to, not because shield will go and take away their superpowers (as fury has threatened) if they don't comply. plus the issues where the ultimates come in aren't that great, the whole series gets hijacked by them and not a lot of spidey. imo, the ultimates are easily the worst part of the ultimate universe. beyond ultimate spider-man and the ultimate fantastic four the ultimate universe isn't too great.
2. bendis needs to cut down on the tuchas talk. seriously if parker grew up in nyc today he'd more likely speak spanglish than yanglish.
3. geldoff.