Book Review - Venom: Lethal Protector

It has been quite a long time since I've reviewed a book. With the Venom movie being announced, and me getting all excited like a kid who finally got his favorite action-figure, I wanted to brush up on Venom lore. So I picked up what is apparently a well-known, yet quite a controversial Venom mini-series called Venom: Lethal Protector.

Released in 1993, this comic series shows a different side of Venom with varying degrees of success. I always saw Venom as an anti-hero. The arch rival of Spider-Man who wants to see him dead, yet sometimes tries to reluctantly help those in need. A heart of Gold buried deep within the sinister symbiote-suit, if you will. I am quite sure that is how the character was portrayed before this series. But the way they show Venom in this comic, I was not entirely a fan of. Venom, here, tries to be more like Superman. He often talks to himself about how much he wants to protect the innocent and gloats about how righteous he is. Hell, he even poses like Superman in one of the panels! The only thing missing was a speech bubble saying "WILL WORK FOR WORLD PEACE". The writers wanted to make him a complete superhero, but that only made him boring and generic. The characterization is a mess.

The story is your usual rich-guy-finds-wealth-amidst-slum-dwellers-and-wants-to-move-them-forcefully angle. Venom has no home or a job post the battle with Spider-man and their truce. He comes across this group of people and helps them fight the rich bad guy's henchmen who are trying to remove them forcefully. But the group does not approve of him staying with them because he is technically a monster. So Venom sets out to win their confidence by stopping the rich guy from doing more harm. The story is okay at best; nothing too fancy. This could've easily been made a three issue series rather than making it a sixer since I could find a lot of unnecessary filler. 

Speaking about dialogues, they are downright childish. Venom says EVERYTHING he thinks out loud. I mean, it is not even a thought bubble. What's more funny is Venom actually says how he fools the bad guys during battle. For instance, in one of the issues, Venom is attacked by a bad guy with a sonic blaster. Eddie falls to his knees, and the symbiote-suit is writhing in pain. The bad guy pauses for a moment and goes on to say things that bad guys in comic books usually say. Suddenly, Venom gains his strength and goes on to say something along the lines of, "You're boasting gave us the time and the strength to recover. Now Die!". This happens quite a few times in the series which is annoyingly funny. I mean, who talks like that? The dialogues are undoubtedly average and sometimes juvenile.

The artwork is actually good. The colors are lively and the design of Venom is better than the ones from the 80s.  The whole art-style, including the human characters, has this 90s look to them, which makes sense since this is a run from the 90s. Eddie Brock looks like a muscular rock-star with his blonde mullet and 90s tank top and jean combo. Not bad.

You know what the irony is after all this is said? I love this comic! It has a certain charm to it that no other comic book these days has. Even the superhero movies that we see today are so futuristic and CGI-laden that they, if anything, seem quite far from what the original creators/writers intended. I would still recommend this comic even if I'm making it sound like it is not that great.

Score - 6/10