Booknote: Venom: Complete Collection, Volume 1

Rick Remender, Venom: The Complete Collection, Volume 1. New York, Marvel, 2015.  ISBN: 978-0-7851-9352-4.

Genre: comics and graphic novels
Subgenre: Marvel, superheroes, anti-heroes
Format: trade paperback
Source: Hutchins Library, Berea College

I found this volume to be pretty good. I picked it up around the time the Venom movie was in theaters. I get the feeling the comic was better than the film, as is often the case with many comics-based films.

In the comics, Flash Thompson, who used to bully a young Peter Parker in school, has grown and matured since those days. Thompson is a big fan of Spider-Man, and this inspired him to join the Army. He became a war hero, but he also lost his legs in combat. However, Uncle Sam is not done with Thompson yet, so the government offers him a chance to keep on serving by donning the Venom symbiote. Thompson is now the government's newest and very lethal dark ops agent.

This volume has a lot going for it. It humanizes Thompson well, who struggles to balance his work with Venom, which is top secret, with his daily life that includes a long suffering girlfriend and Thompson's abusive, alcoholic father who it turns out is dying. The stories are good, but at times some of the villain plots are a bit too convoluted. Also, due to crossovers, a big chunk of the plot in the overall story line is missing; the series skips from the one part of the story where the plot point starts to said plot being wrapped up. That was a slight annoyance. On another positive though, the art is pretty good in this volume.

Overall, not perfect but I did like it enough that I'll seek out the second volume.

3 out of 5 stars.