Ariel Carmona Jr./David Wallace Comic Reviews

This miniseries has surprised me for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I was expecting a more drastic retooling of Venom's story - and instead Wells has stuck quite closely to the established origin story, making only minor cosmetic changes to Eddie's journey from disgraced journalist to all-out super-villain. Secondly, it has reminded me why so many people were hooked by Venom's early Marvel appearances, as despite the character falling into a rut soon afterwards, his core concept is a pretty strong one. Ultimately, this series doesn't add a huge amount to Venom as a character - and those readers who don't have the same attachment to Venom that I do can deduct at least half a bullet from my rating - but this is a solid story, well told, with more than passable writing and artwork, and deserves a certain amount of credit for that.

I'm still interested in seeing what Millar has planned for Wolverine, and how he plans to explore the defining event that led him to give up the superhero life - but there's very little character examination of any depth in this particular issue, and I suspect that the plot developments that we do get are going to be fairly inconsequential in terms of the story's bigger picture. As with many paced-for-the-trade story arcs, I get the sense that some of the middle issues of "Old Man Logan" may turn out to be a little more padded than they need to be - although you could perhaps argue that my impatience for Millar to get to the meat of his story is a reflection of the strength of his central concept, the layers of which are gradually being peeled away rather than having all of its secrets revealed to us all at once.

One final praiseworthy element of the book is the afterword by Millar that appears at the end of each issue. Whilst it's not exactly packed with information--it's certainly not at the same level as the backmatter that can be found in titles like Fell, Criminal or Casanova, for example--it's a good start, and it's nice to see a writer make an effort to engage with his audience in this manner.