Venom: Dark Origin #2 Review

The second instalment of Venom: Year One (as I like to call it) starts to interact with well known Spider-Man stories. In this case, the Sin-Eater (The Death of Jean DeWolff) is seen through Eddie Brock’s eyes.

Let’s dive right in shall we?

VENOM: DARK ORIGIN #2
Chapter 2
WRITER: Zeb Wells
ARTIST: Paco Medina
INKS: Scott Hanna
COLOURS: Matt Milla
LETTERS: Joe Caramagna

PLOT:
Eddie Brock’s now working for the Daily Globe and discusses with his wife, Ann Weying (who mysteriously has a different colour tone to all her previous appearances), how the Sin-Eater could be the story that takes him to the top. Luckily, his internship lands him a letter sent by the Sin-Eater (or so he thinks). He uses this to get an exclusive story, move up in the Globe and get a front page story.

Everything is going swimmingly for Eddie Brock, Investigative Reporter, until he receives another call from the “Sin-Eater”, this time wanting a face-to-face meeting. Brock meets up with him at a church where he says his next victim, the Reverend, and his name, Emil Gregg. Brock’s columns become incredibly popular and the Globe starts to outsell the Bugle.

Unfortunately, the police want to know the identity of the Sin-Eater and Brock just won’t say, which gets him arrested. A visit from his father convinces Brock to reveal the identity of the Sin-Eater, just before the real Sin-Eater, Stan Carter, is caught by Spider-Man. Brock’s fired immediately and he walks out in shame.

LIKES:
-Everything is correct and nothing from the original story is retconned. A well written story.
-Medina art is great once again.
-The scene with Brock’s father.

DISLIKES:
-It doesn’t really tell us anything new about Brock or Venom.

THOUGHTS:
Well, this is a well written story. Dialogue is good, the pacing goes well and everyone is in character. I should love this issue. Except…I’ve read it before. The issue tells us nothing we didn’t know before. We know what happens, we see it through different eyes, but we don’t get a different story. There was potential for more, but it just doesn’t deliver. The only aspect that was new and that I enjoyed was the visit from Brock’s father. It seemed to show that Eddie didn’t want to get to the top through lying, it just turned out that way.

The art is a little bit better this issue, but there are a lot of talking head scenes. It isn’t an action comic but Medina does the quiet scenes well. The inks and colours definitely help this book out.

FAVOURITE QUOTE:
Nothing really sticks out here folks. I looked and looked. Nadda. Zilch. Zippo.

Sorry about that.

OVERALL:
2.5 webheads out of 5

Not a bad issue, just feels like it wasn’t needed. If you’ve read the original Death of Jean DeWolff story, then you don’t need this issue.

If you haven’t, then why the hell not?!