Spider-Man plays therapist while Reed Richards plays mad scientist
There are certain things you probably shouldn’t do around a symbiote.
Fire? Bad.
Sonic weapons? Worse.
Reminding it that Reed Richards once treated it like an experimental lab animal?
Extremely bad.
Venom #261, part of the ongoing Queen in Black story, gives us something slightly different from the cosmic warfare happening elsewhere in the event. Written by Al Ewing, with art by Carlos Gómez and colors by Frank D’Armata, this chapter spends much of its time inside a laboratory, digging into Venom’s memories, Mary Jane’s increasingly complicated bond with the symbiote, and Reed Richards’ latest extremely Reed Richards plan to save the world.
And thankfully for us Spider-Man readers, Peter Parker drops by too.
Wearing a lab coat.
Because apparently Doctor Spider-Man has office hours now.
PROS
My favorite part of this issue is that Al Ewing continues treating the Venom symbiote as an actual character, rather than just Mary Jane’s extremely fashionable alien wardrobe.
We experience much of the opening through Venom’s memories, going all the way back to its early encounters with Reed Richards. Venom remembers being examined, prodded and ultimately subjected to fire and sonic attacks while Reed attempted to remove it from Spider-Man.
From Reed’s perspective, he was dealing with something dangerous.
From Venom’s perspective?
It was terrified.
That distinction gives the opening real weight without making the issue unbearably heavy. Venom remembers Reed not as Marvel’s smartest stretchy dad, but basically as the scientist who put it in the scary tube.
And guess what Reed has in his lab now?
A scary tube.
Great start, everybody.
When Reed begins experimenting on Mary Jane and Venom, their understandable anxiety quickly turns into panic. The symbiote lashes out, Reed gets walloped, and MJ essentially has to grab the steering wheel and yell:
Everybody calm down!
What makes the scene work is Reed eventually admitting that his earlier approach was wrong. Instead of treating Venom as something to contain, he acknowledges that communication should have come first.
Growth!
Only took several decades of publication history.
The larger plan is appropriately Fantastic Four-level insane. Reed believes Dylan Brock’s “Chainbreaker” ability could potentially be replicated to break symbiote bonds across Hela’s army—and perhaps even disrupt Knull’s forces.
There is just one small complication:
Mary Jane and Venom are bonded too.
So Reed needs to figure out how to separate them without, you know, killing MJ.
No pressure.
Then Spider-Man arrives, immediately calling himself “Doctor Spider-Man” and complaining that curtains should have runners.
Never change, Peter.
His inclusion is more than comic relief, though. Peter asks MJ how the bond is actually going, and when he realizes MJ is speaking for both herself and Venom, he decides he wants to speak directly to the symbiote.
That leads to my favorite sequence in the issue.
Peter takes Venom into the Fantastic Four’s aerial gym—the same place where he first encountered the team decades ago—and the two literally swing around while talking through some emotional baggage.
Only Spider-Man could turn alien relationship counseling into a gymnastics session.
Venom opens up about losing Eddie, Eddie returning changed, Dylan bonding with Toxin and the fear of losing family again.
Peter understands more than most people could.
He tells Venom that he can’t promise nobody will ever get hurt again, because that simply isn’t how their lives work.
But they keep going.
Together.
And when Dylan arrives, that idea becomes the answer Venom was looking for:
All of us. Together.
That’s a surprisingly sweet little Spider-family moment buried inside a story involving evil gods and weaponized symbiote chemistry.
Carlos Gómez also gets to go gloriously gooey whenever Venom starts losing control. The final pages especially shift from clean Fantastic Four science-fiction imagery into full-on symbiote horror.
CONS
Reed Richards may officially need his laboratory privileges suspended.
Every time this man says something like, “This should theoretically work,” somebody should immediately unplug the Baxter Building.
His eventual plan involves anti-Carnage material, Venom biology, Dylan, Toxin and a process designed to manipulate symbiote bonds on a massive scale.
And somehow everyone basically responds:
Sure. Let’s try it.
Folks.
Maybe run a simulation first?
The science exposition also gets pretty dense in places. Chainbreakers, Engrarnac, anti-Carnage substances, molecular reactions, symbiote lineages—it occasionally feels like Reed assigned us homework before allowing us to enjoy the alien goo.
FINAL GRADE: F… FOR FANTASTIC!!!
Venom #261 is a surprisingly character-focused chapter hidden inside a massive crossover.
Mary Jane continues proving why she works so well as Venom’s current partner, Dylan remains central to the larger mythology, and Reed gets a chance to confront one of his old mistakes.
But for me, Peter’s scenes with Venom steal the issue.
Spider-Man has one of the longest, strangest relationships imaginable with this alien—and watching him simply listen to it feels oddly fitting.
Unfortunately, Reed’s experiment goes very, very wrong.
The anti-Carnage reaction accelerates.
Venom starts spreading.
Peter gets caught in the connection.
And suddenly Reed Richards is staring into the face of one absolutely enormous, absolutely furious symbiote.
The advice?
“You can pray.”
Thanks, everybody.
Very scientific. 🕷️🖤
