Venom 12-15

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Venom #12-15 (2004)
Writer: Daniel Way
Pencils: Skottie Young
Inker: Rick Ketcham

Following a battle with the Fantastic Four, a piece of Venom's tongue is split off and falls into the hands of an unnamed government agency. Meanwhile, Venom is collected from the Fantastic Four and delivered to a S.H.I.E.L.D.. While in Reed Richard's lab, Fury takes notice of the nano-bots Richards is using and pockets one as he leaves. Later he hands it over to his S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists to study.

Months later, Venom escapes and Fury sends out a humanoid weapon, "Suit" made up of the nano-bots stolen from the FF to hunt down a clone of Venom that is wrecking havoc in the Arctic. The Venom clone escapes to New York City where Nick Fury leads S.H.I.E.L.D. to it track down. Meanwhile the progress of events are being monitored by the mysterious alien "Bob".

Continuity Notes
33 4 900 65 2 4 44 88,000 19 12 12,000,000 8 72 8 Alpha Zulu Alpha is some code that is really scary to Nick Fury.
Issues #12-13 takes place in the story arc"Patterns" and #14-15 in "Twist".

Review
Probably one of the worst stories with Nick Fury to come down the pipe in a while, and its a shame as he gets to take on Venom, a first for him. Scribe Daniel Way opts for an approach to Nick Fury that is part asshole, part Rambo sans brains. The relationship between Fury and the FF are all wrong. The overall tone of the story is less then serious many times and ruins whatever tension the story tries to build up. Interesting to note another writer who ascribes to Fury an unhealthy desire for better weapons.

Bogging down everything for me is the art, part of the Tsunami line of comics that Marvel unleashed with anime/manga style, which I personally loath. Although it makes for some interesting depictions of Venom and his clone, normal people end up with weird egg heads and other bizarre proportions; its simply very hard for me to take any of this seriously with art like this. Its curious to note that Bob's ship bares a slight resemblance to the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. Avoid this one, even if they are handing them out as freebies on Free Comic Book Day.

Rating