It's just a dusty old videotape of a summer picnic years ago, but for Peter Parker, it's a tiny link to the parents he barely remembers. Watching it leads Peter to a friend, long forgotten, and through his reunion with boyhood chum Eddie Brock, Peter learns that their fathers had once worked together on "venom," an oily synthetic substance they hoped would be a cure for cancer.

Peter, being of a scientific bent himself, decided to continue his father's work. But venom is much more volatile than he anticipated, and soon he's parading around downtown Manhattan with an evil black caricature of himself running the show. Genetically coded to his father's DNA, the symbiotic black suit responds to Peter's every thought like it was his own skin and muscle -- until he gets angry and the symbiote shows a mind of its own. He's able to free himself from its influence before it's too late.

But Eddie, who doesn't seem one of the most stable of young men to begin with, won't let sleeping symbiotic formulae lie.

Volume #6 of the Ultimate Spider-Man line reintroduces one of mainstream Marvel's most villainous bad guys: Venom. In the original tale, the villain began as an alien glob of black that mimicked Spider-Man's suit and powers, then didn't take lightly being discarded. The alien symbiote took over Eddie Brock, in this case a jealous and unscrupulous photographer, and devoted itself to making Peter's life hell.

The Ultimate version is better.

Of course, the book wouldn't be complete without some day-in-the-life panels devoted to Peter's relationship with Mary Jane and his home life with Aunt May and Gwen Stacy. On a more ominous note, however, is his closing discussion with espionage chief Nick Fury, which sets Peter's future in doubt.

by Tom Knapp
Rambles.NET
6 May 2006