The Symbiote Makes the Man: Thoughts On Loving Venom

Apparently the Venom symbiote gets around!  When I was a kid, it was only ever bonded to Peter Parker and then Eddie Brock.  But during my time away from reading comics the Venom symbiote has bonded to Eddie Brock’s wife Anne, Angelo Fortunato, Mac Gargan, Flash Thompson, the Red Hulk, Flash again, Otto Octavius (while in Peter Parker’s body), Flash another time, Groot, Rocket, Drax, Flash yet again, the space pirate Mercurio, once more with Flash (big surprise), Peter Parker (again (for a bit)), Flash a final time, and Lee Price before finally coming home to Eddie Brock.  Whew!  With the “Venom Inc.” crossover winding its way through my regular read The Amazing Spider-Man, I’ve found myself thinking back on the ultimate Spider-Man villain and coolest antihero of the 1990’s. 

The First Wedding I Ever Attended

It’s Throwback Thursday time again and this week I’m feeling extra nostalgic.  You see, tomorrow is my birthday (which I LOVE; I’m not a hate-your-birthday kind of guy).  I’ve actually been thinking a lot about my return to this love of comic collecting and how, as an adult, I can now experience new layers to stories I first read as a kid.  My nostalgia led me to pull some old favorites out of the closet and revisit the first wedding I ever attended – the wedding of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson!

The Amazing Spider-Man #300 and the Rise of Venom

Since starting this blog I’ve written a lot about my return to the world of comic collecting and all the amazing experiences I’ve found on the racks of Books Galore, my local comic shop, each week.  But I’ve also (naturally) been thinking more and more about allllllll the comics I read back when I was a kid.  I’d been contemplating revisiting some of those storylines and writing about them in some context for this blog.  The other night it hit me.  The answer was right in front of me!  Our culture has given birth to the wonderfully nostalgic idea of a Throwback Thursday.  So, with it being Thursday and all, I figured I’d look back at one of my most vivid comic book memories as a kid, 1988’s The Amazing Spider-Man #300 and the VERY FIRST APPEARANCE OF VENOM!