Marvel Recap: Venom and the Circle of Four

For Venom, it never gets easy. Well, for Flash Thompson as Venom, that is.

Flash takes on the Venom symbiote as a secret military operation. It restores his legs while in Venom form, as well as all of the other perks of being Venom. Unlike previous variations of Venom, Flash seems to mostly have full control of the symbiote as more of an extension of himself rather than a team that previous Venoms have shown. Flash even sports an arsenal of guns over relying on webbing and the famous Venom mouth and slimy tongue.

Issue number 13 does something that Marvel hasn't really done before- it just doesn't end. That is to say there's issue #13....then 13.1....13.2....13.3...and finally 13.4 Luckily, they make up for it as it was released every week in the month of February, including Leap Day. Usually Venom comes out once a month, so if you were expecting issue #13 in February and #14 in March, you won't be too upset; it'll still happen. Now this might also be a downfall, and I certainly feel it is, as you need the issues and you may not be prepared to do this financially. You're looking at $14.95 worth of books for these comics.

SPOILERS BELOW
This arc is titled "Circle of Four" which is enclosed in a satanic pentagram. Here's the 5 issues in one neat sentence: "Blackheart tries to make Earth into new Hell and the New Fantastic Four are involved." The four refer to the four characters of Venom, X-23, Red Hulk and Ghost Rider.

So what's the deal here? Well Ghost Rider accidentally allows Blackheart to begin transforming Earth into Hell. Meanwhile, Venom is being tracked by the Red Hulk. Additionally, X-23 is tracking her own blood. All four of them eventually end up together where all of this goes down and essentially form the New New Fantastic Four. If you haven't read comics, the "New Fantastic Four" was a temporary team of Spider-man, Wolverine, Joe Fixit (Grey Hulk), and Ghost Rider. See the resemblance? We have a Spider-man in Venom, a Wolverine in X-23, a Joe Fixit in Red Hulk, and a Ghost Rider in Ghost Rider.

So now this new team takes on Blackheart and dies.

Yes. Dead. They all died at the hands of some creatures that Blackheart conjured up to be the complete opposites of the heroes. Luckily (or unluckily) it's Hell on Earth (literally.) and dying there really doesn't do much in terms of your soul. At least Mephisto says so, and at the expense of a deal to help Mephisto later in time, he sends them back to the heat of the battle (pun intended).

After a full-on assault, we leave our last issue showing what looks like either the Red Hulk or Venom being possessed by the Spirit of Vengeance and driving a flaming motorcycle right back at Blackheart.

The arc itself finishes next month with Venom issue #14. If you've committed yourself to this arc so far, pick it up, as it comes out next week on March 7th. If I were to give an opinion to a new reader? Stay far away. Anytime a Marvel issue hits a "X.1" you know that it's generic filler to fill gaps in story down the road. This title does it FOUR TIMES. Don't do it. Of course if you collect the Venom series, it is a nice series collection. If you take the four covers create the mural you see at the top of this page.