The era of comic book excess, the early 90’s, is considered somewhat of a dark spot in the world of comics. There’s a lot of fun and charm in books from those years and this week’s highlight is nothing but the epitome of early 90’s comics…

Venom: Lethal Protector #1 - “Dark Soul Drifting”
Original Release Date: February 1993
Writer: David Michelinie
Artist: Mark Bagley
Inker: Delarosa & Milgrom
Letterer: Richard Starkings
Colorist: Marie Javins
Editor: Danny Fingeroth
Editor-In-Chief: Tom DeFalco

San Francisco, a dark alley:

It was supposed to be a simple mugging; a goon grabs a woman and tosses her in a back alley, demanding she give over her belongings. Unfortunately for her, she doesn’t have enough money to satisfy him, so he explains that he’ll take his satisfaction another way. He tells the obviously terrified woman that he likes to see fear in the eyes of his victims…

Unfortunately for him, so does a particularly vicious protector of innocents: Venom! The dark creature descends from seemingly out of nowhere to smash the mugger up against one of the brick walls of the alley. In a rather ironic move, Venom uses tendrils to violently enter the open, screaming mouth of the mugger. A few flicks of these tendrils effectively put the mugger out of his misery… for good.

Venom picks up the woman’s purse and returns it to her, telling her there is no need to thank him. With that, the frightening anti-hero leaps and disappears from sight… and the woman? She runs screaming out of the alley.

It’s a bright day in the “City by the Bay” and Venom, swinging through the streets via his web, enjoys being back in his hometown away from New York City and his mortal enemy, Spider-Man. He’s come back to San Fran to start a new life: one of protecting the innocent.

Finding a proper place, he drops from his webbing to the street below. Immediately the black, living costume rearranges itself as street clothes, revealing Eddie Brock underneath. Eddie’s main interest right now is finding himself a place to stay. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to Mr. Brock, a passing cop car’s officers recognize him as a wanted man from his destructive days in New York. They follow him…

Inside a rather seedy hotel, Brock signs a piece of paper and tells the desk attendant he only wants to stay one night. Just as he finishes his sentence, the two cops from the street burst through the door, guns held high. Eddie’s street clothes once again rearrange themselves, turning black and oozing all over his body to form the horrifying form of Venom!

Webbing shoots from the backs of Venom’s fists, clogging the officer’s guns and trapping their fists. With a quick pull, the officers are in the air and soon unconscious from the impact of hitting nearby walls. Venom turns back to the hotel attendant and cancels his room before leaping through the doors to the street outside and back up to the freedom of web-slinging. A kid on the street just happens to catch Venom with his camera…

New York City, the Daily Bugle building:

Ben Ulrich, respected journalist and long-time friend of Peter Parker, congratulates Peter on his latest photos. Peter smiles, telling Ben that the money from the photos is always useful. Ben nods and tells Pete that it’s too bad Venom’s not still in New York, ‘cause photos of him are always top-sellers for freelancers. Peter finds the mention of Venom’s name odd and inquires as to why Ben brought him up. Ulrich brings over a piece of paper from their newswire and tells Peter that a photographer in San Francisco caught the villain in action on the streets right after a run-in with San Fran’s finest. But Ben’s a bit happy that Venom’s not in New York after all; that just means they don’t have to worry about running into him!

Peter half-smiles and agrees. Inside though, he is thinking other things: he’d been wondering where Eddie had run off to. Now that he knows, he wonders what to do?

The last time the two were together, Venom had watched as Spider-Man saved his ex-wife. Thankful for Spidey’s assistance in saving the last woman Brock had loved, Venom made a deal: he would forget about Spider-Man and leave the city so long as Spider-Man would never come after him.

Yeah, well, now Peter was ready to go back on his word. He couldn’t have a clean conscience with Venom, as dangerous as he was, running around unchecked in San Francisco. He had to go out there and get Eddie; he had to stop him… somehow. With that thought, Peter walks to a nearby phone, picks it up and dials. On the other end of the line, Mary Jane, Peter’s wife, picks up. He has some news about a vacation he’s going to take…

Back in San Fran the following day:

Eddie, strolling through a city park, ponders about being back in California. He hadn’t been here in his hometown in quite a while, but even so, he originally figured he would feel at home here. Unfortunately, he feels as lost as ever.

But what’s this? Eddie hears a ruckus and runs to find out what’s going on. Beyond some bushes he sees multiple guys in suits, beating up on what are obviously homeless people. Venom reveals himself and begins taking on the group of men… Nearby, a swinging Spider-Man hears gunshots coming from the city park. Heading over to investigate, he hits his jackpot! He’s found Venom, who is obviously up to no good!

Spider-Man enters the scene, immediately attacking Venom for trying to hurt the guys in suits, who are obviously officers of the law. The two trade punches until Venom finally grabs hold of Spidey and lets him in on a secret: those men? Not officers! Just as Venom gets the words out of his mouth, the men begin firing at them with fully-automatic weapons.

Realizing his error, the web-slinger slaps some webbing on the attackers, disabling them. Upon finishing them off, Spidey looks around: Venom and the people he had been defending are gone.

Elsewhere in the city: a man watching a news report about the clash between Venom and Spider-Man realizes the day has come! With sadness and anger in his heart, he reaches for a nearby phone.

Underneath the city park where Venom and Spider-Man tussled, we find Eddie Brock and the group of people he had been trying to protect. They are making their way through a series of winding tunnels. One of them, a woman, has taken a particular interest in their savior. She explains that these tunnels lead to their home.

Eddie inquires about the people that had attacked them on the surface. A gentleman tells Brock about a man named Roland Treece. Treece, for months now, had been trying to drive them out of the area. For what reason? No one knew.

More danger appears as two monstrous mechanical behemoths ambush them. The woman of the group explains that these things are Diggers-some of Treece’s men in mechanical suits that are sent into the tunnels to find them.

Immediately one of the diggers grabs hold of Eddie and pulls him high into the air. Its free hand is brought into view and is described by the suit’s occupant as a diamond drill. Before the Digger can plant the drill into Eddie’s back, the costume unleashes itself and Venom, still in the thing’s grasp, knocks the drill back and out of the way.

The other Digger blasts Venom with a laser cutter, consequently causing the first Digger to loosen its hold. Venom, never one to take much time to recover, takes on both Diggers at once. During the battle, Venom hits one hard enough to send it through the floor of the tunnel and into… the past???

They fall from a great height right into streets of an old city. Gas lights line the roads and a horse and wagon are nearly crushed from their fall. The two both stagger to their feet and have but one question: where are they?

*****

This is fun, like I said. I’ll warn that it might not appeal to everyone, but it’s still worth a read for its historical value. “Historical value?” you ask? Yeah, with as much as comics have matured and changed since 1993, this does have a certain value as what was wrong (and even right) with the early 90’s stuff.

Don’t go into this being a comic book snob. Though, I guess, if you’re into that needless mentality, then you won’t touch this with a ten foot pole, so the warning’s worthless.

So, what’s wrong with the book? It was totally mainstream and typical (if not even a bit more extreme for a Marvel title) of an early 90’s book. There’s plenty of over-the-top violence from a vein-plastered, too-muscular-to-be-real anti-hero. Also, typical of an early 90’s Marvel book, Spider-Man’s all over it. Sure, here it’s a bit more justified, ‘cause Venom spun off from Spider-Man and his thirty books. But anyway, it sounds like I’m trying to detract from the book, which I’m not… well, not really.

So, what’s right with the book? All of the above. It’s superficial and flakey; it’s fun. It’s a perfect example of a time when comics just didn’t take themselves too seriously.

David Michelinie is one of the best Spidey scribes of that era. He wrote many of my favorite Spidey stories and, of course, Venom being his baby, it’s only appropriate he write this book.

Mark Bagley’s on art for this issue (Ron Lim, another great artist, finishes out the mini-series with #3-6). If you’re familiar with Bagley’s Ultimate Spider-Man work, then you’ll be able to recognize in his early work some of the elements he still uses today. Bagley’s mainstream Spider-Man work is some of the best, but I think most people today are more familiar with his Ultimate work.

These issues are not hard to come by. Chances are good that you can find them in a .50 or $1 bin somewhere. Isn’t that sad, too, considering what people thought these books would be worth??

Anyway, they’re worth the buy.