Free Comic Friday: Spider-Man/Venom 2023

Free Comic Book Day 2023: Spider-Man/Venom #1
Cover Artists: Patrick Gleason & Bryan Valenza
“Hunting Bait”
Writer: Zeb Wells
Artist: Patrick Gleason
Colorist: Marcio Menyz
Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna
Assistant Editor: Kaeden McGahey
Editor: Nick Lowe

“January, 1940”
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: CAFU
Colorist: Frank D'Armata
Letterer & Production: VC's Clayton Cowles
Associate Editor: Tom Groneman
Editor: Devin Lewis
Editor-in-Chief: C.B. Cebulski
Released: May 6, 2023

With “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” in theaters and today being Friday, I figured it was as good a time as any to sling some webs for the latest #FreeComicFriday.

There have been no shortage of Spider-Man issues given away for the annual event, including this year's, featuring Spidey and his toothy frenemy Venom (although I honestly don't know if that's Eddie Brock or his son or somebody else in the symbiote and... Ghost Rider chain? … on the cover).

I'm semi-contemporary on Spidey's adventures, having read Nick Spencer's run via the library and Marvel Unlimited and the Beyond storyline with its rotating creative lineup. I even sprung for “Amazing Spider-Man” #1* when Wells took over, having been such a fan of his work on “Hellions.”

Then I found out the title would be coming out two or three times a month and tapped out.

I have been enjoying it, for the most part, on Marvel Unlimited. Although the digital releases are a couple months behind, I decided to risk the possibility of spoilers and read the free issue.

It opens with Spider-Man fighting a gorilla, which is classic comic book stuff, except this gorilla isn't giant, super-smart or even super-powered. It's just a gorilla that until recently was in a zoo, and while it's good that the web-slinger is protecting innocent New Yorkers, he seems unnecessarily aggressive. If only he had some sort of super-adhesive substance with which he could restrain the ape without hurting it.

Spidey is sporting his new Norman Osborn-designed costume** and getting around on a glider he calls Bug. As he checks on a woman nearly injured by the gorilla, the non-super ape overcomes the artificially intelligent Bug, tackles Spider-Man and forces him to drop his spider-bombs and launch a bunch of teeny, tiny spider-bots. Bug intervenes, and Spidey punches out the zoo escapee, much to the dismay of the bystanders.

As he's scolded by Animal Control, we learn it was Kraven the Hunter who apparently drugged the gorilla and set it loose, all in an effort to secure one of those spider-bombs for... Dr. Octopus? It's not exactly a shocking revelation, considering Ock has been active in the previous Spidey runs, this run, “Devil's Reign” and even recent issues of “Deadpool.” And one would presume he's had plenty of chances to check out Osborn technology before.

Despite Wells' talent for writing comedy, Spidey's jokes here fall flat. And while making mistakes is part of Spider-Man's appeal, he seems practically incompetent in this encounter. I don't blame the witnesses and Animal Control folks for getting on his case for his brutal takedown of the ape (and their remarks are pretty funny).

The Venom story was much more effective – and somehow even weirder.

Whatever incarnation of the drooling symbiote the series is now following (I haven't kept up since the end of “King in Black”), he's absent for most of this story. It primarily takes place in 1940, as the Williams brothers regale a writer from Mystic Comics with stories of Flexo, an alleged robot they created using “live rubber,” which is pretty obviously a symbiote. Flexo is kind of reminiscent of the Disney animated version of Baymax and simultaneously...

...really creepy.

As the brothers tell the writer about Flexo saving them from a pretty standard-looking mad scientist, we see Flexo in action, with CAFU rendering him a wonderful mix of modern and Golden Age. But still kind of weird.

When the writer asks how the rescue ended, the brothers hesitate and we get this:

As the writer leaves, the brothers debate whether Flexo can and should be used in the brewing second world war. Then we get a splash page of Venom stabbing someone who looks like a modern incarnation of Flexo? I don't know, but I kind of want to see where it goes next.

I say kind of because, as much as I like Ewing's writing and as pitch-perfect as this creepy throwback story was with CAFU's gorgeous art, the idea of a symbiote who came to Earth before Spidey brought his back from Battleworld is not new. Symbiotes in Vietnam featured in Donny Cates' run leading up to King in Black. It was an impressive way to separate Venom from Spider-Man (at the same time Sony was trying to do it in movies), and this story was certainly intriguing, but now I'm expecting the next Venom writer to show us there was a symbiote making moonshine during Prohibition. It's reminiscent of the way the X-titles revealed a previously unknown ancient society of mutants, and then a year or so later had the Marauders discover... a previously unknown ancient society of mutants.

Meta-repetition aside, I definitely give the edge to the Venom half of this issue.

There's also a preview of Jonathan Hickman and Bryan Hitch's upcoming “Ultimate Invasion” limited series that looks set to reboot and tweak the Ultimate universe, but it just basically reiterates what the ads and press coverage have said about the story, albeit with two pages of dialogue between Miles Morales and the Maker. I'm somewhat curious but never was much of an Ultimate guy.

* - Only the 47^th time that storied title has restarted its numbering!

** - Norman's going by Gold Goblin these days and actually on the side of the angels, last time I checked