Waiting for the Trade   by Bill Miller   Spider-man: Venom Returns by David Micheline & Erik Larsen collects material from Amazing Spider-man 330-333, 345-347 and Annual 25   Why I Bought This: When I first got into buying trades five years ago this was among the first few books I picked up (the first one incidentally was Spider-man: Birth of Venom ) as I love the classic early Venom stories and this one in particular includes my all time single favorite issue of Spider-man when he and Venom battle on the island. With me now reviewing Venom’s monthly series, I thought it would be a good time to revisit this. The Plot: Venom hates Spider-man a lot, knows Peter’s secret identity, doesn’t trigger his spider sense and will stop at nothing to kill him.

Waiting for the Trade   By Bill Miller   Daredevil: Fall from Grace By D.G. Chichester and Scott McDaniel Collects Daredevil 319-325 Why I Bought This: Way back in the day this was the first Venom story I didn’t buy. I’m a total 100-percent member of the cult of Venom that thinks he is just the coolest damn villain to ever show up in a comic book. But at some point in the 90s it became obvious his appearances in non-Spider-man titles were just gratuitous and unnecessary sales ploys that furthered no story function. And yet my curiosity about this story always lingered because it was heavily hyped at the time with DD getting a new costume and new direction. So flash-forward a couple of decades and I grabbed this off MyComicShop.com hoping for the better elements of 90’s nostalgia. The Plot – In the early 1960s the CIA lost both a telepathic agent and a mystery virus that can restructure DNA near Hell’s Kitchen. The Hand becomes aware of this and deci...

Waiting for the Trade By Bill Miller Amazing Spiderman: The Return of Anti-Venom by Dan Slott and three different artists. Collects Amazing Spider-man 663 – 665 and Free Comic Book Day 2011: Spider-man. Why I Bought This: Anti-Venom for those who don’t know is actually the true Venom Eddie Brock and if that character appears in a story it will almost certainly get my money. Also it deals with a mystery involving the Ghost of Jean DeWolff, which it means it has a connections to one of the greatest Spider-man stories ever published. The Plot: Eddie Brock, now back in his Lethal Protector vigilante role, is after Mr. Negative—a superpowered crime boss, who in his civilian identity runs a soup kitchen that employs Aunt May thus catching Spidey in the middle. In addition a new hard-edged crimefighter called the Wraith, who may or may not be the long dead Jean DeWolff, is also gunning for Mr. Negative. As always spoilers to follow:

Waiting for the Trade By Bill Miller Marvel Adventures: Spiderman vol. 6 – The Black Costume by Fred Van Lente and Cory Hamscher Collects Marvel Adventures Spider-man 21 – 24. Why I Bought This: You can get most of the Marvel Adventures Digests for $4 off Amazon (including shipping) so I’m occasionally willing to sample them. This one has Venom in it and as I’m firmly in the Venom is the coolest villain ever created in comics’ history camp, so for that price it got my money. My thoughts on the new movie follow the comic review.

Waiting for the Trade By Bill Miller Venom – Deathtrap: The Vault by Danny Fingeroth and Ron Lim Why I bought this: In the lead-up to the Avengers movie I decided to buy a few of their trades. I’m also a major Venom fan, and this is from the era I grew up on so it seemed like a perfect pick-up especially since you can grab it off Amazon for under $5. The Plot – Back in the late 80s Marvel (in the pages of Avengers) created a super-villain prison called the Vault, designed to neutralize the inmates powers and built under the mountains of Colorado to make it harder for them to escape. Of course this led to a decade’s worth of mass jail-break stories the most famous being Acts of Vengeance. This story was an original graphic novel that was part of the jailbreak at the Vault genre.