No Time to BleedWriter: Donny Cates
Artist: Juanan Ramirez, Felipe Sobreiro, and VC's Clayton Cowles
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Release Date: August 29, 2018
Cover Price: $4.99
Donny Cate's Venom book has been the most consistently good reads since Fresh Start started. So, when this book was announced, I threw aside my usual disdain of tie-ins and offshoots and demanded I get to review it. So, was I wise in my enthusiasm? Let's find out...
We open up in 1966 Vietnam and war is hell...even for symbiotes. Actually, it may not be so bad for symbiotes after all, but before we can find out more about that, we zip over to Scandinavia a few weeks earlier and get to see classic Nick Fury and a certain dragon that has caused a ruckus in the regular Venom book. It's a really cool tie-in that is even cooler as it happens so quickly that you just know some crazy shit is coming your way!
After a Steve Rogers name drop, we see the beginnings of the Sym-Soldier program and the familiar (though younger) face of Rex Strickland. That's not all we see, though. The Sym program has kind of blown up in SHEILDs face and they need someone to help clean it up and that someone is...
Wolverine!!! Yep, Donny Cates gets to play around with all the toys here since it's a flashback story and I love it! It turns into A Wolverine/Predator action flick that I now need to see with Logan and Fury tracking five deadly Sym-Soldiers in the jungle.
No sooner do they find Rex then they are attacked by his Symbiote and it's a frantic battle that is a bit confusing, to begin with, but when the symbiote escapes them, the tension really amps up. Then the full attack happens and it's brutal and ends with a cool tweest when the syms head off to regroup.
The issue ends by showing how far SHIELD is willing to go to make things tidier, but also leads right into what we found out at the end of Venom #5. Rex is in charge of tracking down his missing symbiote and little does Nick Fury know, but he has set some messed up shit in motion.
Donny Cates is on a roll! This issue is so good, but you really have to be reading the regular run of Venom to truly appreciate it. I like Juanan Ramirez's art, but also wish that Ryan Stegman was on this book.
Bits and Pieces:
A star-studded issue that readers of Donny Cates' Venom will surely love! It doesn't fill in holes but expands the story after the big reveal of Venom #5. Highly recommended!
9.0/10
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