Amazing Spider-Man #332-333 (1990)

Erik Larsen gets his turn in the future-Image-artists-drawing-Venom box. 

I wonder why Image never brought over writers like David Michelinie—since several of them worked with him?

Venom is not one of my favorite characters—it’s really hard to make him interesting because he kinda does the same thing every time.  These are early appearances of the Eddie Brock version, though, so you’d think there’d be some novelty here.  But there’s not. 

Venom/Brock stalks Peter Parker’s family

Styx and Stone are also in this story.  Remember them?  They work for a local crimelord who also happens to be the landlord of MJ and Parker’s apartment building.  Don’t remember them?  Don’t worry about it.  One more story and they’re gone forever.

I actually think they’re funny in this story, though.

I suppose it might have been cool if Brock Venom’s motives were a little more clear. 

On the one hand, he’s nuts and wants to eat Spider-Man.

But then here’s a part during the first fight (like most Venom stories, he and Spidey fight twice in the tale) where he saves a baby who was endangered during the battle, so he’s not a hungry alien just looking to eat people.  There’s some kind of morality here.  But why he thinks it’s okay to attack Parker’s family, who have nothing to do with his vendetta, isn’t very clear.

The story ends when Styx touches Venom (he’s got a “death touch” power) and seems to kill the symbiote.  Eddie Brock, stripped of the living exoskeleton, is taken to jail.

I guess one thing that makes this story different is that Jay Leno and Malcom Forbes have a cameo.  Interestingly enough, Forbes died right before this issue came out.

As you can tell, I’m not a huge fan of this story. It’s perfectly fine, but it feels like filler.  At this time, Amazing was coming out every two weeks—it’s hard to maintain quality at that kind of a pace, especially with just one writer.