By James LeBeau

For those of you who have no interest in future storylines until they get here, skip on down to the next paragraph, you won’t want to hear what I’m about to say.

Now for the rest of you, listen up…in the past week Marvel has “let slip” that this summers Spider-man story is going to feature the debut of a new villain, Anti-venom, which is supposed to involve the current Venom (Mac Gargen) as well as Norman Osborn, maybe in a Green Goblin role. Now why do I bring that up? Because this one-shot features both Mac and Norm and will be looked back on as a major set-up piece to that story arc.

Now a good many people cringe at the thought of one-shots, seeing them as both unnecessary and as a money making trick by the company doing them because, let’s face it folks, if you buy the book, you HAVE to pick up the one-shot, you can’t help but to. But fear not, fellow cash strapped collectors; this one is worth the extra three bucks. As stated above, this one features two of the most ruthless T-Bolts, Venom and Norman Osborn, and as to be expected, carnage (the act, not the person) and insanity erupts aplenty. Without giving too much away, you get to see a more cunning side of Venom while Normie gets to rid himself of some of that pent up anger he’s accumulating over in the main title.

The final analysis on this issue is this; the writing is excellent, the art is acceptable, and the possible future ramifications….oops, don’t want to upset the people who skipped the top part, so let’s just say that this book might end up being more important than people think. So, go a little lighter in the gas tank this week and pick this issue up, you won’t be disappointed.

Writer: Christos N. Gage
Penciler: Ben Oliver
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Price $2.99
Series Count: 1 (one shot)