Venom’s Limited Reign Part 2: Lethal Protector
Venom embarks on his first adventure as the star of his own series
When we last saw Venom in Amazing Spider-Man #375 by David Michelinie and Mark Bagley, he had just shaken hands with his arch-nemesis and declared a truce. This move would allow Marvel to capitalize on his soaring popularity by giving him his own title. What would this new series be called, and what creative team would helm the book?
That initial series would be a six-issue miniseries titled Venom: Lethal Protector, and the creative team would be the same one that had been on Amazing Spider-Man: David Michelinie and Mark Bagley! If you’re looking for some continuity in writing and artwork, that’s a pretty good way to do so. Bagley would only end up penciling the first three issues of the series before Ron Lim would step in and finish the final three issues.
The series opens with Venom trading in his normal New York City stomping grounds for San Francisco. My assumption is the change of scenery was so that Venom could unleash his own murderous brand of justice without the numerous street level superheroes in New York getting involved. My theory is bolstered by the fact that Venom brutally murders a mugger within the first three pages of the issue before wrecking some cops who try to arrest him. Already making a great first impression! This makes the national news, so Spider-Man immediately regrets his decision to agree to a truce and books a flight to San Francisco to bring Venom down. Shortest truce ever. It didn’t even last a full issue!
This is when things really start to get bonkers. Venom comes to the aid of some unhoused people being attacked by some extremely ‘90s looking goons, but Spider-Man shows up thinking Venom is the one being a threat. The goons in question open fire on Spidey, and Venom and the people he rescued run off while they’re distracted. This obviously leads to Venom being led into a series of underground tunnels where he ends up fighting guys in gigantic mech suits who then fall into even deeper tunnels underneath those tunnels where there is apparently an entire civilization lost in time. The ‘90s were a wild time.
Okay, so it isn’t actually a lost civilization. It’s where the people Venom rescued actually reside and try to be left alone. Venom learns that a wealthy businessman named Roland Treece is trying to uproot these people. Seeing an opportunity to do some good in his new neighborhood, Venom heads to Treece’s headquarters and begins slaughtering his hired security forces. You’re probably thinking that Treece is the big bad for this series at this point, but you’d be wrong. In the midst of his attack, Venom is ambushed by a team of Iron Man wannabes called the Jury and their leader, Orwell Taylor.
So who are these guys? Taylor is the father of a prison guard Venom killed during his escape way back in Amazing Spider-Man #315. He’s also apparently filthy rich and assembled his own little hit squad specifically to kill Venom. Venom spends the rest of the issue fighting these guys all throughout San Francisco while simultaneously trying to get back to Treece to make him pay for his harassment of the people living underground. There are some fun action sequences throughout the issue before Venom finally infiltrates the Treece building only to realize it’s a trap when he’s encircled by flames. So Treece is the big bad in this series after all? Nope! It’s quickly revealed that the man responsible for this trap is yet another wealthy jerk named Carlton Drake.
That name might sound familiar to those who saw the Venom movie. This is the character played by Riz Ahmed in that film. Much like the film, Drake runs the Life Foundation. In this series, the goal of the Life Foundation is to provide fancy bunkers to the wealthiest people on the planet in the event of a catastrophic global disaster. Their plan for Venom is to extract offspring from his symbiote, artificially age them, and then bond them to their own hired security forces to serve as guards to prevent gross normal people from bothering their wealthy clients. Very normal plan.
Drake is ultimately successful in extracting five new symbiote offspring from Venom and bonds them to his handpicked hosts. Spider-Man (trying to find Venom) ends up coming up against these five new symbiote villains first. If you have read any recent stories involving symbiotes, then you probably know these five as Scream, Lasher, Riot, Agony, and Phage. During this series, they are never actually named. They’re just known as the Life Foundation symbiotes.
Venom is ultimately freed by Spider-Man, and the two team up to fight these new symbiotes. Venom ends up using the device that aged up these symbiotes to age them up even further until they literally turn to dust. So much for these newbies.
The final issue issue sees Venom and Spider-Man save the underground inhabitants from the first issue from Roland Treece (remember them?). It’s revealed that Treece wants access to those tunnels because there is a lost treasure trove of gold in those tunnels that a foreign government sent to anarchists to overthrow the United States government in 1906. Seriously. I’m not making this up.
Treece is defeated, Spider-Man goes back to New York, and the underground community in San Francisco adopts Venom as one of their own where he will continue to serve as their lethal protector. What a comic.
Venom: Lethal Protector is an oftentimes baffling comic with its numerous plots and subplots, but it successfully established two of Venom’s most frequently used villains: the Jury and the Life Foundation symbiotes. Both would make future appearances, and the Life Foundation story beats in particular would serve as the basis for the Venom feature film in 2018. The series was also successful enough to justify more limited series starring Venom in the future. Next up? Venom: Funeral Pyre.