Batman: Venom

Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly enjoyable.
Review: A very believable story, drawing compatible to the storyline and BATMAN (as a human being). One could have it in one's collection.

Rating:
Summary: 'Venom' Changed Me Forever
Review: Back when I was around five or six my dad brought home a copy of Venom: Part 3, a free sample he recieved from a printing company. Venom stands out for me in many ways: It was one of the first three comic books I ever owned, the other two being Spider-Man. It introduced me to Batman, and I later traded in my Spider-Man comics for other Batman issues. It also included the most brutal, violent, death I had ever witnessed, and even today I still skip that page when I come to it. But reading 'Venom' changed me. I wouldn't go as far as to say it was mental scarring, but it was pretty dramatic nonetheless.

Unfortunately, as things turned out, I never got a chance to read the other parts of 'Venom' until well over a decade later. Dad may have given me my first comic, but he and mom weren't too keen on me constantly spending money on comic books. It wasn't until I had my own source of pocket money that I picked up the trade paperback.

As much as I want to give Venom five stars out of sentimental value, the story does have a few holes which bump it down a notch. The first two parts of the story are the best; Batman fails to save the life of a little girl, and his failure haunts him so badly that he decides to take strengh-enhancing pills to find the killers and bring them down. By part two, the pills have turned Batman into an amoral monster, which creates friction between him and Alfred. Part three marks Batman's attempt to cleanse himself, but besides the violent death I mentioned earlier, this part is merely transitional. The same goes for the fourth part, which finds Batman and Alfred tracking a rogue general and the creator of the pills to a small island called Santa Prisca. Part five fares much better, as Batman is put in a life or death trap, and must resist the temptation to use the pills during his escape. The artwork was standard fare for the 'Legends of the Dark Knight' series, but that book always had better artwork than the basic Batman titles, so there's no complaint here.

'Venom' might not be on par with other trade paperbacks such as "The Killing Joke" and "Dark Knight Returns", but as a general rule, any Batman trade paperback is worth reading. Batman is one of the most human of all superheroes, but constantly tries to overcome his own flaws, which is what this story is about. Recommended read, just don't show part 3 to young, impressionable children!

Rating:
Summary: Nice read but there are better Batman stories out there
Review: Everybody knows that when a person gets addicted to hard-drugs his dealer can make him do just about anything in order to get his next fix. But what if the one who gets addicted is Batman ?! That's what this story (collecting "Legends of the Dark Knight" #16-20) is about. When Batman oneday fails to get to a kidnapped child in time to save her life, due to psychical lack of strength, he accepts some strength-boosting steroid pills (like Bane's) from the girls father who engineered them, in order to never fail that way again. Only it turns out that the man is of ill will and the pills very addictive. In the beginning Batman gets the pills for free but the supply gets thinner and thinner and once Batman is fully addicted, and his supply of pills gone, he has to start following certain orders to keep getting them. The pills have some other nasty side-effects as well. One of them being Bruce losing a big part of his humanity, and the streets of Gotham get more dangerous than ever now Batman, the one who's supposed to be the savior of the streets, is more aggresive as ever before. And that's without even mentioning his sudden lack of any morality. Batman just isn't Batman anymore and something needs to be done about his current state of being or else the future looks very bleak for Gotham. And that's not the end of it because Batman turns out to be just a guinea-pig to test the effect of the pills, which are meant for an operation much bigger than this.

This book has a good and fluent story which will give most Batman fans a satisfactory read. The art is nothing spectacular but it's more than sufficient to get you through the story. However, compared to a lot of other stories collected from the early "Legends of the Dark Knight" series this is really pretty mediocre. The dialoguing and the motives of the characters could have been a lot better, more worked out, and most of all, more original. For example, the bad guys (mere men) wanting to rule the world , instead of having a more realistic and original goal, is pretty dusty by now. It's a real shame because the story starts very promising and full of potential, you really start to think you have something unique in your hands at one point, but turns into something we've seen so many times before halfway. It's like the writer goes on automatic pilot all of a sudden. If you don't have them already you're better off getting stories like "Gothic" (#6-10) and/or "Prey" (#11-15), and THEN this one (or if you're also open to get something that's not from the "Legend of the Dark Knight" series, things like 'The Killing Joke', 'The Long Halloween', 'Cataclysm', 'Dark Knight Returns' and 'Year One' are much better choices). It's like I said, it's a nice story for Batfans but it shouldn't be considered as a priority.

Rating:
Summary: Happy Pills
Review: The Batman has taken on many foes during his long fight against crime. The 5 part story called Venom, is a rare instance, where are hero's enemy this time, is himself. Written by Dennis O'Neil, the story originally appeared in the title, Legends Of The Dark Knight. The title tells stories about Batman's early days as Gotham City's champion and O'Neil's story ranks as one of the best of the series.

After Batman's physical strength fails him, and a child dies, he vows never to let that happen again. He decides to augment his body chemistry by taking a super drug. He gets more than he bargained for, as he succumbs to a deadly addiction, that threatens his life. The reason this story works in the pages of Batman, is the fact that, his greatest asset has always been his intellegence. That intellect fails him. To see the character stumble is shocking. Of all the DC heroes, Batman is just a regular guy, with no real super powers-and that makes Venom more "realistic".

Comic book great Trevor Von Eeden lends a helping hand here (I loved his work on Green Arrow). The art by Russell Braun and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez is very good. The art is well defined and the use of earthy colors give the graphic novel a 30's style. Everything is as it should be. Despite the "modern" storyline, the art gives the book an old-time look.

The book includes an introduction by O'Neil and cover reproductions of each installment. The book has 136 pages and Venom is recommended for anyone who likes the Batman.

Rating:
Summary: The Dark Knight - Broken
Review: The reason why Batman is one of the most fascinating characters in comics is because his has always been the most human of environments. No super powers of any kind. Only a man guided by his values, intellect, strength and will power. And it is this last trait that becomes the critical element in "Venom," a work that shows us why Michael Keaton never would have donned the cape and cowl if Denny O'Neil had never existed.

"Venom" shows us that the Batman is only as strong as the Bruce Wayne beneath the cowl. When the latter weakens, the former disappears. Bruce becomes addicted to venom, a sort of super-steroid, and must go through hell and back to once again become the man he was. This is made even more difficult due to the fact that Bruce's self-righteousness and stubbornness only give rise to an enormous feeling of self-loathing.

This is one of the Batman books that best illustrates what it takes to be a hero. All human beings are flawed, and everyone falls at one time. But it takes a true hero to summon up the best in his/her humanity to rise again. Beyond leaping tall buildings in a single bound or clinging to walls, "Venom" shows that the true nature of a super-hero lies closer to home than we'd expect, and that no character in comics exemplifies it like Batman.

Rating:
Summary: NICE PRELUDE TO KNIGHTFALL
Review: This series is the best story arc that I have read from thethe Legends of the Dark Knight series. It also introduces the venom drug, which Bane would later use in his successful attempt to break the Batman.
But this is a good story in itself. In it Batman becomes adicted to the same drug and struggles to overcome the addiction.
Dennis O'Neil proves he is still one of the greatest writers ever to work on Batman and the artwork is also great.

Rating:
Summary: Even a Batman has faults...
Review: Truly the best of the Legends of the Dark Knight series, Venom is the frightening story of Batman's lapse into performance-enhancing drugs, and how he must literally climb his way back into rehabilitation. Batman's human side is displayed with such realism that you actually hate what he becomes and then feel the pain he goes through. An interesting sidenote is that the drug, Venom, used in this story is also the substance that Bane, the villain who breaks the Batman in Knightfall, uses as a steroid and strength-builder.