In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, learn the surprising reason why Venom's 1990s series of miniseries came to an end

Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundred and fifty-sixth installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false. As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends.

NOTE: If my Twitter page hits 5,000 followers, I'll do a bonus edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed that week. Great deal, right? So go follow my Twitter page, Brian_Cronin!

COMIC LEGEND:

Venom's series of miniseries ended while still making money because Marvel's Editor-in-Chief didn't like Venom having his own series.

STATUS:

I'm Going With True

In an old "Remember to Forget," I spotlighted the troubles with 1993's Amazing Spider-Man #375 (by David Michelinie, Mark Bagley and Randy Emberlin), but to refresh your memory, in the issue, Venom has kidnapped what appears to be Peter Parker's parents (they turned out to be robots, which is a whole other thing) to "protect" them from Spider-Man...

So Spider-Man goes to Eddie Brock's ex-wife, Anne, and she gives him a clue as to where Venom is probably hiding out (it's at an amusement park they used to go to a lot). Spidey heads to the amusement park and Anne tags along, but then Silver Sable's Wild Pack shows up to take Venom down (Venom, of course, thinks that Spider-Man led them there)...

One of the Wild Pack members almost kills Venom with a sonic gun, but Anne actually disables the guy. But then, a tower weakened during the fight starts to fall and Venom isn't strong enough to keep it from crushing Anne...

In steps your friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man to save the day, which kind of breaks Venom's brain, as Spider-Man was saving an innocent?!?!

So Anne convinces Eddie/Venom to make a deal with Spider-Man...

If Venom promises to leave Spider-Man (and his family) alone, then Venom will head to another city and Spider-Man has to promise to leave him be. Spider-Man somehow agrees to this deal...

This was obviously a fairly distinct betrayal of Spider-Man's whole "with great power comes great responsibility" mantra, as here, he's allowing a killer to go free just because he is promising to leave Spider-Man alone and, I guess, only kill other bad people? And only on the other side of the country? In an article by Craig Shutt in Wizard #72, Tom Brevoort noted, "It was a fairly arbitrary way to go, and it was done solely because the Powers That Be wanted a Venom book."

Yes, as Brevoort notes, Venom had grown so popular that Marvel had to think of some way to get Venom his own book (as, again, he WAS so popular. When I was writing about sales boost guest stars a while back, Venom was right up there in terms of sales boost guest stars). Venom was so popular that Marvel was basically throwing away money by NOT giving him his own book.Brevoort described the trick in giving a character like Venom his own series, "Venom thinks he's a hero, but we don't want the readers to agree. It's a challenge, because these characters can succeed in certain goals, but they can't triumph."

The introduction of Carnage, as the psychotic spawn of Venom, was done in part to give Marvel a replacement villain now that Venom was stepping into anti-hero status. Howard Mackie noted in that same Wizard article, "I think the question always should be asked, 'Does turning this villain into a hero serve a role that another hero can't perform? If so, could we create a new hero and have a better character? It nothing else, the trend reduces the number of cool bad guys. As a writer, I don't think we've got enough good villains as it is. They gave Venom his own book, so they had to create Carnage to make up for it. Where does it all end?"

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In the case of Venom, it ended in Venom: Finale...

venom-finale-3-0

and its follow-up, Spider-Man: The Venom Agenda...

venom-agenda-2

which each came out at the end of 1997. Those were the end of Venom's string of miniseries in the 1990s that, in effect, constituted an ongoing series. Larry Hama was the main writer on the series (after David Michelinie wrote the opening miniseries), and there were different artists involved, most notably Tom Lyle, Kyle Hotz and Scott Hood.

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But you see, neither Tom DeFalco (the Marvel Editor-in-Chief when Venom first received his own series) or his successor, Bob Harras, were all together comfortable with Venom having his own series. Tom Brevoort, who was the editor on the Venom series of miniseries when they ended, explained, then, to Wizard that that was what led to the series being canceled, not that it was selling POORLY (it was outselling many Marvel books at the time and was still in the Top 100 comics in sales), but that it wasn't selling well enough to counter out Bob Harras' predisposition towards Venom not having a series. As Brevoort noted about the cancelation, "The return on the book has decline to the point where any immediate financial reward was overshadowed by Bob's discomfort with the character starring in his own title."

Thanks to Craig Shutt, Tom Brevoort and Howard Mackie for the information! I wrote about this MANY years ago in a Comic Book Dictionary piece, but I realized that it was interesting enough for a legend, as well.

SOME OTHER ENTERTAINMENT LEGENDS!

Check out some entertainment legends from Legends Revealed:

1. Did Zack Snyder Really Say That He Couldn’t Get Into ‘Normal Comics’ When He Was Younger Because of the Lack of Sex and Killing?

2. Was the Original Female Lead on Seinfeld Replaced For Not Being ‘Sexy’ Enough?

3. Was Dancing Star Juliet Prowse Really Mauled By the Same Jaguar Twice?

4. Did a Typo Accidentally Make Rudolph’s TV Special Public Domain?

PART TWO SOON!

Check back soon for part 2 of this installment's legends!

Feel free to send suggestions for future comic legends to me at either cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com