Remender Interview
Rick Remender talks to CBR about his Venom series.
The more Remender talks, the more I like him! Not really knowing Flash's entire back story before, I can now appreciate the 'rules' he setup for this series:
"The main three rules we cooked up being that if he wears the suit for more than two days it starts to take him over, if he loses his temper the suit will take him over, and he can only wear the suit for 20 missions. The rule about controlling his temper feeds into the fact that the character was kind of an asshole at one point. He had major anger issues and is an alcoholic. Plus, he had an abusive alcoholic father. So there's a history of temperament issues," Remender continued. "The 20 mission limit plays interesting[ly] with the fact that he is a person of disability who lost his legs in service to his country. Now he's being given the chance to be one of the most powerful people in the Marvel Universe.
I also like the way he interprets the symbiote while attached to Flash:
"The symbiote bonds with you. I don't imagine it like a 'chocolate coating' I imagine it like it's connecting to your nervous system. It's been shown to have telepathic abilities. So when Flash isn't wearing the suit it's like the pain of phantom limbs only a hundred times worse, because with the Venom suit they're super limbs. They allow him to do things like bound over buildings. You feel everything in the suit, it gets hurt, so do you, and you have to because it also leads to stakes," Remender explained. "If you jet your symbiote fingers out to stab somebody and he grabs them and cuts them off, there needs to be a consequence to that. You need to feel it. So in order to make that work I've written it as if this thing connects to you. This way you can't just have it do stuff where it can get injured and you don't feel it. If it gets cut Flash definitely feels it."
The article also mentions how the new mysterious crime boss has an army of henchmen, like Jack O Lantern. I personally loved Jack! Bringing back lesser known villains and reshaping them instead of trying to create knew ones works well.
He also gives us an idea of where the next couple issues will take our favorite symbiote:
"The first four issues are so jam packed with our first adventure and catching up and getting to know Flash. We don't get to take a breather until the beginning of issue #5 where I start digging into some of what Flash's life is like when he's not on missions," said Remender. "I think that when you read these first four issues in order and see what he goes through, and then when you get to the fifth issue, which is about his day-to-day life, there's a real impact. Those scenes feel weighty and the character speaks to me.
What gets me the most excited is the conclusion of the interview:
"There are big things happening in the Spider-Man universe that Venom will play a key role in. Beyond that we have some very crazy things that I can't even say one word about. There are potential crossovers and all sorts of incredibly big, fun things that will solidify Venom not just as [a] shadowy black ops agent, but an important player in the Marvel Universe," Remender said. "And the 20 mission limit gives the series this great, tense, ticking clock feel. When Flash gets to the point where he has five missions left, every one of them is going to be tough. Because basically he's going to be an addict who knows that somebody is coming in a couple weeks to take all the liquor out of the house. There's just so much great stuff to be mined out of it. I think we've got 15 issues pretty well broken down at this point and there are so many big ideas that we have to cut a couple of them. 'Venom' will be a big, fast, fun, Marvel Universe comic that is basically a Black Ops Spider-Man series with a lot of big setpieces throughout the entire world."Check out the entire interview here and then tell us how you fell about where this series is headed.
Below is two previously unreleased sketches from Venom #2.
Is that Venom on a dinosaur?!?! YES PLEASE!!!