Review: Web of Venom: Carnage Born No. 1, hello Cletus

Donny Cates gives us all a lesson on Cletus Kasady’s background in this one-shot issue that accompanies his current run on Venom.

Cletus Kasady has a knack for being reborn. In the first several pages of Web of Venom: Carnage Born, we see quick glimpses of his life from birth to the Carnage symbiote taking hold. It’s a nice, quick way to give us all of the background information that we’d need in order to understand what exactly happens in this issue.

If you haven’t been reading Venom, you’ll probably want to do so in order to get the full picture and significance of this issue. Carnage and Venom don’t exactly get along, so it’ll be interesting to see what goes down between Eddie Brock and Cletus Kasady after this. I’m betting it’ll be good, though.

The Web of Venom one-shots are giving more girth to the story that Donny Cates is telling. We don’t need to dive in too deep on Kasady’s rebirth, so this issue is the perfect way to tell that without doing a whole mini-series on it or spending precious time in the Venom issues to get that across.

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The art by Danilo S. Beyruth is a perfect fit for this one-shot. The sheer size of Carnage and the brutality of his actions come through so well. When you add in the colors by Cris Peter, this book is one that has a lot of great shots in it. Right before we move on to the cult that worships Kasady, there’s a full page of the symbiote taking over him and it’s a frame-worthy piece of art.

The cult that worships Kasady revives him by using the Codex from the Maker. The connection to Knull makes it even more dangerous. Now that Kasady is back, he’s set to go after everyone who has ever bonded with a symbiote. I expect to see some big guest appearances from some of those characters in the future. Overall, I’m loving the direction that Donny Cates is taking with Venom and it’s exciting to read.

Grade: A