Venom: Marvel Trailer Introduces Kang and Skrulls to Epic New Era
As Venom: Let There Be Carnage hits theaters, Marvel has released a trailer for their upcoming Venom comic relaunch. From an all-star team of Al Ewing, Ram V and Bryan Hitch, the new series promises to take the symbiotic shapeshifter to new places - in this case, outer space!
Venom #1 will follow on from Donny Cates' and Ryan Stegman's King in Black event, which saw Venom take center stage in the Marvel Universe as a new threat, Knull, laid waste to entire worlds with his fleet of Symbiote Dragons. As Eddie Brock supplanted Knull as the new King in Black in the story's explosive climax, Marvel found its new Venom in Eddie's son, Dylan. His father's former symbiote bonds with the teenager after he is shot by the villainous Jack O'Lantern, transforming him into a hulking figure with chains wrapped around his arms. Venom #200 ended with the teenage Venom swinging into action after receiving Eddie's blessing, setting up this new series.
The new trailer for Venom #1 from Marvel Entertainment opens with mysterious orbs hurtling past asteroids, before Eddie and other figures emerge to break into a spaceship. His new connection to billions of symbiotes across the galaxy has strengthened his powers but weakened his mortal body, causing him to rapidly age over a few months. Effortlessly navigating through the spaceship corridors, however, Eddie makes his way to the control room - revealing that the ship is piloted by the shapeshifting extraterrestrial Skrulls! The trailer returns to Earth, where Dylan is scolded by his principal after getting into a fight in the school corridors. Marvel's new Venom was shown to fantasize about killing a bully in Venom #200, and so his new powers will only raise the stakes of his turbulent battle for self-restraint. With red-eyed symbiotes seemingly outside Venom's control and an appearance from Kang the Conqueror, it's clear this new era will be a true epic.
Venom's new era is in safe hands with writer Al Ewing, who redefined Marvel's Jade Giant with The Immortal Hulk in 2018 to great critical acclaim. He will be joined by Ram V, whose work on These Savage Shores mixed history with horror in a unique tale about vampires and colonialism in eighteenth-century India. The trailer indicates that the two writers will split duties, with one handling Eddie and the other Dylan, though both story strands will feature the art of Bryan Hitch, who redesigned and updated the entire Marvel Universe for The Ultimates back in 2002, laying the foundation for the publishing giant's subsequent big screen adaptations. As the preview shows, Hitch's artwork will play around with Venom's physical and conceptual malleability, with Eddie's story adopting a sleek sci-fi aesthetic while his son embodies the brutality and violence associated with the symbiotic antiheroes.
In recent decades, Venom has evolved from a fan-favorite villain into a fully-fleshed out legacy character with his own expanding mythology. In continuing that concept with Venom on an intergalactic and personal level, Marvel's relaunch promises a tension between the marvelous and mundane, embodied here in Eddie's cosmic adventures and Dylan's earthbound anxieties. Venom #1 is set to be released on October 27.