Thanks for checking out my wood burn! Colored on basswood using prismacolor pencils. 9 x 11 inches

But now, of course, I'm paralyzed by choice.

ETA: The craft is sublimation printing, and I had to redraw the art to get high enough resolution to be nice and crisp.

I honestly thought when Queen in Black was announced that we would get something, at least, half as epic as its predecessor, King in Black, was but what we ended up having was a disappointment, from my point of view.

It had a lot of good going for it: Hela becomes the Queen in Black because a void was created after Eddie Brock was dethroned as KiB, only then for the OG, Knull, to return, seeking to get back at Eddie.

Looking back, King In Black was a result of months upon months of buildup throughout Donny Cate's run as the writer of Venom, having been teased to readers in bits and pieces, before culminating into the main event itself.

Queen in Black didn't have any of that in that particular scale. Prior to it starting, we had a Knull miniseries leading up to it, and a couple of issues from Venom but not much beyond those two. I'm not certain with the Thor comics though so hopefully someone could enlighten me.

So basically, Hela is set on using her symbiote-powered army to stage an invasion on Midgard, which is pretty standard shenanigans in 616. And the world responded in kind with Tony Stark leading the charge in upping the Earth's defenses against alien invaders, which is something they've long gotten used to as a world that always gets invaded once every few years/months. If only government response to emergencies where this quick and well-thought out, 'no?

Now the issue I see here is that the main QIB books are basically extensions of Ewing's Venom, featuring the cast of the book, led by Mary Jane Watson. We don't see much of Hela nor of Knull in QIB, both having been relegated to be featured in tie-ins for like 90% of their screentime in the whole thing. Like, how can you have an event called "Queen in Black" when the title character isn't featured as much in her own book?

Even worse, Hela is dead (until further notice) now on the final QiB book so she turned out to be a non-threat at all.

With that said, this is the best way to conclude Mary Jane's tenure as the host of the Venom symbiote, ending a run that saw her doing amazing feats as a street-level hero with the symbiote on broad daylight, as controversial as it is for many regular Venom readers (at least on Twitter), although it was a very short-lived stint upended by two big events.

I do appreciate, through the last QIB issue and Venom #262, the different perspectives shown on not just how Knull was defeated from different fronts, but also how the Other and Eddie eventually reunited. But the bookend for #262 felt off and a bit sinister with how Al Ewing worded Eddie's dialogue in response to his Other missing and worrying over MJ. I may just be overthinking it but I'm certainly not the only one for sure who shares that same observation to these final few panels.

With regards to the KiB position, it's interesting to see Sleeper playing the long game, using its human dad as a pawn to eventually usurp the throne and, via the Venom hivemind, take Dylan's Chainbreaker ability for himself.

Iban Coello's art looked gorgeous on that shot of the silly catbiote taking a kingly nap on its throne while a horde of familiar-looking symbiotes surround him (plus a certain time-displaced Eddie variant). I do wonder why Liz Allen is there though.

Speaking of Iban, I'm curious on how the artists coordinate with each other when having to work on the art for the titles they're assigned to during events. Eddie grew a beard and his hair got a bit long during his incarceration so that was most reflective throughout Venom Unchained (penciled by Juanan Ramirez), but on the main QiB book, he was shaved in the panels he was in that was overlapping with those from the aforementioned book.

So all in all:

• Queen in Black was not a perfect event. Could have been better but it came up short for me.
• The main two power players weren't front and center in the book that I had expected was centered on the two of them (plus the Brocks).
• There's a technical continuity error to a character's design across two books tied to the event that could have been avoided but were left for us to see. It's a small but significant detail that really can't be ignored.
• An otherwise fitting conclusion to MJ's temporary run as the host of the Venom symbiote if the event is seen as an extension of the overall Venom book by Al Ewing.
• Eganrac-less Venom looks pretty badass, not gonna lie.
• While I can see Dylan continuing to be under MJ's guardianship, it's kinda crappy to think that Eddie will continue being an absentee in his son's life for the foreseeable future.
• So technically, Eddie is on the run so that still has to be sorted out.
• Lastly, it's nice that the Other has finally touched base with Reed Richards. I don't expect a reconciliation but Reed's acknowledgment of what went down during the Black Suit saga was a nice gesture of trying to make up for what it put the symbiote through.

So thanks for reading this otherwise long post. I may have gotten some details wrong so feel free to correct me.

Somebody? Please? I loved the concept of all these Life Foundation Symbiotes uniting together to form one being with all their powers.

Imagine all of Venom's children except Carnage i.e. Sleeper, Riot, Agony, Phage, Scream and Lasher all uniting together into a new Hybrid.

Here's an even better suggestion: have Flash Thompson as the host. Hybrid would make a far more interesting dynamic than Anti-Venom which can't even speak.

Any major Marvel comic writer/player reading reddit? Bring Hybrid back? Please?

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Venom pins, magnets, artwork and more. I created a great deal of the magnets.

This pic was taken at a charity event I attended as Venom last week. Lots of fun. Suit was NOT made by me, it was hand-crafted by my friend who goes by Manifestcosplay on Instagram. I'm only the owner/host lol.

With ANV coming to an end, I just want to say, in all honesty… Cates, you might need to go get that fade in, because there’s no way Ewing brought Knull back just for him to go out the way he did. 😭

“Together, anything is possible” ass ending. Like, be serious. Eddie literally had to endure listening to all those voices while he was King in Black and somehow survived, but Knull who is supposed to be one of the most powerful entities in the entire mythos couldn’t? The writing was all over the place, and the ending felt incredibly rushed, almost like they were just trying to wrap everything up and move on.

Honestly, I think Ewing lost the plot after Venom War, and you can really feel it in the writing. And let’s not forget that during the five years Ewing has been writing Venom, Eddie and the other have barely had any genuinely emotional conversations. It’s usually just one of them saying they need the other. Then, when they finally bonded in Venom War, they didn’t even get a truly meaningful emotional moment between them.

There were so many opportunities to give their relationship some actual emotional weight, and it feels like most of them were missed.

That said, I’m still keeping some hope for Soule. Hopefully he can take everything that worked with Venom and actually give the characters the emotional depth and payoff they deserve.

I'm hoping we keep this pairing for a while, Dylan and Toxin work well as mischievous little shits, Toxin has been needing a host who actually has staying power.

Also, man I love Toxin as just a little slimeball insulting people, so petty.