We can’t completely blame– I mean credit– John Romita Jr. for this. After all, he’s the artist and Dan Slott is writing the thing. Who knows what exactly their creative process is for inventing new characters. But even if Slott invented the guy all by himself… Romita’s visual design isn’t helping matters much.

It’s Venom. But it’s not. Well, it’s a symbiote. But it’s different. Whatever.

Anti-Venom will make his comic book debut this summer in Amazing Spider-Man #568, as just reported a few hours ago on ew.com. Yep, this isn’t a joke– he’s really called Anti-Venom. Why do they call him Anti-Venom, you ask?? Um… because they’ve completely run out of ideas? Honestly, I don’t know. You’ll have to read it to find out. But even after you get past all the fan arguments (who seem mostly to be in agreement) that this is rehashing and just milking an old character (and yes, I too would agree) you have to wonder about practical application. What exactly is anti about him? He’s another alien symbiote with a spider on his chest and a giant, monster mouth. Maybe he’s anti in the sense that he’s nowhere near as cool-looking as Venom. He’s the opposite because he’s ugly and pathetic, rather than actually being Venom’s true opposite. Venom’s real opposite is Spider-Man… or maybe even Carnage. I guess the name works if the point is to have a really crappy looking Venom… not sure it’ll sell comics, but I’m not entirely convinced that’s Marvel’s biggest goal these days. In Civil War, Spider-Man revealed his identity, Iron Man got completely out of character rounding up anti-registry superheroes , and they killed Captain America… seems like Marvel’s made a lot of bad moves. Maybe after all of that we should be expecting silly things like an Anti-Venom.

I would probably have to read the book to be sure of this, but it doesn’t even look clever in a campy, comic kind of way. Anybody remember Anti-Spawn? In the early Spawn comics, there was a character sent by Heaven to eradicate spawn called the Anti-Spawn (he was actually Jason Wynn if I remember correctly). He had an awesome blue, armored costume that was completely different from Spawn’s, but what I loved about it was his belt. He actually had a logo of Spawn’s head with a slash through it. He was literally Anti-Spawn. Later they changed his name to Redeemer, which I admit sounds less-hokey. Maybe I just liked seeing a little camp in the middle of this very dark, graphic and brooding comic. Also the reason I loved psycho-plasm, which they later also changed to necro-plasm. But again, this guy doesn’t look like an anti-Venom… he just looks like a badly drawn Venom with  a different logo. I guess his costume is white and that’s the opposite of black… but that’s about it.

Carnage was an off-shoot of Venom and though you could argue they were just milking the symbiote idea, he was an entirely new and interesting character. Carnage was the one person Venom hated more than Spider-Man and he was fascinating because he was a serial killer who killed entirely for sport. He was a psycho almost in the vein of a Batman villain. He also had a MUCH different look and a his symbiote behaved differently. So I’m not saying you can’t get new, fresh ideas from old sources. I am saying that the Venom source is pretty well spent. If anything, Anti-Venom needs to be a new villain for VENOM, not Spider-Man, and unfortunately there’s no longer a monthly Venom series. If there were, I don’t think any of us would complain so much.

Oh, and to answer Peter’s thought at slashfilm.com… Anti-Venom in the new Spidey film? No chance. Anti-Venom won’t sell comics, much less a movie. He’ll be forgotten about long before it goes into production.

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan

Mulberry Street

Trademark After Dark Films

Mulberry Street was advertised as a zombie movie. This, my friends, is not true. In fact, it’s about… *dramatic pause* Rat-People! I know it says zombies on the box, but that’s just marketing. In the marketers’ defense, the rat people are very zombie-esque. Like zombies they spread a disease that turns regular joes into rat people, they eat human flesh, and along with developing the features of a rat they also look a bit on the decayed side. At first I was slightly perturbed to find the stunning lack of the walking dead, but after about twenty minutes I started having enough fun that I didn’t care anymore. The use of misdirection in advertising is simple. It prepares the viewer for the general feel of the movie. I suppose it is a new look at zombies; I was just pumped to see what Horrorfest had to offer to the zombie world. Like all good zombie flicks this one has a bit of topicality to it, making a statement about the New York rat problem. It’s an interesting watch that takes us through the events in a group of tenants’ lives leading up to and during the rat people outbreak.

Trademark After Dark Films

This movie is a good example of how to the walk the line between silly and serious. The visual style is like a darker version of Dawn of the Dead (2004). The rat-zombie-people move fast in this one, but unlike Dawn of the Dead (2004) it makes sense. These people are becoming animals, not walking corpses. The style keeps it serious. You never feel like it’s supposed to be comedy, but they do acknowledge that the subject matter is a bit ridiculous. There’s a particular line said by the character Victor, a bar owner, that is similar to, “Rat people… F^*#ing crazy.” I appreciate that. Strangely enough that line is really what sold me on this flick. The rat people are killed with reasonable ease. By this, I mean they can be killed like any regular person and don’t require damage to a particular part of the anatomy, like the head. If you’re capable of killing one without being partially eaten, then kudos to you.

Trademark After Dark Films

This movie is an isolated incident as opposed to the grand scale zombie-apocalypse movies like what’s been popularized by Romero. It’s limited to Manhattan, which allows for a possible containment, but that’s not what the movie focuses on. We watch the survival efforts of a small number of tenants in a crappy downtown apartment building. Relationships are a little hazy for a while and aren’t completely defined by the end of the movie. They establish enough that you understand who the individuals are and for the most part the fact that they’re neighbors is good enough. A little clarity would have been nice, though. The most important relationship is defined. A former boxer named Clutch, with the efforts of his friend/fellow tenant, prepare for the return of Clutch’s daughter from the military. Unfortunately she leaves a war zone for a… well, I suppose a war zone.

Trademark After Dark Films

I can’t decide between this one and Borderland as to which one is my favorite movie from 2007 Horrorfest. If you only see one of these movies make sure it’s this one or Borderland.

The Verdict: It’s a worthy buy, but if you’re not open to the idea of rat-people you may only want to rent.

Next: Nightmare Man and Unearthed

-Vince