Bullseye gets a Hawkeye mini, and Ms. Marvel’s title has been taken over by Moonstone. Ares is conquering various books and has his own three issue Dark Avengers tie-in on the way. Hell, even Wolverine Jr is series-jacking one of his old man’s titles.

the sinister spider-crotch

In all these offshoots, the titular hero saves the mission, if not the day, and makes the other Dark Avengers who show up in that scene look like chumps.

But what about poor ol’ Mac Gargan, aka Venom? He doesn’t have any beef with the jerks he works with; all he wants to do is punch who he’s told to punch and maybe do a little good in the world. Sure, maybe get the girl. Maybe show some people that you can’t keep a good Gargan down.

Maybe eat your face.

I’ve been too busy getting bingo on my celebrity death pools to watch the recent solicits, so Sinister Spider-Man #1 was a welcome surprise. Chris Bachalo’s cover really does drag your face in and nibble on it quit a bit. Once inside, it’s mean and fun mean and whispers creepy promises of fast, modern, pulpy goodness.

The first issue delivers the goods while still setting us up for the rest of the four-issue run. This oh-so-Sinister Spider-Man has all the set pieces of his Amazing counterpart – JJJ, Osborn, Six goons who are fairly Sinister in their own right, and lots and lots of girls.

Well, ok, skanks and whores. This is Mac Gargan, after all.

Watching writer Brian Reed find Gargan-Venom’s theme is delicious. Where Peter Parker has an annoying boss in J. Jonah Jameson, Gargan has Norman Osborn with his unique set of threats. On the flip side, where Osborn has ruined Parker’s life in the past, Gargan blames JJJ for putting him in his original Scorpion suit and, thus, on the road to intense super-villainy. Where Parker lives with his problems with a mixture of humility and restraint, Gargan attacks his problems with a mixture of muscles and teeth.

With great power comes great reprehensibility something something, I guess.

The pages pop and move and this is due to the page design as executed by Chris Bachalo, whom you may know from his two-issue stint on Amazing Spider-Man with Joe Kelly. Bachalo’s use of black-and-white “freeze frames” hits more than it misses and has an anime-style feel that comfortably leaves the big eyes and small mouths behind. Tim Townsend visits the book with his inks, which mostly succeed, but feel rough compared to the ink work Bachalo and Townsend did in ASM 575-576.

While the art definitely brought me in, I have strong hopes for the story in the long haul. Preview covers for the remainder of this mini already hint that the Sinister Scorpivenoman will probably not fare as well as his fellow Dark Avengers, but he’ll certainly bring his foes down with him.

On the plus side, the Marvel Universe continuity will now be filled with trashy chicks who think they’ve kissed Spider-Man and are disgustingly wrong. Everybody wins!