There's also a lower episode count and odd release schedule. As opposed to over twenty episodes from the last two seasons, "Maximum Venom" will compose of six hour long episodes, or twelve normal episodes made up into six two-parters, however you look at it. While it would have been nice to watch the whole season over the course of six weeks, they apparently decided to space it out to one new episode a month; while that is kind of ridiculous, it's nothing compared to the wait between new episodes Gravity Falls and Steven Universe fans had to endure.
Given the lower episode count, I considered waiting to talk about the whole season in one post. But compared to the past seasons, "Maximum Venom" is more serialized with significant moments to talk about and includes much less filler. So to keep with the pattern I've done when talking about the series, I'll talk about the first half of the season and give the second half its own post once the final episodes have aired.
With that out of the way, let's dig into "Spider-Man: Maximum Venom".
The season begins with the first hour, "Web of Venom." In the first half, Peter discovers Max Modell in a secret lab where he has created a synthetic symbiote, a non-living clone of the Venom symbiote based on a sample Max still had in his possession. While Max is hopeful for the synthetic symbiote's medical applications, Peter is obviously wary. Things change though when a Technovore, a machine that can eat and incorporate any technology into its being, mysteriously appears in Horizon High. With Spidey's webshooters eaten and any other tech vulnerable to consumption, Max believes the only solution to stop the Technovore is for Spidey to use the synthetic symbiote, in the process revealing to Peter he figured out his identity. They're successful and Peter decides to work with Max on the synthetic symbiote to make sure it's ready to reveal to the public. However, we learn that Dr. Curt Connors, who had just joined the Horizon staff, is the one responsible for the Technovore's rampage, and is acting on orders from an as of yet unnamed employer.
While this is the first time I've talked about Connors over the course of these posts, I should mention that Connors had appeared as the Lizard back in season one in part two of "The Rise of Doc Ock". Since he wasn't the main focus of the story, it didn't seem necessary to bring him up.
In the second half, Connors finds Max's lab and the Venom symbiote sample. Connors confronts Max, using the excuse that he's endangering the students by performing dangerous experiments. While holding the symbiote in its container, it lunges at Connors, scaring him into dropping it and setting it free. The symbiote takes hold of Connors, though since it's only a partial sample, it doesn't cover Connors all over. However, Venom is able to make himself whole again by absorbing the synthetic symbiote off of Peter. Venom then expels Connors, since the symbiote evolved to no longer need a host last season. After Venom makes its escape, Spidey is able to track the symbiote back to the meteor crash site where it first landed on Earth. Venom retrieves a seed and morphs around it, creating a red beam to shoot up into the air (yes, even in cartoons, there has to be a freaking sky beam). With the darkened sky and seismic activity, Spidey and Max believe it's terraforming the planet. Spidey is able to disrupt the process though with a strong enough electrical current from equipment left behind by the crash investigators. All that's left of the Venom symbiote are flakes floating in the air while Spidey retrieves the seed and brings it back to Horizon. However, after his actions are brought up to the school board, Max is suspended while Connors is placed in charge. Meanwhile, in the depths of space, the red beam from Earth goes by large asteroid where we see multiple symbiotes awakening, ending "Web of Venom".
Hour two, "Amazing Friends", sees Peter returning home through his bedroom window as Spider-Man for lunch plans with Aunt May and the Watsons. As he's changing, he discovers Baby Groot (who is just as adorable here) in his closet. It's worth noting that Peter had met Groot and the rest of the Guardians over in their show in a two-parter that involved Thanos and the Venom and Carnage symbiotes. Groot has Star-Lord's Walkman that contains a message from the outlaw for Peter, but the cassette becomes unraveled before the important parts can be disclosed. Groot wraps Peter's webshooter around himself and swings downstairs. Peter rushes down to catch him when he almost runs right into Mary Jane (voiced by the brilliant casting choice of Felicia Day). Ignoring that he referenced her back in season one, this is being treated as the first meeting of the two. There's a brilliant touch when he almost crashes into her as his Spider-Sense triggers and he blushes red. While the Spider-Sense could be seen as warning him about running into her, combining that with the blush implies what I believe is him experiencing feelings he didn't expect; to simplify, it's love at first sight. Since Groot's downstairs, Peter has to keep May and MJ from seeing him and his hijinks, and that results in Peter appearing really strange to the two (yeah, that old bit). Despite this, MJ finds Peter funny and seems to roll with Peter's weirdness, which appears to make Peter infatuated with her even more. Man, after nothing romantic developed with Gwen, I really hope they don't waste any potential with Peter and Mary Jane with what remains of the series.
But back to the plot, Peter is able to catch Groot and takes him to Horizon so he and Miles can try to translate his language since the tape was unsalvageable. When that doesn't work, the two suit up and head to Avengers Tower hoping they'd have something to translate Groot. They encounter Riri Williams, a young superheroine named Ironheart and part of the Avengers intern program, who reveals that the Avengers are off in space on a mission. Unfortunately, their meeting is interrupted by AIM, who want to capture Groot for themselves. While the heroes are able to subdue the AIM soldiers, Groot goes missing. Peter and Riri search for Groot as Miles goes to recruit Doctor Strange to help translate Groot's message. As it turns out though, Strange isn't the only sorcerer involved as Baron Mordo is working with AIM. The first half ends with Groot being captured by AIM while Mordo casts Miles and Strange into a slowly vanishing pocket dimension, leaving Peter and Riri to figure out what to do.
Going into the second half, Peter and Riri are able to trace Mordo's magic to a secret AIM island base, where they are now joined by another Avenger intern, Amadaues Cho, the (ugh) "Totally Awesome Hulk." Admittedly, I haven't read much comics involving the Cho Hulk, but I really hope he isn't as annoying as he is in this show where he keeps bragging about how smart and strong he is. The three infiltrate the base and we learn Mordo and AIM are combining magic and science to use Groot's essence to create and army of Wood Golems (which look like if Groot became a Ghost Rider) to, of course, take over the world. During the battle, Miles and Strange are able to open a portal to get back home, which they then use to lure the Wood Golems into thanks to them inheriting Groot's love of ice cream and the surprising abundance of ice cream vending machines AIM has on location (which makes me wonder if they have a regular vendor to keep those things stocked). Anyway, the day is saved.
With the immediate danger gone, Strange uses a spell to show Groot's memory of Star-Lord's message: a symbiote invasion is on its way to Earth. At that time, the Milano was already being infiltrated by symbiotes, but Star-Lord was able to shoot Groot off in an escape pod before being taken over himself.
This leads into hour three, the aptly name "Vengeance of Venom" (which I will explain soon). The heroes begin to prepare for the invasion, tracking down and informing other New York heroes they can find, including Cloak and Dagger and the rest of the Spider-Team (Spider-Girl, Ghost Spider, and Hobgoblin). Peter himself is informing Aunt May about the impending situation; while she doesn't take him seriously at first, she accepts a case Peter had acquired from the space administration that we find out later contains a sonic weapon for her to protect herself. Afterwards, Peter regroups with the heroes at Avengers Tower to think of solutions to the threat when the Avengers' ship arrives back from space. As you might have guessed, the Avengers onboard (made up of Iron Man, Captain America, Captain Marvel, and Thor) have all been possessed by symbiotes. While they initiate the tower's containment defenses, the symbiote controlling Tony is able to disable it. This is a nice touch that isn't used often with these symbiote invasion stories. Usually in those situations a symbiote takes over a person and basically they become a monster, including heroes. I always found it weird that Spider-Man's symbiote (that would become Venom) seems to be the only one to exploit its host's memories. A symbiote making use of Tony Stark's genius brain is a good change of pace.
Anyway, while Miles is thrown off the tower and Doctor Strange is knocked into a portal to a dimension he intended to banish the symbiotes to, the rest of the heroes are slowly but surely soon infected by symbiotes (with Symbiote Tony also able to track down those in the Avengers database), save for Ironheart and Spider-Man. Riri discovers an even larger ship containing symbiotes on its way to Earth while Peter realizes that the seed from "Web of Venom" was acting as a homing beacon, with the Venomized Avengers being a hunting party to take out the other heroes before the full invasion began. Riri draws the symbiotes away while Peter heads to Horizon to get the seed. Riri herself is soon enough infected though, though she's able to transfer access to the Stark network over to Peter. Peter gets to Horizon but is surrounded by the Venomized heroes. But help arrives in the form of Miles and the rest of the Spider-Team. They hold off the symbiotes as Spidey gets to the seed and successfully destroys it, forcing the larger symbiote ship to reverse course. But while this is a shorter season, it isn't that short. A Venomized Doctor Strange reappears (now going by the title of Symbiote Supreme) and uses the Time Stone to rebuild the symbiote seed and bring the ship back on course. As the rest of the Spider-Team soon become infected as well, Peter finds himself truly alone. He's able to escape though when he falls into the river after taking the blast of one of Harry's pumpkin bombs, hiding and clinging on to a passing ship. Soon enough, Peter watches the symbiote ship appear above New York as it explodes and rains down symbiotes all over the city, taking over any citizens caught in the downpour.
As the second half begins, Peter's first priority is to head home and check on Aunt May. While he is unable to find her, Peter is soon confronted by the Symbiote Supreme and some other symbiote soldiers. When Peter says he won't let a symbiote bond with him again, Symbiote Supreme reveals that they have no intention of bringing him into the fold as they want to destroy him for what he did to Venom. And that's why "Vengeance of Venom" is a perfect name for this story; it not only shows a level of comradery among the symbiote race but also puts a lot of responsibility of these events on Peter's head, making what would have been a routine invasion for the symbiote race a more personal matter.
As Spidey fights off the symbiotes, he is soon saved by a man with energy based weapons that are able to hold back the symbiotes, escaping down to his lair within the sewers. The man's name is Marc Spector, and he was once the vigilante Moon Knight, who had not been seen in months. To keep with the character's reputation of being mentally unhinged, the version on this series is very standoff-ish and given a bit of a doomsday prepper makeover; it works pretty well if you ask me. It also turns out that he only saved Spidey so can use the Avengers Encryption codes to raid a Stark warehouse for supplies. I'm guessing he just assumed Spider-Man would have those since he is a well known hero, even though he's not technically an Avenger; both Marc and Spidey are lucky they had access to that at the moment or this may gone way differently.
Down in the lair, Spidey gets a call from Max, who says he may have a solution before being cut off by unknown means. Spidey convinces Spector to escort him to Max's residence through the sewer system in exchange for the codes he wants. When they get to Max's residence, they find Max has been able to capture the Venomized Groot (and he's still kind of adorable). While analyzing Groot, Max discovered that Groot's anti-bodies have a stronger resistance to the symbiote and that if they were to amplify them, it could create an Anti-Venom they could use to fight back. They need to get to the space administration for materials to do so, but Marc refuses to escort them, claiming he did his part. Spidey tries to convince Marc to help since he was once a hero. Marc then laments that after he lost someone close to him, there was no point in being a hero. Spidey rightfully calls Marc out on that, saying that he uses the loss and memory of his Uncle Ben as motivation and that "with great power comes great responsibility." With no time to waste arguing, Spidey gives Marc the codes he wants and leaves with Max and the captive Groot before guilt-tripping Marc one more time that they could use Moon Knight's help.
Later, Marc is trying to get into a Stark warehouse when he is swarmed by symbiotes. He is saved though by a small group of people fighting off the symbiotes, lead by Aunt May with the sonic weapon Peter left her. May tells him she's looking for her nephew, but brushes off Marc's cynical thought that the symbiotes probably already got him, choosing to remain hopeful. She also talks about the weapon she has has the power to help and that "with great power comes great responsibility". Marc is surprised by the line (putting two and two together when it comes to Spider-Man) as May explains it's what her husband Ben used to say and how she chose to remain strong after his death.
Spidey and Max arrive at the space administration to find it ransacked, but still attempt to find what they need to help Groot. They're soon attacked by the Venomized heroes, but back-up arrives in the form of Marc, now suited back up as Moon Knight after May's pep talk, along with May and her resistance. Max recognizes May's sonic weapon as the object they need for Groot. Max uses the sonic device on Groot and not only are Groot's anti-bodies increased to where the symbiote possessing him becomes an Anti-Venom, but Groot is also able to release a large amount of spores that cover the city, expelling and eradicating the symbiotes from the heroes and civilians.
In the aftermath, Strange takes the Anti-Venom Groot to the Guardians to clear them up (also planning to get the Anti-Venom symbiote off the little tree after thatl) as Spidey is given his props by the heroes while Moon Knight thanks him and his family for the inspiration he needed to be a hero again. Max walks off without saying a word though, as he's been feeling dejected and partially responsible with everything regarding the symbiotes. Back at Horizon though, we see someone retrieving the symbiote seed (I'm going to guess Connors given what we know so far) as we end the first half of the season on a cliffhanger.
The first half of "Maximum Venom" is pretty decent. While I was a little wary since the symbiote invasion has been done to death, I thought it was handled pretty well in this series. Aside from that, I also enjoy the team-ups featured and thought Peter played well off of both Riri (relating to each other for being teen heroes and geniuses) and Marc (both how they process loss differently and how Peter's hopeful nature compares to Marc's cynicism). There are some silly moments like the symbiotes incorporating motorcycles into their being, but it's not that bad. I'm also a little iffy on May seemingly not figuring out Peter is Spider-Man. It might be too early in the season to tell if she's just being coy about it, but having knowledge and means of defense in regards to an alien invasion should probably be clues.
There's quite a bit I didn't mention here and even though I have a feeling some things will pay off more during the second half, I'll bring up any details that turned out important next time. There is quite a bit to look forward to in the second half though. Who is Connors working for? Will we see more of MJ? And are we really done with symbiotes in a season named after Venom? We'll just have to wait and see (though that last question is probably a "no").
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