Venom’s Limited Reign Part 6: The Mace
Venom fights Not Iron Man
With Spooky Season in the rear view mirror, it’s time to jump back into my retrospective series on Venom’s numerous limited series from the 1990s! Last time we covered 1994’s Venom: The Enemy Within. Now we get the honor of covering Venom: The Mace (also from 1994).
Much like Venom: Funeral Pyre, this is a story about Venom meeting a fellow antihero, initially fighting him, and then ultimately teaming up with him to fight a common foe. Also like Venom: Funeral Pyre, the writer is once again Carl Potts. That’s where the similarities end. Whereas Funeral Pyre featured the very popular and well known Punisher, the antihero in The Mace is a cyborg ninja named Mace. Not exactly a household name.
Mace’s origins aren’t entirely clear. Carl Potts is credited as co-creating the character along with artist Barry Crain in the pages of Marvel Comics Presents #160; however, it appears this issue wasn’t published until June of 1994. Venom: The Mace #1 was published in May of 1994. That means Mace’s first ever appearance is actually in this series. It seems that the intention was to introduce the character and provide his origin story in Marvel Comics Presents, and then the plan was to get him some additional exposure by teaming him up with Venom. Since those appearances were not released in the correct chronological order, most readers’ first (and only) exposure to the character was in Venom: The Mace. Based on my research, the character never makes another appearance outside of these two stories. Would the character have gotten more traction if the comics had been released in the proper order? The world may never know. Now that you know more about Mace than you ever dreamed possible, let’s dive into this extremely ‘90s Venom comic.
As previously mentioned, Carl Potts is the writer of this series. The penciler is one of my personal favorite artists: Liam Sharp. Liam’s art has changed drastically over the years (check out his work on Man-Thing just a few years later), so it’s a lot of fun to see him use a more traditional superhero style that was common at that time. His Venom looks badass in this series with extra emphasis on his fangs and exaggerated proportions that give him an inhuman look. He also looks much goopier than he is typically portrayed, and we love a goopy Venom in this house.
The first issue starts with Venom doing what he does best: murdering criminals. He then jets off to go on a dinner date with his lady friend, Beck. The rest of the issue basically centers around Mace fighting a bunch of cyborgs and guys in robotic suits from an organization called Sunrise Society. His primary weapon is a mace. Bet you didn’t see that one coming. Mace is also able to become invisible using some sort of cloaking technology, but it isn’t enough to hide himself from the leader of this team of villains. The best way I can describe this villain is Iron Man if he used a laser whip as his primary weapon. He’s basically Mickey Rourke’s character from Iron Man 2. Henceforth, I will be referring to him as Not Iron Man.
Mace ends up escaping, and he ends up sneaking into the backseat of a car belonging to an unsuspecting woman and demanding that he drive her. Unfortunately for Mace, that woman is none other than Beck. Needless to say, Venom does not appreciate this and the two have a big fight. That’s how the first issue ends.
The entirety of Venom: The Mace #2 is spent on the two fighting each other. Liam Sharp gets a chance to shine in this issue by utilizing clever panel layouts and showing Venom use some abilities that hadn’t been used previously. My favorite of these is Venom using the symbiote to create a shield to absorb damage. It looks really cool.
The two characters put aside their differences at the end of the issue when Not Iron Man and his team of cyborgs show up. The issue ends with the two antiheroes charging into battle.
The final issue is basically one long fight as Venom and Mace wreck this group of cyborgs. It provides another showcase for Sharp’s art, so I’m not complaining. Their team up is a successful one, and they Not Iron Man and his lackeys. When unmasked, Not Iron Man is revealed to be a clone of Mace. Since Mace never shows up in another comic book after, we’ll never get a payoff for why that’s a big reveal. Alas, that’s how the series ends.
Venom: The Mace is light on story, but it makes up for it with with the nonstop action as drawn by Liam Sharp. It’s worth reading for that alone. It also doesn’t require a huge time investment since it is only three issues. It isn’t the best miniseries starring Venom from the ‘90s, but it certainly isn’t the worst. The next series on the docket is Venom: Nights of Vengeance. Spoiler alert: it’s another team up between Venom and a ‘90s antihero. You’ll never guess what his name is.