Wikipedia:Peer review/Venom (comic book)/archive1

Venom (comic book)
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because… I've worked on it for a long time and I would like to potentially send it to Good Article, but I would like other opinions in to what it may benefit from towards that end.

Thanks, Darkwarriorblake (talk) 03:06, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Overall, I'm not really sure about this - the lead and publication history are good, but then it gets a bit listy and plot heavy. I would have liked to see something about the character and story development, themes and art development over the series' history. I'm sure it will pass GA with a bit of tweaking though. Good luck. Yomangani talk 00:32, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Yomangani's comments
 * "and, as of 2012, its most recent host" - is he the host as of 2012 or has the focus been on him since 2012? The opening sentence is a little awkward with the inclusion of the as "of 2012" but I suppose it is needed because of the "most recent" qualifier. You might try recasting it but I can't think of a particularly elegant alternative offhand.
 * "including the inception series..." - are the two series the inception series or just the first one (the perils of identical singular and plural forms)? Again this might be clearer if reworked.
 * "The story began the characters transition from unambiguous villain to anti-hero,..." - while I appreciate you are trying to avoid duplicating what should be the content of of Venom (comics) I think it would be helpful to give a couple of lines of introduction to the character before informing us of the transformation.
 * "The entire limited run consists of 60 issues" - this would seem to suggest that the eighteen limited series were, in fact, one limited series. "The entire run of limited series consisted of 60 issues" perhaps.
 * Why are some series/issues in italics and others in double quotes?
 * "after Thompson was first unveiled as the Venom " - "the Venom" or "Venom"?
 * "Remender had initially been unsure how to develop an interesting story about Thompson until he noted that he was ultimately a tragic hero, a violent man and his own worst enemy haunted by a drinking problem and a tragic past" - a bit clunky. You could drop most of that and rework the following sentence.
 * "and was abused by his foster father, the Crime-Master. " - during his childhood or "now"?
 * "Remender left the book" - this is comic jargon. "Remender stopped working on Venom"?
 * "to focus on his other titles Captain America" - that's only one title.
 * "a series still under Remender" - unclear. Remender was the editor? Chief writer?
 * "Bunn's run began with the September 2012 issue #23" - fairly obvious as he took over after the August issue #22. It also sounds awkward with the next sentence starting "In September 2012"
 * "introduced the aspect of reproduction to the Venom symbiote" - this reads like the Venom symbiote was unaware of reproduction. I'm guessing it actually means that the concept of the symbiote's reproduction was introduced.
 * The titles of these series subsections need to be quoted or italicized as appropriate (see earlier query)
 * the use of "the innocent" and "an innocent" gives it a bit of a biblical feel - perhaps be a bit more precise as to who these people are.
 * If you can cut the repetition of "insanity" it would help (not sure how many of those are titles, so I can't do it)
 * "She later insists on only being his friend because of his violent methods" - sounds a bit odd. Presumably she doesn't want a have a romantic relationship because of his violent methods of fighting crime, but this sounds a little like she is only interested in having friends that are violent.
 * "led by criminal turned mayor" - I don't think you can turn mayor, you have to be elected. "led by the mayor, the criminal Charles Palentine"? or "mayor-turned-criminal" if he was mayor first.
 * "The series establishes two romantic interests for Brock in Beck and another companion, Elizabeth." - Beck has already been established as a love interest.
 * There is an overuse of "sees" as in "The story sees", "a subplot sees", etc., and "also".
 * "Brock returns to New York City to find Carnage" - "to hunt down"? "to try to find"? The "meanwhile" that starts the next sentence doesn't make sense as it is.
 * "The series also contained the back up story" - what is a back up story?
 * The plot of Venom: The Hunted is very hard to follow.
 * "His son Kostya sacrifices his life to prevent the release of the plague and divert a nuclear missile dropped on Yesenofsky's base." - "his son" is Yesnofsky's son, right? Not Brock's? I presume the second part of the sentence should be something like "and to divert a nuclear missile that was to be dropped on Yesnofsky's base" or "and to prevent a nuclear missile being dropped on Yesenofsky's base" but I don't know the story
 * "Venom is a monthly comic book series published by Marvel Comics since 2011." - this paragraph reads a little oddly, it as if the article is restarting. The other series don't have this sort of preamble; I would have expected something along the lines of "A monthly series published since 2011" similar to the introductions of the other series and then a description of the plot.
 * "killing spree to torment Venom, including abusing his father's corpse" - abusing his father's corpse is not part of killing spree: killing his father would be.
 * "leaves him possessed with a powerful demon" - "possessed by"?
 * "The 2012 event "Minimum Carnage" saw the series and Venom crossover" - could the series crossover without Venom? If not "and Venom" is redundant. If so, please explain how.
 * Thank you for your time and comments, I will take a look at these immediately. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 23:44, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
 * That was indeed epic edit conflict, had to copy all your edits into my edit to make sure everything was saved. I've done up to where you finished before, I need to obtain the comics for the extended informational opening for Venom: Lethal Protector but other than that, its done. Oh, I need to explain what back-up story is too. I'll begin working on your additional comments. As for why some are italicized and some in speech marks, some were mistakes but comic titles should be italicized and story titles quoted. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 01:31, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Did all of that but the possession thing. It's hard to describe and so what is there is clearly not sufficient but Thompson has kind of possessed it. The DEmon is trapped inside Thompson's body and cannot escape because Thompson is mystically marked by Mephisto. I'd like to cover things about reception/art/development but unless I'm doing it wrong, that type of information just seems very difficult to find for the older things. The history of the 2011 series for instance is as long as the history for the entire limited series and the 2003 series combined because the information is just much more readily available, and I was able to add information on the behind-the-scenes motivations behind changes they make like moving Venom to Phildalphia and such. If I or others can find that information I'd be eager to add it, but the comic industry seems to be less straightforward than the Film or Game industry where everything down to sales figures tend to be easily located. Plot wise, I try to only cover notable elements that impact the character history/future, character introductions/deaths/changes to the status quo, so the 2011 series despite covering about 26 issues is relatively short. The limited series' I try to keep it short and to the point where I can (Though the article needs a copy edit I imagine). There is a little more detail for limited series just because they also substitute for having a full article, which they don't really need beyond Lethal Protector and Separation Anxiety. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 01:44, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I imagine there is a dearth of resources on these less well-known characters; that's a pity but not a lot you can do about it. The article is already much improved, but the change you made in the lead to make the first series clear ("Beginning with Venom: Lethal Protector, eighteen limited series following Brock's adventures were published monthly between February 1993 and January 1998, including Venom: Separation Anxiety (1994)") now means that the reader is left asking what is important about Venom: Separation Anxiety that it gets singled out from the other 16 series. I'm also not sure how far you can justify fair use claims on two covers. You have photos of some of the writers available; while they aren't very exciting adding some might break up the text a bit. Yomangani talk 12:33, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah it is annoying because I like developing GA's for films and adding all that behind the scenes information because I find it interesting and I think others do to. But this info just isn't available, perhaps they didn't release that kind of stuff at the time or do interviews. I think it was a bit more niche back in the late 80s-90s. I have removed Separation Anxiety from the lede and added a few images from those I could find for illustration. I will try my chances with hte second comic cover for now because it is separated from the original by 13 years and is about a different character so i think it's useful BUT, if a GA reviewer complained about it, there is an image of Rick Remender that I can replace it with quite easily. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 15:14, 23 November 2012 (UTC)