Carnage is a must have because of those accessories. That axe screams Carnage! He'll replace my 1st release. Typhoid Mary is a maybe, I am not too familiar with her but after reading that her first appearance is in Daredevil #254 (May 1988) I'm at least interested. I try not to get characters beyond the 2000's Scream on the other hand doesn't do it for me. She looks cool and all but I'm content with having just Venom and Carnage as Symbiotes.
I might get a 2nd Carnage to display with the Cletus Kasady head which will lead to the Venom from this wave to display with the Eddie Brock head.

Deodato frequently drew Mac Gargan Venom as a hulking monstrosity when he lost control. Do you mean athletic? I've always described classic Venom as buff, characters like Daredevil and Spider-Man are what I would label with athletic builds. Technically Venom is athletic because the word is fairly broad, any character with muscles of any degree can be described as athletic.

I’m passing on this wave, but it thrills me to see it, nonetheless. I never saw lasher in retail when he came out a few waves ago, and already have the previous carnage and diamond select venom to go with pizza Spidey.

As for the super hulk Venom, I don’t think it has anything to do with Gargan Venom. I think it is a Marvel Legends version of the modern cartoon Venom (ultimate Spiderman, Avengers, etc). That version of the parasite became a giant monster with little resemblance to comics Venom outside of the face and white spider. Whenever Harry, Hulk, or anyone else was infected, they were almost mindless rage machines, and I think this captures that look perfectly.

I wish Spider-Ham wasn't a statue from the waist down.

I've changed my mind. Getting Venom with Eddie Brock Alt head.

no, i dont mean athletic. Aesthetic is a bodybuilding term, it means to have symmetry. that figure looks blocky as hell. the Diamond select venom is his true form, just like the comics.

Could you sell me the BAF part from him? XD

Well thanks for clarifying that. I only ever see aesthetic used as its regular non-bodybuilding definition pertaining to beauty, which is the opposite of what Venom is since he's an ugly monster so I just thought there was some auto-correct error.

I think most of these figures look nice, but I'm probably only going to pick up the Typhoid Mary figure.

I'm getting sick and tired of that Hyperion buck body they're using for Venom. It seems like the anatomy is off, it looks clunky and I struggle trying to pose figures on that buck to make them look cool. I don't like that weird collar peice at all and even though the unmasked Eddie Brock head is dead on Todd McFarlane's artwork, it looks to be way out of scale. Like all the other enlightened people out there, I'll just stick with my Marvel Select Venom.

I have the last ML Carnage figure and I really like it a lot, but I don't care enough about the Cletus head or the axe hand to spend another $20 just for them.

Scream looks like an awesome figure, but I don't collect Symbiotes outside of Venom and the one Carnage.

Spider-Ham is cool, but I feel like I could make a Custom with just as much articulation using a cheapie Playskool Spider-Man figure instead.

I have no idea who Poison is or what his deal is. It looks nice enough and seems like there's a lot of unique sculpting there but, I imagine Poison will keep the pegs toasty warm for a long time.

I haven't read any recent Venom titles, but Eddie Brock Venom made a brief appearance in ASM #800 and he looked similar to the Monster Venom BAF. I wonder if the big ass Eddie Brock head is actually meant to go on the BAF instead of the regular Venom. Monster Venom looks fine, but again, I'm content with the Marvel Select Venom for my Spidey Rogues.

The Poison are a hive-mind parasite from another reality which leach off of and consume symbiotes. They are ruled by a hive-queen and they open portals into the prime universe to attempt to assimilate it as well because they're evil and seek total dominance or whatever evil reason they wrote up. This figure is of the Spider-Man from that reality.

Wow, that sounds.... Boring :D I honestly thought it was like a symbiote Iron Man haha

I didn't even read the full story, just the parts from Venom's title series, but yeah it wasn't a very well thought out idea for a crossover event story. I think Marvel was just trying too hard to force Venom back into the spotlight.

I'll be looking to buy him loose minus the BAF part. Sorry.

To me, Venom will always be just the body builder version that McFarlane created, 6'3 270lbs, not a giant wanna be Hulk. Way too much artistic license has soured me on some characters. Hulk/Juggs/Thing/Thanos/Venom have all been supersized by various artists for no legit reason at all other than to make em look more imposing.

Original MU 616 hgts for them all:

Hulk 7 ft
Juggs 6'10 cuz 6'10 isn't big enough.
Thanos 6'7
Venom 6'3'
Thing 6'

God forbid they kept them at those listed hgts.

My first "big" exposure to Venom was Disney Infinity, So I've mostly seen him as a hulking monster.

Hulk actually gets bigger and stronger the more angry he gets, however I THINK his maximum size is 9ft. Juggernaut is mystically powered by a demonic crystal, so who knows what full abilities it has to enlarge him over time and exposure. Venom maintained a consistent size up until "The Madness" which boosted the power of the sym-bye-oat to levels allowing it to tango with Juggernaut. After that, it seemed artists were given Carte Blanche to make Venom as exaggerated and monstrous as they could.
Personally, I've always found Bagley's Venom to be the perfect representation of Venom. Scary fangy face and tongue, but human proportions.

As for Thing and Thanos, there really isn't any excuse for their mass-shifting other that bad artists.

Overall, I agree with you about the height-shifts, but a bigger peeve of mine is the muscles. I can't stand artists who want muscles so badly that they invent muscles to place on top of muscles. It was horrible in the 90's and you still see it occasionally today. A lot of comic book artists today looks like they took their influence from the Ren and Stimpy cartoon.

We can thank the " I gotta have a figure of every single version of said character" crowd for the over saturation of certain characters.

They don't care if the character appeared for 1 comic panel, 1 issue or 1 minute in a cartoon, they gotta have that version!

And the Hulk only gets stronger the madder he gets, never bigger. You have Ang Lee & that atrocious POS movie he made for that conception from non comic book fans.

Well, Starwars & Startrek is to blame for the "every character, every costume" crowd.

As for Hulk, I'm pretty sure I've seen it in comics long before the Ang Lee movie, since Lee's movie came out after I stopped reading comics. Maybe it was just a poorly researched/written comic. Hell, the 90's was full of them.

I'm gonna have to buy the BAF outright, I love it, but Carnage and Mary are the only two figures I really want. The whole set are really nice figures, except for that Venom though. That head is just so HUGE, and they did a Venom my son got a year ago that looks to be just as good if not better in every way I can tell.

Pretty good wave...

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