Family Bonding starts off with Venom’s battle with Toxin, with Toxin kicking his ass.  Wounded, Toxin has Venom on the defensive and the fight is definitely one sided.  Love the design for Toxin, who looks similar to Carnage. Before Toxin can give the killing blow, the symbiote slayer intervenes but is killed by Toxin.  More like overkill.  Toxin tore it in half then ate its head.  Venom goes at Toxin again, as his nemesis attempts to convince him that he’s just as much a killer as himself.

Toxin nearly impales him on an arm-blade, with the Venom symbiote just barely saving his life.  His symbiote takes his serum (which Flash uses to keep his symbiote under control) and injects it into Toxin.  The plan works but Eddie Brock escapes threatening to finish what they started leaving Flash in shitty shape. A girl named Andi is sitting on the roof of an apartment building, when she comes across Flash who looks like crap.

Elsewhere, under a bridge a homeless man is enraged that the last of the food was eaten but when he confronts the other homeless he realizes that they are infected by symbiote slayers, which one infects him and another homeless man.  The whole thing with the infected homeless mouths and necks expanding are just gross but look really cool.  Reminds me of that scene from AvP: Requiem where the homeless are infected with the Facehuggers.  The symbiote slayers mutate their hosts and set out to take out both Toxin and Venom.

The Verdict:  This issue was pretty damn intense, giving us a pretty fast buildup with Flash and having this violent battle between Venom and Toxin. The combination of Declan Shalvey’s art style and Cullen Bunn’s writing makes for an incredibly bloody and violent issue. The design of Toxin was done exceptionally well, being a mix between Venom and Carnage.

In the end, Family Bonding has got to be one of the most brutal ass whoopins I’ve seen in a comic.  Toxin just dominates the entire comic.  However, there is the strain that Flash now faces with him feeling so isolated or risk others being killed.  The inner focus is something I liked addressed as a lot of heroes and villains have this feeling due to their abilities or “career” choices.

Also, the symbiote slayers seem like a great equal to the symbiotes and it’s going to be awesome seeing how these creatures take on their nemesis. I’ve never heard of the Symbiote Slayers before but dammit if I weren’t surprised at how cool they are.

I was thoroughly enjoying this issue and I liked getting to know Flash Thompson a bit better. I liked seeing Eddie Brock as Toxin because if you think he was brutal as Venom, think again. Thanks for Shalvey’s art and Bunn’s writing that gives the issue a pretty dark atmosphere with plenty of violence but is pretty self aware.  Family Bonding gets 4 out of 5.