Sticking with Peter Milligan, this week also sees the wrap-up of his Toxin miniseries, with Darick Robertson on art.

I've seen Toxin mentioned by some people as if it were a self-evident example of Marvel churning out meaningless crap simply to fill the shelves.  It's easy to see why someone might think that - the book was a completely unwanted spin-off from Venom vs Carnage, filling no customer demand whatsoever.  Ludicrously, it's also been promoted as a New Avengers tie-in, which is just plain untrue by any sensible standards.  The "tie-in" is that the villain is Razor-Fist, and he escaped jail in New Avengers #3 - something that doesn't even bear on the plot of this series.  Seriously, that's it.  That's the whole tie-in.

So it's understandable that people might be a bit cynical about this book.  But really, that's unfair.  It's Peter Milligan and Darick Robertson, after all, and while it's not going to make the list of either creator's best work, nor are they phoning it in.  Milligan's actually got a point here, and he's managed to establish Toxin as a legitimately different character from Venom or Carnage, worth using in his own right.

The basic idea here is that Toxin is different from the other symbiotes because he got a better host.  Venom and Carnage both bonded to violent lunatics, and behaved accordingly.  Toxin bonds to well-meaning cop Pat Mulligan, who tries to give the newborn symbiote a bit more direction.  And, because it's dealing with somebody who's sane, the symbiote is somewhat open to reason.  It's childish, it's petty, it's violent, and it enjoys a good fight, but it's open to persuasion.  So Pat finds himself trying to convince the symbiote of his own moral values, and realises that he's not sure of the arguments himself.

Now, that's a perfectly good premise for a series.  Heaven only knows what possessed Milligan to give his lead character a Mary Sue name like "Pat Mulligan", but he's written as a much weaker and more uncertain character than that might suggest.  It's an interesting idea.  And with Toxin as a rookie super-hero, you can get away with building the series around a D-list villain like Razor-Fist - a character so bizarre that he fits quite naturally into Milligan's style. 

On the downside, while Darick Robertson is always an excellent storyteller, he never really seems like a good fit for this particular character.  Venom and Carnage always work best with artists who are prepared to go nuts, making them look like some horrible distortion of Spider-Man.  Robertson tries his best, but that sort of thing just doesn't work with his softer, more three-dimensional characters.  The art's great in every other respect, but the style just doesn't work for the title character.

There's also a lot of Milligan's humour here, often at its most arch, which will alienate a lot of potential readers.  Now, I'm all for newsreaders describing the Answer as "a master criminal and general know-it-all", or a villain's sidekick delivering a line like "Maybe I'm just not cut out to be a cold-blooded handmaiden to death incarnate.  Maybe I should leave and try to get into film school."  But if you don't find that sort of deadpan dialogue funny then it's probably best to give the book a miss.

That aside, it's a much better book than people seem to be assuming.  There's a proper story here, and a point, and a character with some potential.  It's not what you're expecting.

Rating: B+

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