Ever since popping in during the late-80s,Venomhas been popular enough to show up all over the place.
Hes been a vengeful supervillain and hes been a mentally-unhinged would-be superhero.
Hes been part of the Sinister Six and hes been part of the Secret Avengers.
The costume has latched onto various hosts and three of them have been used as soldiers for the government.
Except for anything fromSpider-Man 3because my therapist tells me Im not ready to talk about that yet.
Having Black Cat accompanySpider-Manmakes enough sense, but having Hawkeye and Namor as playable is just weird.
At the end of the first level, you fight Venom.
Once hes defeated, hes possessed by some mystical artifact and it enlarges him to about 25-feet-tall.
That seems to be the last you hear from him.
Late in the game, you find out that Kingpin isnt the games big villain after all.
Hes working under Dr. Doom, meaning a trip down to Latveria for the climax.
Once Doom is taken out, he unleashes the TRUE final boss!
See, Spider-Man was joined with a sentient parasite and thought it was too insane to keep around.
Eddie Brock didnt have that opinion and gladly became Venom.
Unfortunately, Venom went a little too extreme and not in a good way.
Like, he at one point attempted to rape his girlfriend because he was more impulsive than ever.
Its seriously messed up.
What if the Beyonder and Galactus killed each other and all the heroes and villains were stranded?
25 years later, we see a society where the survivors have paired up and reproduced.
Remember, though, that this is based on the story where Spider-Man got his black costume.
It reveals that all thats left of Peter Parker is a skeleton.
The symbiote has been controlling his remains like a puppet for who knows how many years.
Except…Marvelhad a peculiar way of running Venoms ongoing.
On one hand, it really was an ongoing series.
It started in February of 1993 and the last issue was January of 1998.
Sixty issues across five years without a single month being off.
On the other hand, they didnt treat it that way.
There was noVenom #7.
All that and a bunch of specials mixed in there.
I guess marketing trumps a coherent reading order.
Spider-Man hits him with a sonic blast and it allows Frank to wrest control for just a moment.
He shoots the sonic cannon and goes into a vegetative state.
He changes into his Punisher duds, screams that hes not afraid, and fights the creature head on.
Somehow saying that wins him the benefit of the doubt.
He sees the husk of an old car with the wheels stripped off and gets an idea.
Either way, its certainly a step up from the Spider-Mobile.
The climax is at a big festival in the middle of Time Square.
Since Bullseye can make any object into a lethal weapon, he chooses to use a tiny yapping dog.
The dog doesnt kill Venom, but it does get lodged deep into his eye.
THE SINISTER SPIDER-HAM
What The?!
The character was reprised in the early 90s as part of Marvels parody comicWhat The?
!Issue #20 features a crossover between various regulars of the series in an adventure calledthe Infinity Wart.
Forbush Man, Spider-Ham, Milk & Cookies, and Wolverina team up and face their evil selves.
For Spider-Ham, its an excuse to introduce his Venom counterpart, Pork Grind.
Speaking like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pork Grind fights Spider-Ham and Milk & Cookies.
He mostly manhandles them until Spider-Ham eats his spinach and punches him out.
Coincidentally, this is not the last entry on the list to feature Austrian Venom.
The symbiote is able to mimic any form of clothing and disguise Eddie in all sorts of ways.
Some gun-carrying thugs take them hostage, but Venom has to wait until he gets clearance to reveal himself.
Becauseof coursehe has a candy bar on him.
The boy is practically catatonic in fear, especially when Venom yells, Come on!
Then Venom gets all huffy and offended, not understanding why he isnt being thanked.
Its mean-spirited, overly-complicated, and has nothing resembling payoff whatsoever.
You see, the symbiote terrorizing everyone all this time is a clone.
#11 starts a three-issue story that explains the clones origin.
Human Torch burns the tongue off and Thing coughs it up.
A bystander picks the tongue up, brings it home and tries to sell it on eBay.
Its quite a brilliant little concept that took me a minute to grasp.
This is the cliffhanger before the final issue and it still makes me smile.
Sorry for all the trouble I caused, everyone, and going back to Hell where its safer.
The world and his loved ones think hes dead, so hes going to keep it that way.
The Venom symbiote senses that Peters body is just sitting around, unused, and leaves Mac Gargans body.
Peter has no consciousness to speak of, so the symbiote is completely running the show.
Calling himself Poison, the creature confronts Mary Jane and wants her to be his mate.
She tells him off and he leaves her be.
With Mary Jane not an option, Poison goes for an even grosser route.
He spawns a symbiote offspring and uses it to control the rotting dead body of Gwen Stacy.
you could thank Peter David for this piece of alien necrophilia incest.
it’s possible for you to also thank him for…
3.
Hulk has the mind of one of the worlds greatest scientists and Venom is an accomplished journalist.
Their plan is to quoteSaturday Night Live.
Yes, they go into a news broadcast to do a Hans and Franz impression, complete with clapping.
Turns a car into a monster car?
Sure, why not?
Makes you immune to noxious gas?
Makes it harder for psychics to gain control?
Makes sense to me.
By using his brand-new power ofusing the symbiote to travel through the internet!
further reading: Who is Carnage?
The comic keeps stacking on more and more instances of, Computers do not work that way!
It is the stupidest, most glorious goddamn thing.
THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS
All-Access #1 (1996)
Ah, Access.
Considering theyve been refusing to do a crossover sinceJLA/Avengers, its been a pretty successful decade and a half.
Then Venom throws Superman around like a ragdoll.
Access brings Spider-Man into the DC world to help fight Venom and even that isnt enough!
Put Superman and Spider-Man together against one threat andhe still kicks their asses.
The only reason Venom loses is because Access shows up with a giant sonic cannon loaned from STAR Labs.
Then Spider-Man wonders why hes getting the silent glare.
A great contrast to this story is the Spider-Man/Batman crossover from a year or so earlier.
That comic features Batman beating Carnage in a straight-up fight.
Just lots of punches.
Batman beat up Carnage, who regularly used to beat up Venom, who beat up Superman.
Somewhere, a Batman fan is yelling at a Superman fan, See?!
I told you so!
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