A History of Criminality and Heroism
In one battle , the Other was apparently killed when touched by the life-draining Jacob Eichorn, AKA Styx, but it regenerated and broke Eddie from prison, unaware that it was budding an offspring that eventually bonded with Eddie’s cellmate, sociopathic serial killer Cletus Kasady. Calling themselves Carnage, Kasady and the Carnage symbiote spawn went on a killing spree until stopped by the combined powers of Spider-Man and Venom.
When the corporate survivalists, the Life Foundation, captured Brock, they extracted the Other’s five remaining seeds and artificially accelerated their maturation. They intended to create a team of super-powered protectors by matching the new symbiotes with five of their top security personnel; Carl Mach, AKA Phage, Leslie Gesneria, AKA Agony, Ramon Hernandez, AKA Lasher, Trevor Cole, AKA Riot, and Donna Diego, AKA Scream, the latter of whom was schizophrenic. Though the five Venom spawn fought Venom and Spider-Man only to be seemingly killed when Brock used the maturation accelerator to age them into decay. Though they regenerated later thanks to an allyship between Venom and the Life Foundation, who desired to control and communicate with the immature “others.” When the Other is forcibly separated from Brock and imprisoned in a New Mexico research facility, the Life Foundation abducted him and he reunited with his symbiote to defeat Diego, who had killed her four comrades.
Brock soon blamed his symbiote for his murderous rages and rejected it. The abandoned Other psychically wailed in pain which attracted a Symbiote scout ship. The SYmbiotes constructed a teleportation stargate and sent waves of Symbiotes to Earth, causing death and despair, and enslaving thousands of humans, including Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America. Brock soon rejoined the Other and teamed with Spider-Man and Ben Reilly, AKA Scarlet Spider, to fight back. Venom returned to Our Lady of Saints, and spiritually merged with his Other until they released a combined psychic shriek of despair that drove nearly every invading symbiote to suicide.
Venom’s Other briefly joined with Brock’s ex-wife Ann Weying (dubbed “She-Venom” by the press) to save her life while the Carnage symbiote escaped Ravencroft Institute in its security chief John Jameson’s body. Eventually Venom absorbed Kasady’s symbiote, then had his own stolen by Z’Noxpossessed Senator Stewart Ward. Kasady found a new symbiote in the Negative Zone while Eddie regained his Other. In a battle with the Fantastic Four, Venom had his symbiote tongue severed, which ended up in the human-disguised alien nano-collective known as Bob. Bob attempted to destroy life on Earth by creating a symbiote army, but the Other claimed to be with child and Bob’s plan ended in failure.
When Brock was dying of cancer, the Other separated and sought to feed on other adrenal gland cancer patients. Later, it allowed Brock to auction it off to mobster Vincente Fortunato, who gave it to his son, Angelo. Deeming Angelo pathetic, the symbiote abandoned him in mid-air, leaving him to fall to his death. He then offered to bond with Gargan. Gargan agreed, and became the new Venom. He joined Norman Osborn’s Sinister Twelve and faced off with Spider-Man and Felicia Hardy, AKA Black Cat. After Spider-Man pulled an abandoned building down on him, Venom was incarcerated.
He later was part of Osborn’s Thunderbolts team, after passage of the Superhuman Registration Act, controlled via batrachotoxin poison traps in his handcuffs and a nanotech implant that shocked him upon disobedience. During this time, he was tasked to detain rogue unregistered Super Heroes and received unprecedented public acceptance with intense marketing and merchandising. Though he was aggressive and needed restraint from biting, no one stopped him from eating Ichigo Uzimaki, AKA Steel Spider’s arm.
Venom soon made a deal with Osborn to be free once a month from the nanochain. In New York, he helped battle the Skrull armies during the Skrull invasion. While there, the Venom symbiote was drawn to visit its former host, Eddie Brock, healed of his cancer thanks to a cure from philanthropist/gang lord Martin Li, AKA Mr. Negative. Gargan attacked Brock, prompting him to exude a white, symbiote-like costume composed of antibodies as Anti-Venom. Gargan battled Brock in his new form as the superhuman vigilante Anti-Venom, and the Venom symbiote was severely injured in the fight. Osborn, using the hyper-evolving Freak, healed Venom contained within his Sinister Twelve Scorpion costume to briefly battle Spider-Man and Anti-Venom. Gargan then secretly served as “Spider-Man” on Osborn’s Avengers. Though his behavior turned murderous, leaving Osborn no choice but to send Bullseye and Akihiro, AKA Daken, to kill Venom. But Venom defeated the two assassins, among others, and earned public adulation, changing Osborn’s mind. Venom then started taking behavior medication.
He soon fell under the control of the dark sorceress Morgan le Fay for a time, defeating villains and eating parts of them, and toying with his charge, New York mayor J. Jonah Jameson. He helped the Dark Avengers attack Asgard above Broxton, Oklahoma, and battled the Asgardians and their allies. He began devouring Asgardians until Spider-Man and Carol Danvers, AKA Ms. Marvel, intervened, separating him from the Venom symbiote, though it returned to him and he was arrested along with the Dark Avengers. Gargan was detained at the Raft where the Venom symbiote was forcibly removed by the U.S. government.
The government then enlisted paraplegic war veteran Flash Thompson into Project: Rebirth 2.0 and, wanting to still serve his country, bonded to the Venom symbiote. The bond created "Agent Venom," a government operative that hunted down military targets. The bond also gave Flash symbiote-formed legs and his resulting powers were similar to Spider-Man’s. Suppressing drugs were designed to keep the symbiote from its usual killing frenzy while on missions, though Flash had to watch his emotions lest the symbiote take control. Agent Venom successfully captured many Super Villains and even joined the Secret Avengers during this period. He ended up with enemies like the new Jack O’Lantern, Bennett Brant, AKA Crime-Master, Sergei Kravinoff, AKA Kraven the Hunter, and the controlled Eddie Brock, who had become the new Toxin.
The government’s Project: Rebirth was shut down, so Flash and his symbiote started going by simply Venom. Together, they joined General Thaddeus Ross, AKA Red Hulk’s Thunderbolt’s team, however, their methods were more violent than the Secret Avengers, which negatively influenced the symbiote into committing more violent acts, like eating people. Flash left the team and soon fought Spider-Man though it was actually Otto Octavius, AKA Doctor Octopus, who had taken over Peter’s mind and body and became the Superior Spider-Man. He stole the Venom symbiote and became Superior Venom, but he was ultimately taken down by Flash who used the Iron Man Armor with the aid of the Avengers, who had put “Spider-Man” on probation for his violent behavior. Flash convinced the symbiote to come back to him, and restored, became Venom once again. He received honorary membership to the Avengers.
He soon joined the Guardians of the Galaxy, befriending Drax the Destroyer and facing the Skrulls. Though the symbiote started killing again and attached itself to Groot, Rocket Raccoon, and Drax. The symbiote then remanded their ship and headed for the Planet of Symbiotes, Klyntar. Flash and the Guardians followed and bonded with the symbiotes to better communicate with them. Seeing Flash as a noble warrior, they cleansed his symbiote, making him an Agent of the Cosmos.
Returning to Earth, Venom was attacked by Spider-Man, but when the symbiote attached itself to the wall-crawler, it made a case that it wasn’t the same symbiote any longer and even apologized for the damage it caused, and only sought to capture Mania, its clone and protégé. Spider-Man accepted this reformed Venom and helped capture Mania.
The FBI soon attacked Venom with anti-symbiote weapons, separating Flash from the Venom symbiote. The Venom symbiote felt angry again and sought a new host in Army Ranger Lee Price, who it thought it would bond well with. However, Price overpowered the symbiote and massacred both Lonnie Lincoln, AKA Tombstone, and Felicia Hardy, AKA Black Cat’s gangs. Brock soon worked with the FBI, who gave him an anti-symbiote task force and symbiote suppression drugs, and Spider-Man joined, helping to separate the Venom symbiote from Price. Price was remanded into NYPD’s custody and the Venom symbiote was taken by the FBI.
Brock soon freed the symbiote and rebonded with it, becoming the lethal protector once again. Though after being with an abusive host, the symbiote’s violent impulses returned and Brock’s own body was rejecting the symbiote due to the inoculations he received while working for the FBI. Brock allied with Alchemax’s C.E.O., Liz Allan, who offered a cure for the ailing symbiote in exchange for help in capturing Stegron the Dinosaur Man and his experimental creatures in the sewer. After holding up their end of the bargain, Brock received a blood serum to keep the symbiote from devolving, one that he’d have to take every 65 hours. The symbiote rejoiced in helping Allan and being a hero again.
Brock and the symbiote were soon engaged in a war against the interdimensional Poisons, who ate symbiotes and absorbed their powers, and with Venomized versions of Dr. Stephen Strange, AKA Doctor Strange, and Captain America, they defeated the alien race.
Venom soon joined Spider-Man and Anti-Venom against Lee Price, who wanted to regain his former power and had stolen a symbiote off Andi Benton, AKA Mania, and turned himself into Maniac. Maniac could spit symbiote globules onto other people and take control of them. He used this new ability to make all of criminal boss Black Cat’s underlings and even Spider-Man his “Made Men.” Flash and Andi worked to break Maniac’s hold over Spider-Man and they were joined by Black Cat and Venom, armed with weapons loaded with the same substance that created Anti-Venom. With Spider-Man back to normal, these allies confronted Maniac, who transformed all of New York’s major crime families into his cronies. The defeated them and eventually Maniac using antibodies in Spider-Man’s blood. Though Spider-Man wanted to stay and see Brock arrested for his many crimes over the years, Flash noted that the Venom symbiote would make Brock a better man, speaking from experience.
When a cult who followed the God of Symbiotes resurrected Carnage using the Grendel symbiote, Carnage was reborn with a new mission: to collect as many of the codices—remnants—of other Symbiotes to help free Knull and summon him to Earth. Meanwhile, Venom learned of Carnage’s plan and began destroying codices thanks to a machine created by an evil version of Reed Richards known as The Maker, who was from another universe. Soon Venom faced off with a transformed Carnage, who had become more dragon-like, replete with wings. Spider-Man and several other Super Heroes aided Brock in fighting Carnage. When Brock’s son Dylan defended himself against Carnage with unexplained symbiote powers (equipped with his mother’s codex), Carnage threatened to kill him. Brock used his symbiote to craft a blade and with it, cutting Carnage in half, and taking his codices into himself. Doing so, he learned that Knull had broken free of his cage, destroying Klyntar. Knull created Symbiote Dragons from the Symbiotes holding him and headed for Earth.
But it wasn’t the end of Carnage. In an effort to heal his Other, Brock borrowed a Quinjet from the Avengers and brought it to a deserted island they once traversed as Venom, hunting Spider-man. He soon learned that Carnage had infected the Venom symbiote, and turned the island into its own personal killing field, leaving Brock to sever his hand to escape the crimson killer. Brock attempted to reach a radio tower while Dylan infiltrated the symbiote hive mind to locate Knull, but saw his father fighting for his life. Brock separated Venom and Carnage by electrocuting them and himself by using the radio tower as a lightning rod, but fell unconscious as both symbiotes raced to reach him. The Venom symbiote was soon contacted by Dylan, who could control it remotely, to which the symbiote was shocked as only Knull displayed such an ability. Together they saved Brock and Dylan was able to burn through the Carnage infection, though little did they all know that Carnage survived. Brock then gathered the Avengers and told them about the coming threat of Knull.
On his way to Earth, Knull and his Symbiote army of dragons destroyed swaths of planets, including Silnius, the rimworlds in Shi’ar and Kree/Skrull space as well as those among the Zn'rx colonies. Upon arriving on Earth, Knull wrapped the planet in a symbiote dome and murdered Brock. The heroes of Earth banded together and launched an attack on the God-King of the Symbiotes and learned that an entity born of light bonds to a host and imbues with cosmic abilities: the Enigma Force, which was brought to Earth by Norrin Radd, AKA Silver Surfer, who revived Brock’s lifeless corpse. As Captain Universe, Brock defeated Knull, freeing the Symbiotes but becoming the hive mind, AKA the King in Black. Removing his son’s codex, he took it into himself, freeing his son of the hive and his powers. He also freed his Other from the hive, but he couldn’t control, track nor see through it, making it the most powerful symbiote in the galaxy.
With the ability to control the hive, seeing and acting through them, Brock had the Symbiotes kill Carnage, helped Gorr the God Butcher liberate his homeworld from pirates, and repaired a fault that prevented the release of the Cancerverse. He also met with heroes using Symbiote proxies, though it aged him into an old man. He performed proxy work all from the comfort of his own home where he raised his son, while the Venom symbiote acted as the family dog and walked Dylan to school. On the way home from school, the Venom symbiote sensed someone was in danger and Dylan insisted they go check it out despite the symbiote’s protests. They came upon the Jack O’Lantern robbing someone, which led to an altercation. While the symbiote attempted to protect Dylan, Jack shot the symbiote and the bullet went straight through it and into Dylan. The Venom symbiote bonded with Dylan to save him and they pummeled Jack into the ground. Returning home, Brock wasn’t surprised that the pair bonded and saw how sad his son was to be without powers, and thought it was safer for him to have the symbiote at his side. Getting word through the hive that there was trouble, he sent his son, now Venom, off to be a hero.
