With the Venom movie quickly approaching, it’s no surprise that fans of the superhero genre are hungry to know all about everything and anything to do with the villain turned anti-hero. Venom has always been a character of great interest, but last year, the symbiote was given one of his biggest stories yet – the Venomverse, which placed protagonist Eddie Brock side to side with other Vemon alternates from across the Venomverse in order to protect the symbiotes race, the Klyntars. So, what exactly is the Venomverse? Well, let's take a look at the Top 10 Venomverse Shocking Facts
So where did the idea for the Venomverse come from? Back in 2014, there was an event called the Spider-Verse that featured alternate versions of Spider-Man from across the Marvel multiverse, all of whom were being threatened by the villain Morlun. It introduced various versions of Spider-Man, including Miles Morales and Spider-Gwen, aka Gwen Stacey, who was the Spider-Woman of Earth 65. There was also Spider-Ham, which was pretty great. Anywho, it was a story arc that crossed over many different multiverse, and was the concept that prompted the Venomverse, which operates in a similar fashion, featuring alternate earths with alternate Venoms.
The background behind Venomverse is just as important as what happened within it. The motivation behind the Venomverse story arc was to make Venom a more important character in the Marvel universe, with editor Devin Lewis calling it “the biggest Venom story of all time”. Leading up to the story arc, back in 2016 there was a new Venom comic that was released, and featured a different character as the host of symbiote – a dude named Lee Price. That didn’t bode overly well with fans, and do to popular demand, Eddie returned in issue 6 of Venom. In addition to that, upon Eddie’s return, a new miniseries was announced, called the Edge of Venomverse, which would star Venom alongside other alternates of Marvel characters. It wasn’t until the end of Edge of Venomverse that Venomverse itself would kick in. The story would continue into its sequel series, Venomized, where much of the resolution with the Poisons, the antagonists in the series, would occur.
While Eddie Brock was an important part of the Venomverse story arc, he wasn’t the only key player. The arc begins with Venom being summoned to an alternate Earth by an alternate Doctor Strange in an attempt to recruit him in a war between the symbiotes and the Poisons. More on them later. The other alternate Venoms who take part in the fight are all familiar faces of other Marvel characters who have become the symbiote’s host on their respective earths, like Ghost Rider, Rocket Raccoon, X-23 and Captain America. Strange had discovered the Poisons and the threat they possessed towards the Klyntar upon crossing paths with a symbiote on the run from the race.
The Poisons are a race of crystalline aliens that prey on the Klyntars, and are considered to be one of their natural predators. All Poisons are part of a collective group called The Hive, whose goal is to achieve absolute dominion of the multiverse. They’re a pretty tricky race – when hostless, they are capable of psychically fooling potential targets by appearing as loved ones or bystanders to fool them, and when they come into physical contact with a sybiote who has taken a host, they can permanently bond with them, assimilating them, and, as with most cases, completely over take their mind and silence the minds of both the host and symbiote in the process. Their weakness, though? Without a symbiote or a host, they’re incredibly frail.
Doctor Strange, having bonded with the symbiote he encountered, started to be hunted down by the Poisons. This is when he started to recruit Venoms from across the multiverse, all to form the resistance. While at first it seemed to be a solid plan, this only further aided the Poisons in their plan – assimilating the symbiotes and their hosts proved to be easy, and rapidly turned the tide of the war against the Resistance. Eventually Venom from Earth 616 was summoned – Eddie Brock – and thus began the story. Eddie proved to be an incredibly vicious and valuable asset of the resistance’s, and led to the capture and interrogation of a Poison in the process.
So who is it exactly that the Resistance is fighting against in order to defeat the Poisons? Well, the Poisons are capable of assimilating klyntar and their hosts in order to become more powerful. In the process, they also gained the hosts likeness, memories, powers and abilities, and became a part of the Hive. The poisons within the Hive were controlled by the Posion Queen, who was powered by the life force of those who were consumed by the poisons. Many individuals who fought in the resistance were assimilated into the Hive during the process, and it wasn’t until Jean Grey killed the Poison Queen that the Hive fell – since their lives were connected to the Poison Queen’s, they were all destroyed when she was.
The writer behind the Venomverse was Cullen Bunn, who spearheaded the series alongside artist Iban Coello; the two had worked together on the Deadpool & the Mercs for Money title prior to teaming up on this one. He’s actually written A LOT of Deadpool comics in the past, including Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars, Deadpool Kills Deadpool and Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe. Bunn doesn’t just work for Marvel, though. He collaborated with Brain Hurtt on The Damned, which was published in 2007 by Oni Press, and had a sequel titled Prodigal Sons, and later crafted a new series for the publisher called The Sixth Gun in 2010, which ran until 2016. He’s also been nominated for his fair share of Eisners and Bram Stoker Awards.
The Poison Queen may be in charge, but her second in command is not to be taken lightly – Thanos. Poison Thanos believed the Poison Queen was actually Mistress Death, and sought to please her. Typical Thanos. This led to him invading and assimilating in her name, with the Poison version of Doctor Doom serving as his right hand man. He’s also the one responsible for forcibly bonding Carnage with a new symbiote and having him assimilated, creating Poison Carnage in Vewnomized. Fortunately enough, he too died when Jean Grey killed the Poison Queen. Cause heaven forbid Poison Thanos find his way to an Infinity Gem. Still traumatized by Infinity War, sorry.
Deadpool, who was originally known as Venompool and was previously seen in Edge of Venomverse issue 5, appears in the series, and is from Earth TRN649. On his Earth, while he was investigating a scientist at the Ripley Diagnostics parasitology lab, Deadpool’s body is invaded by a prehistoric tapeworm, and frees the Venom symbiote in order to expel the tapeworm from his body. During Venomverse, he works as a double agent of sorts, and realizes that there was a way to prevent his mind from being consumed by the Poisons in order to help the resistance – he pretends to deflect from the Resistance and joins the Poisons, and his insanity protects his mind from being fully consumed, allowing him to function as himself despite becoming a Poison version of himself. He helps the Resistance infiltrate the Poisons lair, and is left for dead alongside Carnage before the bomb set by the Resistance goes off.
One of the Venom symbiotes most notable weaknesses is fire. Along with sonic waves, it’s the most common way that Venom has been defeated over the years. But, one of the more interesting facts about the symbiote is its ability to adapt, which has led to various instants over the years when Venom has proven to be immune against fire. This is also the case with one of the characters who appears in Venomverse – Roberto Reyes, the Earth TRN647 version of Ghost Rider, known, wonderfully, as Host Rider. The character became Ghost Rider when the character was possessed by Eli Morrow, the demonic ghost of Reyes’ uncle, and when the symbiote showed up, it merged with Morrow, ultimately removing the Klyntar’s weakness towards flames and heat. All in all, that’s pretty cool when you can consider how adaptable that makes the symbiotes to be, and why so many of these venomized alternates in the series were super cool, having adapted to heroes with their own unique powers on alternate earths.
10. SPIDER VERSE
So where did the idea for the Venomverse come from? Back in 2014, there was an event called the Spider-Verse that featured alternate versions of Spider-Man from across the Marvel multiverse, all of whom were being threatened by the villain Morlun. It introduced various versions of Spider-Man, including Miles Morales and Spider-Gwen, aka Gwen Stacey, who was the Spider-Woman of Earth 65. There was also Spider-Ham, which was pretty great. Anywho, it was a story arc that crossed over many different multiverse, and was the concept that prompted the Venomverse, which operates in a similar fashion, featuring alternate earths with alternate Venoms.
9. ORIGINS
The background behind Venomverse is just as important as what happened within it. The motivation behind the Venomverse story arc was to make Venom a more important character in the Marvel universe, with editor Devin Lewis calling it “the biggest Venom story of all time”. Leading up to the story arc, back in 2016 there was a new Venom comic that was released, and featured a different character as the host of symbiote – a dude named Lee Price. That didn’t bode overly well with fans, and do to popular demand, Eddie returned in issue 6 of Venom. In addition to that, upon Eddie’s return, a new miniseries was announced, called the Edge of Venomverse, which would star Venom alongside other alternates of Marvel characters. It wasn’t until the end of Edge of Venomverse that Venomverse itself would kick in. The story would continue into its sequel series, Venomized, where much of the resolution with the Poisons, the antagonists in the series, would occur.
8. DOCTOR STRANGE AND THE ALTERNATES
While Eddie Brock was an important part of the Venomverse story arc, he wasn’t the only key player. The arc begins with Venom being summoned to an alternate Earth by an alternate Doctor Strange in an attempt to recruit him in a war between the symbiotes and the Poisons. More on them later. The other alternate Venoms who take part in the fight are all familiar faces of other Marvel characters who have become the symbiote’s host on their respective earths, like Ghost Rider, Rocket Raccoon, X-23 and Captain America. Strange had discovered the Poisons and the threat they possessed towards the Klyntar upon crossing paths with a symbiote on the run from the race.
7. THE POISONS
The Poisons are a race of crystalline aliens that prey on the Klyntars, and are considered to be one of their natural predators. All Poisons are part of a collective group called The Hive, whose goal is to achieve absolute dominion of the multiverse. They’re a pretty tricky race – when hostless, they are capable of psychically fooling potential targets by appearing as loved ones or bystanders to fool them, and when they come into physical contact with a sybiote who has taken a host, they can permanently bond with them, assimilating them, and, as with most cases, completely over take their mind and silence the minds of both the host and symbiote in the process. Their weakness, though? Without a symbiote or a host, they’re incredibly frail.
6. THE RESISTANCE
Doctor Strange, having bonded with the symbiote he encountered, started to be hunted down by the Poisons. This is when he started to recruit Venoms from across the multiverse, all to form the resistance. While at first it seemed to be a solid plan, this only further aided the Poisons in their plan – assimilating the symbiotes and their hosts proved to be easy, and rapidly turned the tide of the war against the Resistance. Eventually Venom from Earth 616 was summoned – Eddie Brock – and thus began the story. Eddie proved to be an incredibly vicious and valuable asset of the resistance’s, and led to the capture and interrogation of a Poison in the process.
5. THE HIVE
So who is it exactly that the Resistance is fighting against in order to defeat the Poisons? Well, the Poisons are capable of assimilating klyntar and their hosts in order to become more powerful. In the process, they also gained the hosts likeness, memories, powers and abilities, and became a part of the Hive. The poisons within the Hive were controlled by the Posion Queen, who was powered by the life force of those who were consumed by the poisons. Many individuals who fought in the resistance were assimilated into the Hive during the process, and it wasn’t until Jean Grey killed the Poison Queen that the Hive fell – since their lives were connected to the Poison Queen’s, they were all destroyed when she was.
4. CULLEN BUNN
The writer behind the Venomverse was Cullen Bunn, who spearheaded the series alongside artist Iban Coello; the two had worked together on the Deadpool & the Mercs for Money title prior to teaming up on this one. He’s actually written A LOT of Deadpool comics in the past, including Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars, Deadpool Kills Deadpool and Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe. Bunn doesn’t just work for Marvel, though. He collaborated with Brain Hurtt on The Damned, which was published in 2007 by Oni Press, and had a sequel titled Prodigal Sons, and later crafted a new series for the publisher called The Sixth Gun in 2010, which ran until 2016. He’s also been nominated for his fair share of Eisners and Bram Stoker Awards.
3. POISON THANOS
The Poison Queen may be in charge, but her second in command is not to be taken lightly – Thanos. Poison Thanos believed the Poison Queen was actually Mistress Death, and sought to please her. Typical Thanos. This led to him invading and assimilating in her name, with the Poison version of Doctor Doom serving as his right hand man. He’s also the one responsible for forcibly bonding Carnage with a new symbiote and having him assimilated, creating Poison Carnage in Vewnomized. Fortunately enough, he too died when Jean Grey killed the Poison Queen. Cause heaven forbid Poison Thanos find his way to an Infinity Gem. Still traumatized by Infinity War, sorry.
2. DEADPOOL
Deadpool, who was originally known as Venompool and was previously seen in Edge of Venomverse issue 5, appears in the series, and is from Earth TRN649. On his Earth, while he was investigating a scientist at the Ripley Diagnostics parasitology lab, Deadpool’s body is invaded by a prehistoric tapeworm, and frees the Venom symbiote in order to expel the tapeworm from his body. During Venomverse, he works as a double agent of sorts, and realizes that there was a way to prevent his mind from being consumed by the Poisons in order to help the resistance – he pretends to deflect from the Resistance and joins the Poisons, and his insanity protects his mind from being fully consumed, allowing him to function as himself despite becoming a Poison version of himself. He helps the Resistance infiltrate the Poisons lair, and is left for dead alongside Carnage before the bomb set by the Resistance goes off.
1. FLAME IMMUNITY
One of the Venom symbiotes most notable weaknesses is fire. Along with sonic waves, it’s the most common way that Venom has been defeated over the years. But, one of the more interesting facts about the symbiote is its ability to adapt, which has led to various instants over the years when Venom has proven to be immune against fire. This is also the case with one of the characters who appears in Venomverse – Roberto Reyes, the Earth TRN647 version of Ghost Rider, known, wonderfully, as Host Rider. The character became Ghost Rider when the character was possessed by Eli Morrow, the demonic ghost of Reyes’ uncle, and when the symbiote showed up, it merged with Morrow, ultimately removing the Klyntar’s weakness towards flames and heat. All in all, that’s pretty cool when you can consider how adaptable that makes the symbiotes to be, and why so many of these venomized alternates in the series were super cool, having adapted to heroes with their own unique powers on alternate earths.
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