We’re back! Eddie Brock had one heck of a break up with the symbiote that made them Venom. However, Eddie would find his life wasn’t done with symbiotes just yet. He would become Anti-Venom, the healing counterpart of Venom. Eddie’s whole life seems to be dealing with strange gooey monsters and their desire to become his latest fashion accessory. What happens next? Let’s find out!
Eddie was now doing his best to be of help with the healing powers of Anti-Venom, even healing himself of the cancer that had almost killed him. He would work with Spider-Man, though the web-head found this entire partnership worrisome, at best, an anti-hero. His path lead him to joining an anti-Avengers team, the Revengers, before getting locked up for trying to stop Earth’s mightiest heroes. It would take a bizarre disease that granted the people of Manhattan Spider-Man’s powers, causing chaos, for Eddie to use the last of the Anti-Venom abilities to cure everyone back into regular human beings, saving the day and being hailed a hero.
Being a hero did not mean that Eddie’s troubles were over, in fact, they were reaching a new low. Eddie was homeless and had little to no money. Struggling to survive while realizing that many deadly symbiotes were still out in the world and he had the unique insight on how to fight them. The Crime-Master, a masked crime lord, would force Eddie to bond with the Toxin symbiote, in hopes of controlling his own symbiote soldier. Eddie would use this to his advantage so he could better hunt down the other symbiotes so he could finish their reigns of terror. This would hit a snag when meeting the new Venom, the symbiote and Flash Thompson, who seemed to now be doing fine as the heroic Agent Venom. He would promise Thompson that if he did ever worry he was losing control of being Venom, that he was willing to kill them both to stop Venom if necessary.
The FBI would force Eddie and Toxin to work for them in an anti-symbiote task force, since their first target was Carnage, Eddie was down to stop him. The team would work well together, most members being regular people but some were also bonded to symbiotes for a “fighting fire with fire” strategy. Their work brought them to a remote island where Carnage was trying to summon an elder god to kill everyone, Toxin and another symbiote would bind with a fellow symbiote bonded agent so she could fight this elder god with their combined might. When the dust settled, the god was defeated, Eddie was without symbiote once more, and the task force disbanded.
While returning to the FBI, Eddie would learn that Venom was back to being a killer again, no longer with Flash Thompson, he had a new host and Eddie decided to step in. He would be able to bond with the Venom symbiote once more but was worried that this would take him away from his desired goal of being on the straight and narrow. The two would work together but it was begrudging until they’d get grabbed into a reality where many of the heroes of Eddie’s world had their own Venom symbiotes who were pulled from across the Multiverse, like himself, to fight a deadly race called the Poison. Eddie and the symbiote would help them and get back to their own reality but still in need of work to live day to day. Eddie and the Venom symbiote would find work both mundane and super, often involving symbiotes. The symbiote would have more asexually reproduced children and Eddie would often end up having to fight or bond with them to deal with bigger threats.
There you have it! Eddie Brock is usually synonymous with Venom for a lot of folks but comics of the last few years have really mixed things up with that. Now he may have his old pal back after an extended break, he’s also got a big screen adaptation starring just Eddie and the symbiote, no Spider-Man, the comics version would be delighted with that development. See you next time!
Suggested Reading
Venom, Vol. 2
Venom: First Host
Venomized
Dr. Bustos
drbustos@comicattack.net
