Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #5
Venomous Part One
Eddie Brock arrives at JFK International Airport and is furious that his driver is holding up a sign that reads “Venom”. The driver apologizes, saying that he was told by his employers that Brock’s identity was still a secret and decided to do a double bluff. Brock lets this go, wanting to this over with to before his last few days on Earth become anymore unpleasant.[1]
Meanwhile, at the Parkers apartment, Mary Jane is opening the mail and comes across a final collection notice. The panic this creates wakes up Peter who calls out to her.[2] After dumping the collections notice in the garbage, Mary Jane checks on Peter, who is in their room with Felicia Hardy. The two women explain that he has been out of it for the past two days following his battles against Electro and the Vulture. That’s when he remembers that Aunt May is still missing and asks the two women if there have been any more messages from her kidnapper.[3] Unfortunately, there has been no more news. That’s when they show him the front page of the Daily Bugle, which has a front-page photo of a partially unmasked Spider-Man that was taken while he was in the hospital. Peter is concerned for his and Mary Jane’s safety and thinks they should leave town, but Felicia points out that Peter’s face is too beat up from his fight with Electro to be identified. What’s worse is J. Jonah Jameson is offering a five million dollar reward to the person who can correctly identify who Spider-Man is. That’s when Felicia tells Peter that the Owl said he will continue looking into who could have kidnapped Aunt May as a way of thanking him for nabbing the Electro and Vulture. Peter is less than happy to hear that the Black Cat works for the Owl on occasion. Mary Jane gets between Peter and Felicia before things get heated.[4] The two friends and apologize and then Felicia leaves, telling the Parkers that she is meeting with a stoolie and will be in touch if he has any leads.
Later, as Peter continues to recover, Mary Jane tells him how Matt Murdock, Nick Fury, Doctor Strange, and the X-Men’s psychics are all on the case to find Aunt May but nobody has been able to find her so far. When they have a moment to have a serious talk, Mary Jane points out that Peter said that if things got too much for Spider-Man they’d go to the police. Even though this would mean Peter publicly revealing his identity, Mary Jane thinks it’s time to seriously consider this possibility. However, Peter is concerned that by revealing his identity it will open him up to every one of his enemies Mary Jane decides that it’s time to be proactive and they start by going through the list of Spider-Man’s foes that know his secret identity. Mary Jane suggests Norman Osborn as the likely suspect, but Peter explains that he already checked and this doesn’t seem like something he would do. That’s when Mary Jane suggests that it might be Harry Osborn, even though he is dead, pointing out how his father managed to cheat death before. However, Peter doesn’t think so, as he is certain that Harry is dead as he saw him getting buried.[5] That’s when Mary Jane suggests that it might be Venom.[6] That’s when Peter gets a call from his credit card company who tells him that his account is past due and in collections. Peter doesn’t understand but is told that all of their payments were rejected as insufficient funds. Peter gets upset and tells them that he’ll be in touch with their bank. As he hangs up, he notices that Mary Jane is crying and she tells him that they need to have a serious discussion.
Later, the couple are walking through Central Park where Peter learns from Mary Jane that they have been having financial problems recently. She explains that she tried to keep them afloat financially, but some of the companies she did film work for ended up going out of business before paying her and she had been dipping into her tax savings. Getting Aunt May her own apartment was the thing that pushed them over the edge, financially. Mary Jane feels like she let Peter down since she wanted to handle their finances so Peter wouldn’t have to worry about them on top of his duties as Spider-Man. Peter isn’t mad and tells Mary Jane that this isn’t something that she has to deal with alone and suggests dusting off his camera and start taking pictures to make some extra money again.[7]
Soon, Spider-Man is back out on patrol and is starting to consider the possibility that Venom may have captured his Aunt May. That’s when someone calls for Spider-Man’s help on the street. It turns out to be a guy with a flat tire, and Spider-Man grudgingly agrees to hold up his car while he changes his tire. That’s when his spider-sense begins going off warning him of Doctor Octopus going on a rampage in the area. Spider-Man is surprised by how savagely Octavius is acting until he knocks him down and discovers his back is covered in tranquilizer darts. That’s when a massive SWAT unit surrounds the wall-crawler and decides to arrest him as well, their captain figuring the reward for revealing Spider-Man’s identity will be the icing on the cake. Before Spider-Man can escape, the SWAT team swarms him and tries to pull his mask off.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Doctor Octopus, Black Cat, Mary Jane Watson, Venom
Continuity Notes
Eddie Brock is convinced that he has terminal cancer as revealed in Spectacular Spider-Man (vol. 2) #5. However, as explained in Venom (vol. 4) #11, this is all revealed to be an elaborate hoax created by the symbiote in order to make Eddie Brock more dependant upon the creature.
Peter’s narrative states that he was having a dream about “Johnny Storm’s old girlfriend from the Inhumans”, he is referring to Crystal. She and the Human Torch dated from Fantastic Four #64 to 105.
Aunt May was kidnapped in Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #1.
Mary Jane mentions how Peter and Felicia used to date. Their romance lasted from Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #73 to 100.
There are some facts about the Osborn family that are being dropped here they are:
Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, has known Peter Parker’s secret identity since Amazing Spider-Man #39.
His son, Harry, has known Peter’s secret identity since Amazing Spider-Man #135.
Norman Osborn has cheated death when he was impaled by his own Goblin Glider in Amazing Spider-Man #122. How he survived is explained in Spider-Man: The Osborn Journal #1. He would eventually resurface in Amazing Spider-Man #412, but Peter wouldn’t learn about his survival until Spider-Man #75.
At the time of this story, Harry Osborn is believed to have died in Spectacular Spider-Man #200, due to complications from exposing himself to the Goblin Formula.
However, Harry actually survived and will resurface again in Amazing Spider-Man #545. It’s later explained in Amazing Spider-Man #581-582, that Harry was secretly taken to Europe by his father and has been undergoing rehab this whole time. With the help of Mysterio, Osborn used a bio-duplicate of his son to convince everyone Harry was dead. Norman himself has been keeping up this deception by pretending that Harry is dead.
That’s a good guess, but not likely. As explained in Amazing Spider-Man #300, Eddie Brock learned all of Peter Parker’s secrets when he first bonded with the Venom symbiote. However, after a blow to his head in Spider-Man: The Venom Agenda #1, Brock has forgotten Spider-Man’s secret identity. The symbiote still knows, but it’s not sharing that info with Brock.
Peter reminds Mary Jane that she married a superhero. Not long after this story, Peter and Mary Jane’s marriage is erased from history by Mephisto in Amazing Spider-Man #545. In the new timeline, Peter would say that Mary Jane is engaged to a superhero as opposed to being married to one.
Topical References
The man with the flat tire tries to insult Spider-Man by saying he looks like actor Courtney Cox in his costume.
Spider-Man asks if Otto’s copy of Stephen Hawkin’s new book was missing the last page. This is especially topical since Hawking died in 2018.
