The Hunger Part 4

Spider-Man has been tricked into a battle with Venom so that the symbiote can attempt to bond with him again.[1] As Spider-Man struggles to get free, the wall-crawler is saved by the sudden arrival of the Human Torch, as the Fantastic Four are out hunting for Venom after the police named him as a suspect in the “vampire” attacks. Unaware that the symbiote is trying to bond with Spider-Man, the Torch surrounds the alien creature in flame. With the symbiote weakened, Spider-Man tells the Torch to get him to Mister Fantastic and then quickly grabs some exposed wires in an electrical box jolting him and the symbiote into unconsciousness.

Meanwhile, Eddie Brock has returned to the church confessional to ask the priest what happens to a man who has lost his soul when he dies. Once more he tells the priest that while he is sick, he feels that the demon living inside him took away his soul because he can’t feel anything anymore. The priest tells Eddie that the soul is eternal and that the Lord would never allow it to be taken away. He then suggests that perhaps Eddie has just lost sight of who he really is. Eddie can’t find the words to explain himself and decides instead to settle for telling the priest that no matter what happens, he tried to be a good Catholic. He then tells the priest that he is leaving something on the chair, as it is the last thing of value he has. As he gets up to leave, the priest asks if Eddie is planning on leaving the church. Brock responds by saying that it’s something like that and leaves.

By this point, Spider-Man has woken up in Mister Fantastic’s lab in the Baxter Building where they are examining him after separating the symbiote from his body. Spider-Man begins telling them about how the symbiote has been draining the adrenaline out of its victims trying to find a new host. That’s when the Invisible Woman warns them that she can’t keep containing the symbiote in an invisible force field and asks that Reed do something quickly. Richards explains that the symbiote is acting differently from when they last dealt with it. In anticipation of a sonic attack, the symbiote has attached itself to Spider-Man in such a way that the sonic waves would be redirected into the wall-crawler’s bones, shattering them.[2] Meanwhile, Aunt May has arrived to take Flash Thompson, releasing him from the care of his regular nurse, a woman named Helga. Helga is upset that Peter Parker didn’t show up to take him, but May explains that Peter is quite busy and apologizes for his not being there.[3] Back at the Baxter Building, Reed recalls how Spider-Man shared a link with the symbiote in the past and asks to explain his spider-sense to him. After finishing his explanation, Spider-Man asks what his spider-sense has to do with the symbiote’s need for adrenaline, Reed tells him that it’s everything.

In order to draw a parallel to what he is theorizing, Reed tells Spider-Man that he recently began a thorough examination of Sue’s invisibility powers and learned that a rush of adrenaline is triggered whenever she uses her powers. He says that Spider-Man’s spider-sense works in a similar fashion. As Sue tells her husband to hurry things up, Reed concludes that the symbiote must feed off of adrenaline and the simplest solution to stop it from trying to bond with Spider-Man is to inject the wall-crawler with an adrenal blocker. Reed’s theory pays off, but after injecting Spider-Man with the blocker, the symbiote goes into a frenzy and although it severs its bond with Spider-Man it punches a hole in the wall making its escape.

Meanwhile, Detective Neil Garrett has gotten a letter from Eddie Brock, who explains to the detective wanting to set the record straight about his life. He explains that he used to be a respected newspaper reporter until his career ended when his Sin-Eater article turned out to be wrong and lost his job.[4] He then tells Garrett that he contemplated suicide and almost did it until he bonded with the symbiote and became Venom.[5] Brock finishes his letter by saying that he has the utmost respect for the police and to punch Spider-Man in the face as he still blames the web-slinger for how his life turned out. With the information in the letter, Spider-Man is able to track down Brock who is hiding out in the bowels of a cargo ship. There, Brock tells the web-slinger that this isn’t a trap, and figures that the symbiote has abandoned him for good this time. Eddie says this ship is a perfect metaphor for his life, remembering seeing it all the time when he was a kid, and now it’s just a rusted out hulk. He also finds it ironic that now that the symbiote is gone, his hatred for the wall-crawler is gone as well. Spider-Man tells Eddie that despite the fact that the symbiote is gone, he’s going to go to jail for a very long time. This makes Eddie laugh and when Spider-Man asks what’s so funny, Brock tells him that he has cancer.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Venom, Fantastic Four (Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, Thing), Aunt May, Flash Thompson, Neil Garrett

Continuity Notes

1. Spider-Man wore the symbiote as a costume from Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #8 until he discovered it was alive and trying to bond with him an abandoned it as seen in Amazing Spider-Man #258.

2. Reed is talking about the last time he examined the symbiote. This happened when he helped separate it from Spider-Man in Amazing Spider-Man #258. It escaped from the FF’s captivity in Amazing Spider-Man #261/Fantastic Four #274.

3. Although not implicitly stated here, May is covering up for Peter because she knows that he is Spider-Man, a secret she had just recently learned in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #35.

4. As explained in Amazing Spider-Man #300, Eddie Brock wrote a series of articles for the Daily Globe where he claimed to be interviewing the spree-shooter known as the Sin-Eater. However, Spider-Man caught the real Sin-Eater in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #107-110, Brock was discredited and out of a job.

5. Eddie Brock’s suicidal ideation and cancer diagnosis are both falsehoods. As explained in Venom (vol. 4) #11 these were all fabrications created by the symbiote to make Eddie more dependant upon it. The contemplation of suicide are false memories planted by the symbiote. Likewise, the symbiote altered Eddie’s physiology so that it appeared that he had cancer. The cancer diagnosis — unknown to everyone — is a false positive.