Half Man. Half Spider. All Amazing.

Venom’s plan to making the life of mayor J. Jonah Jameson a living hell has backfired on him. After instigating a gang war between Rolling Sevens and the Park Avenue Players, J. Jonah Jameson had gone to Norman Osborn for help from one of his Avengers.[1] To this end, Osborn decided to assign his “Spider-Man” to the case, much to Gargan’s chagrin. Instead of solving the problem, Mac has been instigating the two gangs into increasing hostilities.

The press, at first, was praising Mac Gargan’s activities while posing as Spider-Man until it was announced that he would be working with the mayor’s office. This has caused Dexter Bennett to use the DB! to condemn the him. Venom responds to this by breaking into Dexter Bennett’s office where he has the symbiote regurgitate a dead squirel it at earlier. The following morning, Dexter Bennett arrives at the DB! and gives orders on how to the paper is going to spin the discovery of a dead stripper in the mayor’s bed (which was another present from Venom) when he comes across the dead squirrel with a note saying it is a gift from his friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. The only regret Venom has over this is that he wasn’t around to see the look on Bennett’s face.

Back at the mayor’s office, J. Jonah Jameson vents over the fact that Spider-Man hasn’t done anything to resolve the gang war in the city and threatens to call Norman Osborn. Mac warns Jameson that all this will do is make Norman call him back to Avengers Tower and to stay out of the mayor’s way, leaving Jameson with nobody to fix the problem. Furious, Jonah says that if Spider-Man is just going to hang around city hall all day, he’ll sit in on a meeting about New York City’s 1st annual Big Apple Festival, a special event that Jonah had been planning since he was elected as mayor.[2]

Venom, in turn, is disruptive through the entire meeting to the point that Jameson orders him to get out of his sight.[3] He is about to leave when Police Chrief Ibanez is there to see the mayor. He tells Spider-Man to stay because they need him as the city was threatened with a nuclear bomb and that they specifically asked for Spider-Man. Gargan agrees but insists that the NYPD send everyone they can. When Venom enters the building he finds the Redeemer and his allies, the Dementoid, Doctor Everything, General Wolfram, Eleven, and the Hippo. The Redeemer says they will disarm the bomb as long as Spider-Man agrees to their demads: that he issue a public apology for injuring the members of his team, agree to undergo anger management, as well as doing 1000 hours of charity work.

Venom, decides that he is going to kill them instead. However, before he can, Eleven unleashes a sonic scream, one of the Venom symbiote’s weaknesses. In order to get her to stop, the symbiote eats half of her body. When the rest of the group tries attacking, Venom easily overpowers them. First he throws the Hippo and General Wolfram into a pile of boxes and then uses Dementoid as a club to bludgeon Doctor Everything. Twenty minutes later, Venom emerges from the building and hands Doctor Everything to the police and tells them there was no bomb. The lone survivors of this attack are apparently General Wolfram, Dementoid (who has been tied into a human knot) and Redeemer (who is now missing both his arms.) He tells the surviving members of his group that he has another plan and has General Wolfram to pull the plans out of a manila envelope.[4] When Wolfram opens the envelope and the contents inside make him smile.

This envelope is then sent to the mayor’s office. Looking inside, Jameson finds photos that prove that Spider-Man was responsible for instigating the gang war and is pleased that he has something to finally nail the bastard.

Recurring Characters

Venom, The Redeemers (Redeemer, Dementoid, Doctor Everything, Eleven, General Wolfram, Hippo), Betty Brant, Dexter Bennet, J. Jonah Jameson

Continuity Notes

1. Norman Osborn became a hero after killing Veranke the leader of a Skrull invasion of Earth in Secret Invasion #8. Osborn was then given control of SHIELD (which he rennamed HAMMER) and formed his own team of Avengers in Dark Avengers #1.

2. At the time of this story, J. Jonah Jameson had just been elected mayor in Amazing Spider-Man #592.

3. Venom draws a picture of J. Jonah Jameson suffering a heart attack. This is a joke based on the fact that Jonah had recently suffered two heart attacks in Amazing Spider-Man #546 and 554.

4. The Redeemer states that everyone else on the team was eaten by Venom. However, the Hippo appears again in New Avengers: Luke Cage #1. Clearly, Venom didn’t eat everybody and you could probably forgive Redeemer for not noticing since, you know, dude had his fucking arms ripped off.

Topical References

• The cost of an issue of the DB! is listed as 75 cents. This price should be considered topical because inflation is a thing.