Spider-Man Family #2
Undone
Ione Damasco enters her limo telling her driver that she is running late and he had better break some traffic laws in order to reach their destination if he wants to keep his job. Inside the passenger area, she discovers she is not alone. Emerging from the shadows is Venom who has come to kill her. He tells Ione that he was the one who killed her partners, Gustav Dahlberg and Daniel Bollinger. However, before he can do the same to her, Spider-Man arrives and pulls Venom out of the vehicle.[1] Instead of a fight, Spider-Man is surprised when Venom tells the web-slinger to mind his own business and leaps away. When Spider-Man asks Ione why Venom was after her, she becomes quiet, especially after he begins asking about Dahlberg and Bollinger. Before he can get answers, police arrive on the scene forcing the web-slinger to flee.
The following morning, Peter Parker is lost in thought during breakfast and after Mary Jane makes sure that everything is fine decides that this time he is going to put Eddie Brock away for good. He decides to pay a visit to Ben Urich at the Daily Bugle to see what he knows about Damasco, Dahlberg, and Bollinger. He is unaware that Venom is on the loose again and the name Ione Damasco doesn’t ring any bells. However, he knows who Gustav Dahlberg, the CEO of Wechscorp until he was found suffocated in his home. With some help from the Bugle’s intern, Peter accesses the newspaper’s digital archives to see what he can learn about the individuals that Venom mentioned.[2] He first searches for Daniel Bollinger and learns that he was mauled to death two weeks earlier. He wonders what connection Eddie Brock had to them and asks for help searching the Daily Globe’s archives as well.
Later that day, Peter Parker returns home and decides to tell Mary Jane that Venom is on the loose again. However, he assures Mary Jane that Venom is not going after them for once, convinced that Brock is going after people that date back to his time as a newspaper reporter. He wonders if this is proof that there is still part of Eddie Brock inside the symbiote and perhaps he can separate him from the alien creature, even though they are permanently bonded. At that same moment, Iona Demasco has hired a security detail to guard her at her apartment. Told that it is not safe to stand out on her balcony, Ione retires to her bedroom to cry. There she is handed tissue from one of the guards. She asks the guard if he ever made peace with the fact that his job might kill him. Before he can answer, she admits that she doesn’t know why she hired security because she doesn’t think anyone can stop Venom. As it turns out, she’s not wrong, as the man in her room is actually Eddie Brock in disguise. After she says this, Brock says he is absolutely right and transforms into Venom and then kills her.
The following day, amid news of Iona Demasco’s murder, Peter Parker returns to the Daily Bugle where he tells Ben Urich that he has found a connection between all of the murders. Each person was a member of the Devlin-MacGregor Board at the same time. When Peter insists on narrowing down the next target, Ben tells Peter that he needs to hand it over to the reporter covering the story and go home to his wife, as investigating this further will put him in Venom’s crosshairs.[3] Peter ignores Ben’s warning and continues to dig deeper. First, starts digging into the city’s legal and medical documents and continues to hit roadblocks and eventually falls asleep doing research. He wakes up in the middle of the night to find a note from Mary Jane telling him to go to bed. Under it is a manilla envelope addressed to him. Inside is a thick manuscript with Eddie Brock’s last name on it. Later, as Spider-Man, he confronts Francis Fischer, demanding to know how they managed to silence Eddie Brock when he discovered that their hair growth formula wasn’t just bogus, but was killing people as well. That’s when Venom arrives and answers for Fischer, telling Spider-Man that they got him to back off by threatening to murder his wife.[4] The web-slinger knows that Venom was the one who gave him the information. Brock admits that he is the mind behind this, not the symbiote, and asks Spider-Man what he would do if it was his wife that was threatened. That’s when Spider-Man points out that the only person who ever threatened his wife was Venom.
Spider-Man and Venom then begin fighting, which trashes the entire apartment. For a moment, Spider-Man has the opportunity to drown Venom and considers going through with it for the safety of his family. However, that’s when he becomes aware that their battle has caused an electrical fire and Frances Fischer is in danger. Venom, on the other hand, is forced to flee because fire is one of the symbiote’s weaknesses. Spider-Man rescues Fischer but turns him over to the authorities and later brings the report written by Brock to Ben Urich. The story about the murder for profit scheme makes the front page. Reading the story, Venom figures Spider-Man thinks this makes them even, but he vows that he’s not done with the wall-crawler, not by a long shot. As Venom swings off into the night, Peter Parker is at home sleeping peacefully next to his wife.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Venom, Mary Jane Watson, Ben Urich
Continuity Notes
Spider-Man drops a bunch of exposition in this opening sequence. The facts:
He mentions how Eddie Brock was a disgraced reporter who blamed Spider-Man for losing his job. Brock was a reporter for the Daily Globe who thought he was getting exclusive interviews with the spree-shooter known as the Sin-Eater. When Spider-Man caught the real killer, Eddie Brock was fired from his job. This happened around Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #107-110.
He also mentions how Brock bonded with the alien symbiote that Peter used to wear as a costume. Spider-Man obtained the symbiote in Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #8, thinking it was a costume powered by alien technology. He later learned in Amazing Spider-Man #258 that it was actually a living creature and abandoned it. When it tried to come after him again, Spider-Man seemingly slew the alien in Web of Spider-Man #1.
In reality, it survived and bonded with Eddie Brock to become Venom. Both having a mutual hatred for Spider-Man they had targeted the web-slinger ever since, as detailed in Amazing Spider-Man #300.
Per the Marvel Chronology Project, this story happens prior to the Back in Black event, placing it as happening between Spider-Man’s appearances in Get Kraven #6 and Marvel Holiday Special 2007.
The Daily Bugle website has an ad for The Pulse, a supplement magazine that the Daily Bugle put out that focused on New York City’s superhero community. Check out The Pulse #1-14 for details.
Peter and Mary Jane are referred to as husband and wife here. However, not long after this story, their marriage erased from existence by Mephisto in Amazing Spider-Man #545. In the new timeline, Peter and Mary Jane are engaged, not married. As such, Ben would refer to Mary Jane as Peter’s fiancee.
That would be Anne Weying. The couple was married until the Sin-Eater controversy. She divorced him soon after, as explained in Amazing Spider-Man #375. At the time of this story, Anne is dead, having committed suicide in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #19.
Continuity Errors
In this story, Eddie Brock knows that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. However, that cannot be true based on when the story fits in continuity. Although Brock knew Spider-Man’s secret identity when he first bonded with the symbiote (as explained in Amazing Spider-Man #300), later in Spider-Man: The Venom Agenda #1, Brock loses knowledge of this secret after a blow to the head. While the symbiote still knows that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, it was not sharing this information with Brock a second time. In fact, Brock doesn’t re-learn Spider-Man’s secret identity until Peter publicly revealed his secret in Civil War #2. This error can be chalked up to writers assuming that the original status quo never changed.
However, during the period after his head injury, Brock was still aware that he used to know Spider-Man’s secret but forgot. Which could explain how Eddie could remember that Spider-Man was married. Readers should ignore any reference to Venom calling Spider-Man by his real name (which he only does once in this story.) How does Brock know to get his old notes to Peter Parker? One could assume that Brock knows there is a connection between Peter Parker and Spider-Man since the fact that the two have worked together has been common knowledge since Amazing Spider-Man #46.
Topical References
Outdated technology: Computers with CRT monitors.
Building a Better Lizard
Curt Connors pays a visit to one of his grad students, a young man named Gordon who suffers from a sever studdering problem. Gordon wants to show Connor’s his latest work.[1] As Curt enters the lab, he thinks about how Gordon idolizes him and wonders what he would think if he knew that he was the Lizard.[2] Gordon shows Curt his genetic replicator, which he says can replace inactive genes from one species and replace them with the active genes of another. He also installed a mnemonic buffer as a means of preserving brainwave patterns to prevent brain function from being altered. There is a knock at the door and Gordon, who ordered out for Chinese food, goes to answer it. Alone, Curt looks over Gordon’s lab and discovers that he has been experimenting with lizards in an attempt to replicate the experiments that turned Connors into the Lizard.
When Gordon returns, Curt confronts him about it and Gordon admits that he is working on the same material. However, before he can fully explain himself, Curt becomes upset warning Gordon of the pandora’s box he is about to open. This triggers a transformation into the Lizard, and the creature attacks Gordon and trashes his lab. It’s only after the Lizard has destroyed the genetic replicator that Gordon is able to articulately explain that he was attempting to find a cure for his beloved teacher. Hearing this causes Connors to revert back to human form and where he immediately regrets what he has done. Worse, having tossed Gordon into the replicator prior to its destruction has reverted the young scientist’s mind to that of a common lizard. As paramedics take Gordon out of the lab, Curt vows to spend his every waking hour trying to find a cure for him. After everyone has left, a lizard crawls out of the wreckage and — in Gordon’s stuttering voice — calls for Curt Connor’s help.
Recurring Characters
Lizard
Continuity Notes
According to the Chronology Project, this story takes place between the 2nd story of Spider-Man Unlimited (vol. 3) #15 and Spider-Man: Lifeline #1.
Connors glosses over his career as the Lizard, an alter-ego created when Connors drank a formula that he hoped would allow him to re-grow a lost arm back in Amazing Spider-Man #6.
Continuity Errors
This story operates on the presumption that Curt Connor’s double-identity is still a secret from the general public. However, given where it is placed on continuity, the public already knows about Connor’s connection to the Lizard as he stood trial for crimes he committed as the Lizard in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #27. So either readers can ignore this, or Curt Connors have gotten really good at deluding himself.
