Venom: Dark Origin #4
The Ties that Bond
Eddie Brock’s landlord comes banging on his apartment door because a black viscous ichor is dripping down from his front door. The landlord thinks Eddie is repainting his apartment and tells him he needs permission first. That’s when the goo starts sticking to his hand and he recoils in fear. As he runs away he tells Brock he doesn’t know what he’s up to in there but whatever it is, he’s breaking his lease.
Eddie Brock, now covered head to toe in an alien symbiote once worn by Spider-Man sits in the middle of his apartment living room sitting in a massive web he has spun. This is because he and the symbiote are communicating deep in his mind and re-living each others memories.[1]
Eddie relives the moment when he rescued Mister Belvedere, a cat owned by the Gardner family in his old neighborhood. This time, Mister Gardner sees right through Eddie’s ploy and accuses him of stealing the cat so he could get praise when he returned it. Suddenly a black tendril of the symbiote stabs through Mister Gardner’s stomach. Eddie tells the creature to stay away because it doesn’t belong here in this memory. He asks where the symbiote is taking him but it remains silent.
Suddenly, Eddie finds himself on some alien landscape some 60,000 years in the past. He’s not his self as he is reliving the memories of one of the symbiote’s early hosts. It is a small rat-like creature that has scurried out of the darkness of its home afraid of the outside world, unaware that the symbiote is following behind it. It trips over a chasm where massive insect swarm above and tumbles to its death. That’s when Eddie realizes that he’s not living the memories of this creature, a pregnant female, but one of its children in an embryonic sack on her underside. This child is born into a world at the expense of its mother, just like Eddie was. Born into a world with toxic air it can’t breathe, the small creature collapses and is about to die moments after it is born. That’s when the symbiote arrives and bonds with the dying rodent, giving it new life. It is joined with other members of its race that have also bonded with symbiotes. It has allowed them to survive this harsh and deadly world. They are no longer weak. They are the hunter and no longer the prey. Eddie watches as these hybrid creatures then attack a massive insect that resembles a praying mantis and kill it for food.
Suddenly, Eddie snaps back to the memory from his childhood, young Eddie is standing in front of the symbiote and realizes that it was showing him it was trying to show him where it came from and that it helps weak creatures make it on their own. He suddenly shifts forward in his memories to when he was beaten up in the locker room in high school and can relate to the small creature he saw because he always felt different and that the world was against him. Time shifts ahead and now he’s an adult getting fired from his job at the Daily Globe and he realizes that the world welcomed him in before chewing him up and spitting him out. Lastly, his memories jump ahead to the night he went to the Our Lady of Saints Church to commit suicide and realizes that the symbiote wants to permanently bond with him so that it can help him be strong.
Waking up in his bed with the symbiote lurking beneath him, Eddie agrees to bond with the alien creature. The symbiote envelopes Eddie Brock one more time and bonds with him down to a molecular level forming an unbreakable bond. Both have joined to become one and they both want the same thing: The absolute destruction of Spider-Man. Because the symbiote was once bonded to Spider-Man, Eddie Brock now knows all of the web-slinger’s secrets, such as the fact that he is realy Peter Parker, photographer for the Daily Bugle.[2] He finds Peter Parker one day waiting for the subway and trying to get people to care about his photo of Spider-Man on the front page of the paper. Brock finds the idea of Peter Parker making a living by taking pictures of himself makes him no better than he was before he got fired at the Daily Globe. Since he does not set off Peter’s spider-sense, Eddie is able to get close enough to shove Peter in front of an oncoming train. Unfortunately, Peter manages to leap out of its path and as people help him back onto the platform, Eddie has the symbiote change his appearance so people don’t recognize him as the pusher.[3]
Knowing where Peter Parker lives Brock then goes to the apartment he shares with Mary Jane Watson, When she comes home first, Eddie hides in the closet and scratches at the door.[4] When Mary Jane goes to check it out she is startled by what she thinks is Peter’s black-and-white costume. When Brock produces his grisly smile and crawls out of the closet, Mary Jane begins to freak out. When he tells her that he is going to kill Peter Parker, she thinks it is the costume talking to her and, thinking that Peter’s life as Spider-Man will eventually kill him, she can’t help but agree. Intrigued by this, Eddie asks if he had to choose, would Peter choose her or being Spider-Man. She tearfully admits that Peter would choose Spider-Man over her. This makes Eddie laugh and commands to lift Mary Jane up by her hair with one of its tendrils. Looking in the mirror he thinks about how he once had a woman of his own, but she left him when it turned out he lied, seeing how Parker continues to lie and still gets the girl angers him even more.[5] Trying to appease this lunatic for her own safety, Mary Jane agrees and he lets her go. He tells her to tell Peter that, and that he’ll be coming back to kill him, as he leaves he assures Mary Jane that this time he’s not lying.
Recurring Characters
Venom, Peter Parker, Mary Jane Watson
Continuity Notes
Venom (vol. 4) #11 reveals that the symbiote fabricated a bunch of false memories to make Eddie more dependant upon it. That plot device doesn’t seem so unbelievable when you consider this scene.
In case you’re late to the party where are some facts about why Eddie Brock and the Venom symbiote hate Spider-Man:
When Spider-Man was hunting down and capturing the spree-shooter known as the Sin-Eater circa Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #107-100, Eddie Brock was interviewing Emil Gregg a copycat and publishing his stories in the Daily Globe. When the Sin-Eater was revealed to be Stan Carter, Eddie Brock was fired from his job.
The symbiote was believed to be nothing more than a sophisticated costume when Spider-Man first put it on in Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #8. However, he later learned in Amazing Spider-Man #258 that it was alive and trying to bond with him and abandoned it. It made one last ditch effort to bond with Peter in Web of Spider-Man #1, and he seemingly slew it in the belltower at Our Lady of Saints.
This led to Brock meeting the symbiote and their bonding, as first told in Amazing Spider-Man #300 or last issue if you will.
This scene is taken directly from Web of Spider-Man #18 which is, technically, Venom’s first appearance even though you don’t see or know who he is until much later. Brock makes another attempt on Peter’s life in this fashion in Web of Spider-Man #24, but that incident is omitted in this story (probably for narrative pacing.)
It’s interesting to point out that this story was published following Amazing Spider-Man #545 when Peter and Mary Jane’s marriage was erased from existence. With this change in the timeline in mind, at no point in this story is Mary Jane referred to as Peter Parker’s wife. Instead, Brock and the symbiote only refer to her as “Parker’s woman.”
He is referring to Anne Weying who married Eddie but ultimately divorced him after the Sin-Eater fiasco. The real reason was that Eddie became obsessed with getting revenge on Spider-Man as seen in the last few issues. This fact was first revealed in Amazing Spider-Man #375.
Chronology
Venom: Dark Origin #4 (page 1-13, panel 6): Considering his next move, he learns that the symbiote wants to permanently bond to him and agrees to allow this, figuring that their symbiosis to protect each other.
Amazing Spider-Man #388 (2nd story page 1-5, panel 1): Wondering how to begin his campaign against Spider-Man, he enlists the aid of a Navy Seal named Chuck Stone and learns stealth tactics so he can stalk Peter Parker.
Amazing Spider-Man #388 (2nd story page 5 panel 2-page 6 panel 2) ~ Web of Spider-Man #18 (page 22 panel 2-8) ~ Venom: Dark Origin (page 13, panel 7-9, panel 1): Eddie Brock pushed Peter Parker in front of a train. Caught in the act he uses his symbiote's shapeshifting powers to assume different outfits to evade capture.
Amazing Spider-Man #388 (page 6 panel 3-8): Eddie Brock returns to Chuck Stone and pays him for his services. Amazing Spider-Man #388 (page 9 panel 1-5) ~ Web Of Spider-Man #24 (page 8, panel 3-page 9, panel 3): Venom follows Parker to Atlantic City. Tries to attack Peter as he is clinging to the side of a hotel.
Amazing Spider-Man #388 (2nd story page 9, panel 6 - page 12): Venom runs into hotel security, changes his appearance to evade capture again. Returns to New York to visit Chuck, discovers he died of a drug overdose and blames Spider-Man for his death as well.
Amazing Spider-Man #298 (page 22): Back at his apartment, Brock decides to go after Spider-Man directly.
Amazing Spider-Man #299 (page 21-22) ~ Uncanny Origins #7 (page 9-10, panel 2): Mary Jane returns home finds Venom waiting for her.
Venom: Dark Origin #4 (page 13, panel 7-page 21): Venom terrorizes Mary Jane, tells her that he is coming for Spider-Man to kill him. Knocks her out.
