What Counts in the End

Venom is on the loose and Spider-Man finds himself following the train of his old foe in the sewers beneath Manhattan. Suddenly, Venom ambushes him out of nowhere. While they struggle, Spider-Man gets confirmation that not only does Venom really no longer remember his secret identity anymore, he also doesn’t even remember his past history with the wall-crawler.[1] Spider-Man sprays Venom in the face with webbing so he can get away and then has his foe follow him up to the surface to Times Square.

There, Agent Daryll Smith of the Overwatch Committee and his troops have set up massive speakers. Once Venom comes up to the surface he is blasted with sound from the speakers. Quick thinking, Venom tosses a manhole cover at the generator that powers the speakers. Despite this, Spider-Man tells Venom that he is not getting away this time and he should just surrender. Venom refuses and begins fighting Spider-Man again.

Outmatched, the wall-crawler asks Agnet Smith for help. However, he has just been given orders to stand down and let Spider-Man fight so blame can be pinned on the masked vigilante if he fails to stop Venom. As he beats up Spider-Man, Venom explains how he was forced into government service and how they tried to kill him with a thermite bomb they planted in his chest.

Spider-Man is able to use his webbing to snatch a sonic blaster from one of the soldiers watching the battle, but Venom manages to snatch it out of his grasp and crush it in his bare hands. Unwilling to sit by any longer, Agent Smith orders his men to prepare to deploy their dopamine blockers. Meanwhile, Spider-Man continues to fight Venom and knocks him into a truck. The resulting explosion is enough to make Venom remember who Spider-Man is, throwing him into another fit of rage.[3] Spider-Man tries to get Eddie to talk, but Brock says it is too late to talk.[4] As Venom begins beating on Spider-Man, Venom rants and rave about how Spider-Man has never had the guts to defeat him in a real fight.[5] Spider-Man tries to think of a something to defeat his foe and decides that the time has come for them to fight one-on-one to the finish.[6] When Venom lunges to attack again, Spider-Man uses their momentum take them over the edge of the building. He then twists themselves around so Venom takes the brunt of the fall to the ground below. Spider-Man gets up ready to keep fighting but the fall was enough to knock Venom out.

Taking no chances, Agent Smith starts injecting Venom with the dopamine blockers ignoring Doctor Yao’s warnings not to exceed the recommended dose. Smith decides to take that a chance if it means stopping Venom once and for all. Surprisingly, the overdose of the dopamine blocker causes the symbiote to violently separate from Eddie Brock. Waking up, Eddie Brock no longer feels a connection to the symbiote and realizes it is dead. Eddie is quickly arrested and taken away. With the battle over, Spider-Man hopes this is the last they see of Venom but he somehow doubts that. As everyone clears the scene the remains of the alien symbiote begins to bubble.[7]

Recurring Characters

Venom, Spider-Man, Agent Daryll Smith, Doctor Yao

Continuity Notes

1. Venom suffered a blow to the head in Spider-Man: The Venom Agenda #1 that made him forget everything about Spider-Man’s secret identity.

2. The Oversight Committee faked Venom’s death in Venom: The Trial #3 in order to force him into government service. They implanted the thermite bomb in his chest to ensure his compliance. Venom recently surgically removed the bomb in Venom: Finale #1.

3. Spider-Man muses that he can’t fake his death to trick Venom this time like he had done in Amazing Spider-Man #345-347.

4. Venom mentions how Spider-Man “ruined” his career. Before becoming Venom, Eddie Brock was a reporter for the Daily Globe. He did a series of interviews with a man who claimed to be the spree-shooter known as the Sin-Eater. However, when Spider-Man caught the real Sin-Eater in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #110, Brock was discredited and fired from his job. This was all revealed in Amazing Spider-Man #300.

5. The original twin towers of the World Trade Center are seen as part of the New York City skyline here. However, they have since been destroyed after a terrorist attack and the Freedom Tower has been built in their place. As such their appearance here should be considered a topical reference per the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616.

6. Venom says there are no church bells and deserted islands for Spider-Man to use now. When the symbiote was trying to bond with Peter Parker, he used church bells to seemingly destroy it in Web of Spider-Man #1, instead this led to Brock coming into possession of the symbiote. The desert island reference is another callback to Amazing Spider-Man #345, when Peter tricked Venom into thinking he was dead. Venom stayed on this island until he learned the contrary in Amazing Spider-Man #362.

7. Although the Eddie Brock claims that the symbiote is dead here, it survives and will be seen again in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #9.

Continuity Errors

1. Spider-Man is able to detect Venom’s attack with his spider-sense. This is impossible, as explained in Amazing Spider-Man #300, the Venom symbiote found way to render itself invisible to Peter’s spider-sense. Readers should ignore this since Spider-Man still gets hit in the face.

2. Venom accuses Spider-Man for having him incarcerated at the Ravencroft Institute. However, Venom has never been imprisoned there. Following Quasar #6, Venom was imprisoned at the Vault until his escape in Avengers Deathtrap: The Vault #1. He was later incarcerated at Ryker’s Island following his defeat in Amazing Spider-Man #333 until his esacpe in Amazing Spider-Man #345 due to the fact that his symbiote was believed to be dead at the time. He was imprisoned at the Vault again in Spider-Man Special Edition #1 until he escaped yet again. He was later imprisoned in a specialized cell hidden in an abandoned building following the Spirits of Venom stroyarc until he escaped there in Amazing Spider-Man #373. The only connection Venom has to Ravencroft is his “son” Carnage who has been imprisoned at the facility between escapes since Spider-Man Unlimited #1. One could assume that since Venom’s memories are muddled in this story he's mistaken about where he has been incarcerated.