Patterns Part One

Queens, Six Months[1]

Venom has just defeated Spider-Man in battle but decides that he is going to stop short of killing him so that he can beat Spider-Man within an inch of his life again and again as he doesn’t want Spider-Man to die while still being considered a hero. That’s when the Thing of the Fantastic Four comes crashing through the wall and ambushes Venom. Caught in the Thing’s grasp, Venom commands his symbiote to brace him up against a wall and then shoves his tongue down the Thing’s throat in order to choke him to death. However, before this can happen, the Human Torch flies by and uses his flame to burn off Venom’s tongue. That’s when Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman arrive on the scene. While Reed blasts Venom with a sonic blaster, Sue uses an invisible force field to separate Eddie Brock from the Venom symbiote. Reed then summons the Fantasti-Car so they can transport Brock and the symbiote back to the Baxter Building. By this point, the Thing manages to cough up Venom’s severed tongue and insists that they should destroy the symbiote and be done with it because it almost killed him. Reed points out that this is the exact reason why they should examine the creature so they can learn everything it is capable of doing. After the Fantastic Four leaves the scene, their departure is witnessed by a busboy as he is going to take out the trash. Spotting Venom’s severed tongue on the ground, the young man wraps it up in his apron and then tells his boss that he quits.

The young man takes the tongue back to his apartment where he tells his pregnant girlfriend that he quit his job. When she asks why, when they have a baby on the way, he shows her the tongue. Then showing her the latest issue of the Daily Bugle — which features a front-page photo of Venom — tells her that the tongue belongs to the famous villain and it will make them rich. He pulls out their laptop computer and quickly tries to put the item up for auction on the Internet. However, the auction is shut down almost instantly. Then the power goes out. As the couple try to figure out what’s going on, a helicopter appears outside their apartment window and blows open the apartment, killing the two occupants. That’ when the original Vic and Frankie enter the burning apartment and successfully recover the severed tongue for their master, a man they call Bob. They then take the severed tongue to JFK International Airport where they load it onto a private jet and fly to New Mexico.

At his New York City office, Bob tells his colleague — an identical man named Bob stationed in New Mexico — that the sample has been secured. He is then told by his secretary that they have secured an ideal facility located in Northern Canada in the Arctic Circle. This pleases both the Bobs who are pleased that they can finally achieve their goals. Ending his call, the Bob in New Mexico is informed by Frankie that the sample is to arrive the scene. She also tells him that they have captured a research scientist named Goodwin whom they are now going to experiment upon. A short while later, Vic and Frankie drop the sample off with the New Mexico lab, unaware that they were handing over these samples to two women who are their exact duplicates.

By this time, Spider-Man wakes up in Reed Richards’ lab at the Fantastic Four’s headquarters He thanks Reed for his help but before he leaves, Mister Fantastic shows him something he discovered attached to the hull of their ship during a recent adventure in space. They are tiny nano-beings that resemble spiders. He tells Spider-Man that these nanites can build anything and are capable of self-replication. When Spider-Man asks what they due, Reed says that so far they have been able to do whatever Reed has asked them. He explains that while the creatures are benign and non-threatening, they seem very interested in examining the Venom symbiote almost as though they are trying to understand it for the sole purpose of destroying it.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Venom, Fantastic Four (Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, Thing), Frankie, Vic, Bob

Continuity Notes

1. This story states that this flashback takes place two years prior to the “present” (meaning stories that were published at the same time as this comic in 2004). According to the Marvel Chronology Project, this story takes place sometime between Venom’s appearances in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #23 and Spectacular Spider-Man (vol. 2) #1. It also states that this story can be placed between Spider-Man/Daredevil #1 and Avengers (vol. 3) #51 in terms of Spider-Man’s personal chronology. Complicating things is that the Fantastic Four’s headquarters is depicted and identified as the Four Freedoms Plaza.

Based on the Chronology Project’s assessment the “two years” is based on publication and not the passage of time in the Marvel Universe (which would only be a few months instead of years) Based on that assessment, the depiction of the Four Freedoms Plaza here is an error. The chronological placement is supported by the Official Index of the Marvel Universe Amazing Spider-Man Tradepaper back and the Anti-Venom profile in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #14.

Since the Sliding Timescale operates on a 4:1 ratio (where four years of publications = 1 year of Marvel time) then in story the actual span of time would have been six months.