Venom #16
Twist Part Three
Vic, an agent of the Ararat Corporation, is scouring the area looking for sign of Venom who is in the middle of a battle with Patricia Robertson who has been bonded to a cloned symbiote. Her search is interrupted by one of her cloned sisters who reveals their true nature and that they are expendable before shooting Vic in the head. When Bob radios in to get a status update, the rogue clone tells him that Vic is dead and convinces Bob that she’s the current Frankie clone. Bob thinks she sounds different, but the rogue clone breaks off communication before he can inquire further. Then using a tracking device, the rogue Vic clone tracks the symbiote clone to the sewers where she intends to kill Bob’s beloved creation.
In the sewers, Patricia Robertson asks the mysterious man in black what is happening to her. He tells her that the cybernetic collar that allows her to control the symbiote clone has been deactivated and she has been controlling it by sheer will. As Patricia struggles for control, the man in black tells her that she shouldn’t have come to New York City, she explains that he told her to come. However, the man in black points out that she was tricked saying that there are more beings like him — several billion in fact — as a small nano-spider emerges from his mouth.[1] He goes on to explain that many members of his species had come to Earth some time ago to examine humans, as they have been viewed as a pestilence that needed to be eliminated.[2] Eventually, the nano-spiders infiltrated every facet of humanity but as the extinction date approached they discovered that they were actually being manipulated to further the agenda of a single entity. Although most of the creatures fled the planet, they soon learned that some remained to continue carrying out the plan. Hearing this, Patricia still doesn’t understand. Helping her to her feet, the man in black promises to explain further as they walk through the sewers.
Meanwhile, on the surface, Spider-Man continues to look for the real Venom, thinking he needs his head examined for wanting to fight two symbiote creatures. As he prepares to swing across the city, Spider-Man is ambushed by Venom. Brock wants to know who the man in black is, but the web-slinger has no idea what Eddie is talking about.[3] Venom decides to believe Spider-Man, but figures he must know something and demand the web-head spill it. Thinking he has Spider-Man at his mercy, all the web-slinger can say is that the other symbiote wants to kill him. While Brock’s guard is down, Spider-Man manages to unleash a flurry of punches sending Venom flying backward through a wall and into the nearby alley. Venom them mockingly asks Spider-Man for help, and the web-slinger tells Venom his best bet is to get out of town. When Brock refuses to leave, Spider-Man tells him that he can’t do anything but stand back and let him get killed because he’s tired of being a patsy.
Back down in the sewers, the man in black carries Patricia away in the hopes of getting her as far from human hosts as possible. Along the way, she asks why one of his people would want to eradicate the human race. The mystery man explains it’s wasn’t just humans they were seeking to eliminate, but all competing life in the universe for the purpose of colonization. However, the mastermind of this scheme has long since died since successive generations of his species have cycled through in all this time. He figures that those nano-spiders who remained on Earth continued with this plan simply because they did not receive a message telling them to stop. Losing control, Patricia begins transforming into her Venom form and asks why the man in black’s people would create something like the symbiote. That’s when the rogue clone of Vic arrives and tell her that it wasn’t created to usher in the colonizers of the new world, but to destroy the citizens of the old one.
Recurring Characters
Patricia Robertson, Spider-Man, Venom, the man in black, Frankie, Vic, Bob
Continuity Notes
Patricia was tricked into coming to New York City to battle Venom by Bob who disguised himself as the man in black in Venom #14.
The man in black says this plan happened a number of years ago. This is based on the assessment made in Venom #11 that states that the plot to clone the Venom symbiote happened two years prior to this series. However, it can be determined that this was two years based on publication dates as opposed to the actual passage of time in the Marvel Universe. Per the Sliding Timescale, this scheme happened six months prior as opposed to two years.
Venom refers to Spider-Man as “Parker” here. While Eddie Brock learned Peter Parker’s double identity when he first bonded with the Venom symbiote (as explained in Amazing Spider-Man #300), he lost this knowledge after a blow to the head in Spider-Man: The Venom Agenda #1. His utterance of Parker’s name here could be seen as a mistake. However, I think it was intentionally done so readers could tell the difference between Eddie Brock and Patricia Robertson since, when they are in their Venom forms, they are identical.
