Venom (vol. 2) #40
Mania Part One
A man is being beaten to death in an alley and Flash Thompson wonders if the man willingly went into the dark alley looking for death and if he would spit in Venom’s face if he saved his life. This scene gives way to a city laid to waste by demons with Venom, in full demonic form, bellowing from atop a beheaded statue.
Flash suddenly wakes up and finds Andi Benton in her symbiote looming over him. He asks her what she is doing and she tells him that she is waiting for him to wake up so they can go on patrol. Climbing into his wheelchair, Flash needs to eat first but Andi is impatient because she wants to avenger her father’s death by catching the crooks that are still out there. He understands her impatience because he blames himself for not being able to stop Jack O’Lantern from killing Andi’s father. However, he tells her that wearing the symbiote takes some getting used to and figures that the alien creature bonded to her is influencing her. Andi points out that Flash hardly knows her, something he admits, but tells her he knows more about symbiotes, even if he doesn’t know anything about them. Andi thinks that maybe her symbiote understands her better than he does.
That’s when Flash gets a call from his informant, Katy Kiernan, who tells him that there is something going on in Austin, Texas that he needs to see. He tells Andi that he needs to leave town and has her promiseto sit tight until he returns so they can take down Lord Ogre once and for all, together.
When Agent Venom arrives in Texas he meets with Katy in a local morgue. After they get some privacy, Venom drops his disguise and she shows him a body that turned up. He is surprised to see that it looks exactly like Daimon Hellstrom, aka the Son of Satan. This is impossible because Hellstrom is still locked up in Virginia, but Katy tells him that these lookalikes are turning up all over the country in the same condition. This leads to a conversation about Venom’s new sidekick. Venom tries to deflect these questions, telling Katy that his new friend is keeping a low profile while he was gone.
However, Flash would be wrong as Andi — now calling herself Mania — has crashed a club called the Freakshow to try and find a lead on Lord Ogre. However, the gang leader is there and orders his guards to attack her. Mania makes short work of them, but despite Lord Ogre’s assurances that he’s not afraid of a “little girl in a monster mask”, he makes a hasty retreat after she defeats his minions.
Meanwhile, Agent Venom has infiltrated the Peak, a maximum security prison in Virginia to question Daimon Hellstrom again. He tells Daimon about the men who look like him who have turned up in morgues with their Hell-Marks ripped off and asks what this may have to do with the Descent.[1] Hellstrom deduces that someone might be harvesting Hell-Marks so that they will be the chosen during the Descent. Flash recounts how he got his own Hell-Mark when he entered into a pact with Mephisto in Las Vegas, but Hellstrom surprises him by saying that he no longer has the mark. Flash can’t understand how that can be.
At that moment, Mania is sitting on a rooftop unaware that she now sports the Hell-Mark originally given to Flash and that someone is keeping track of her movements. This is Crossbones who has arrived in Philadelphia with Master Mayhem, the Gargoyle brothers and armed soldiers loyal to the Department of Occult Armaments. When one of the soldiers points out that their target is just a kid, Crossbones doesn’t care. DOA is collecting Hell-Marks and he intends to skin the girl alive in order to get hers.
Recurring Characters
Agent Venom, Mania, Katy Kiernan, DOA (Crossbones, Master Mayhem, Gargoyle Brothers), Lord Ogre, Son of Satan
Continuity Notes
The Descent is a coming event where one of the many Hell-Lords will descend further than the others and become the true Devil. In preparation of this event, the various Hell-Lords have been selecting heirs. For more on this see Venom (vol. 2) #13-14 and 23-25.
