"Venom" by Donny Cates Issues 1-6 (Ep. 17)

Episode 17 is here! Ben and Antonio dive into Venom by Donny Cates, breaking down issues 1–6. This week we explore identity, cosmic horror, and how this run redefines Venom’s origins into something far bigger than a Spider-Man villain.

Be part of the discussion on Instagram: @KickbackComics_Pod

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Hey there everybody, how's it going? Welcome back to another episode of Kickback Comics. My name is Antonio. My name is Ben, and y'all are listening to a comic book podcast. By two guys who have not read a lot of comics but are looking to get involved, read some cool stories, look at some amazing art, um, meet up with Miles Morales in the city, fight against a gigantic dragon that is from a different world, planet, you know, the good stuff. That's what we're all about. That's what we're all about here at Kickback Comics.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Yep, this is our new hobby. We're doing a book club. Thank you guys so much for joining us. Uh we read a banger, another another banger.

SPEAKER_03 0:37

Another banger. Add another banger to the list.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

We're kind of on a roll with it, I feel here.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

We are kind of on a roll with it. And if you're wondering what it is that we did read, uh, it is Venom. And this uh series here, this uh number of issues of Venom is done by Donnie Cates. Yeah, Donnie Cates, the man himself. And you may you may recognize that name from some of our earlier pottage, um, namely, if you would, Ben.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Yeah, God Country. That was one of our first episodes and and uh one of our earliest attempts at pottage. Like first three, maybe, right? Yeah or four or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Yeah, crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

But anyway, but we had we had a good conversation, good conversation about it, I think. And um, you know, I'm I'm excited to be back to some more Donnie Cates.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

Yes, Donnie Case, the man. And this is super interesting. I mean, I uh Venom in his own right. I mean, I've uh I feel like it's kind of funny. I've I've known about Venom for a long time. I had this one Spider-Man game that I played when I was super young that was like a PC game. It was that one, I think we talked about it maybe actually even a while ago that was like narrated by Stan Lee. Um we definitely talked about it during the I think that was when I learned about Carnage and stuff. It was like Scorpion was in that game, Venom, Carnage, Rhino, you know, whoever else. Classic, classic. Very classic. But so Venom's been cool for a very, very long time, and we've gotten, you know, since then, right, we've gotten movies, we've gotten a whole bunch of different stuff. Um, but this is a uh comic run here from 2018.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Venom is definitely one of the uh you know super recognizable figures.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

Right, absolutely, you know, one of the classic you know, recognizable, like you said, villains.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

So we talk about Spider-Man is one of the like biggest selling merchandise things globally, you know, the like the uh the extent to which it's just like on bed sheets and uh towels and whatever. It's like I feel like I was seeing you know cool big kids with Venom t-shirts. Right, right, right, right. Like before you know, before I knew about Spider-Man, probably. Literally today when Chad and I went to the skate park this morning and we drove past a parked car that had a huge decal on the back window that just said we are venom. Whoa, wow, it's perfect, perfect for today. They knew you were coming. Yep. We are venom, yeah. Venom, very, very popular anti-hero, yes, villainous, monstrous, spider-man character. Yeah. Let's uh let's get into it.

SPEAKER_03 2:48

Yeah, they go even crazier in this one. But yeah, so um this run of Venom is pretty interesting. It's kind of, you know, again, along the um similar wave that we've been on when we've been reading a lot about a lot of these superheroes. We're not necessarily starting from the beginning, beginning, but we're starting on these runs that have kind of a uh a rebuilding and a restarting of the Venom character or of the characters that we're reading through. And so um, yeah, this is a modern Venom story. It kind of rebuilds on Venom's mythology from the ground up. We get actually a lot of the background in this uh as well. It introduces the idea of a cosmic symbiote origin, right? So it kind of takes this like um space goop type of story, right? And it's right in a goop. Yeah, and expands upon it. Right now we've got uh we'll get into it, but there's a whole bunch of extra stuff going on. Sets up this villain, right? A real serious villain in null, that is K-N-U-L-L Null, uh God of the Symbiotes, which is pretty, pretty crazy. Um, and we'll talk some more in a moment here, probably about how this is all right building up to some other things. But um, it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

In sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, please. It's pretty cool how this this venom run sort of sets up the whole Marvel arc that impacts all these other different stories. So like um, so there's a there's a lot of exposition in lore drop. Like one of the whole issues in this trade, paperback, I forget which maybe it's like issue two or three, is almost entirely just null backstory, um, which is very interesting, very cool to see. But also, you know, I think a lot of people that were reading or paying attention to whatever was going on with Iron Man at this time or the Avengers or whatever, they also were checking out this Venom run because it ended up impacting everybody else later. This basically, this Donnie Kate's run is setting up this whole thing called the King in Black, which is basically null invading Earth, and it's it's like a Thanos level situation. Um they're calling everybody. Right. Everybody gets involved, and uh it's actually one of the first, it was on sale one time when I was at a comic book shop. There was a huge omnibus like coffee table sized book that's the king in black and collects all of the different like ongoing Marvel runs with characters that I hadn't even heard of before. Uh, and like spin-off characters from the Eternals, like all sorts of stuff. That's so Namor. A bunch of people I barely know about, but I read more.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

I don't even know that name. I'm just making me think of Neymar, but Namor.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Dude, you know Namor. We've talked have we not talked about it? Did you see the villain in uh in Black Panther 2, the movie? Did you even see that, bro? Oh uh I think I think I saw it once. I was really like number one. Namor is really interesting where he's actually um he predates Aquaman, bro. Whoa, he's like people think he's an Aquaman ripoff, but Aquaman is a is a Namor ripoff.

SPEAKER_03 5:26

Oh, yes, yes, okay, absolutely. I know who Namor is, yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

But anyways, regardless, um absolute carnage happens in 2019. That's an event that affects a bunch of different Marvel stories, and then the King in Black, which takes place 2020 through 2021, impacts basically everything that's going on in the Marvel universe at that time. So, anyways, it's very cool to to have Venom sort of be at the core of uh of all of that. Venom's kind of like the main character in some ways in the larger Marvel arc. So that's kind of a it's a lot of responsibility for a comic run, it's a lot of responsibility for the creative team, um, which maybe we should we should get into and talk a little bit more.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

I mean, you know what they say about um great what is it, great responsibility, right? You know what they say? Yeah. Um But so yeah, let's let's get into this, this, this creative team here. Obviously, starting with um Donnie Cates. Um Yeah, so Donnie Cates has has written a lot for for Marvel um and definitely as well um for his own stuff like God Country, which we talked about before. Um, as far as Marvel, he's written Thanos Winds, Doctor Strange, Damnation, Guardians of the Galaxy from 2019, Silver Surfer Black. Are we reading that one also? Yeah, that's on our list.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

It's a super like psychedelic, um, really popular Silver Surfer run. It's the only Silver Surfer I've read, and it it was incredible. Wow, amazingly cool.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

So we're gonna get into that too. Shout out to Donnie Cates. Uh, we'll see you on the pod in the future. Um, Absolute Carnage uh and King in Black as well, which uh Ben just talked about, right? Which are continuations of this uh kind of venom story that we're talking about right now. But um yeah, bring bringing back Donnie Cates. He's doing some amazing stuff here. I think um I think what's interesting is that as we start reading through a bunch of these, we're gonna get a really good idea of what his like writing style is right for sure and is like. And um I think it'll be interesting to talk some more about that as we get into even more of his stuff uh later on.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

No doubt. The artist is Ryan Stegman. Uh he sort of was the big Spider-Man guy at the time, it seems like he was doing the amazing Spider-Man written by Dan Slot. He was doing the superior Spider-Man. That's a crazy run. Have you ever heard anything about superior Spider Man? I don't know anything about superior. Superior Spider-Man is basically um Peter Parker's body. Like Peter Parker dies, and his body gets resurrected with Doc Ock in it.

SPEAKER_04 7:36

Well, oh, I've heard of this.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Yeah, and Doc Awk is like Peter Parker is like such a fucking loser. I can I can be Spider-Man better than he could ever be Spider-Man. Interesting. So it's like people are interacting with Peter as if it's him, but really it's his body being puppeted by Doc Awk. And uh that it ends up um, yeah, it's very it's a very popular Spider-Man run. I've checked out a little bit of it. Maybe we'll add it to the list. Right. But yeah, so anyways, he's also doing uh Spider-Man Renew Your Vows, whatever that is, and obviously the author for King in Black, which is um, you know, we've already mentioned it a bunch of times. Uh he's known for hyperdynamic action, exaggerated aggressive character designs, and uh being really good at drawing monsters and symbiotes, which is obviously perfect.

SPEAKER_03 8:16

Great for this one.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Yeah, super, super cool. Uh, you want to get into the color?

SPEAKER_03 8:19

Yeah, let's do it. So our color artist for this one is Frank Martin. Um, he's done stuff for Amazing Spider-Man, Thor, King and Black. You're probably seeing a little bit of a theme here, right? So that a lot of these same people are coming back around for King and Black later on. Um he's known for um bold contrast, helping sell scale and intensity in big action scenes, all that kind of stuff. And I think that that definitely shows um in a lot of what we're gonna talk about today. So, again, as we usually say, you know, go read it. We're reading this on Comixology, uh, sponsor incoming, just give it a little bit of time. Um but uh be sick. Shout out to the shout out to the comixology people. Uh we'll talk soon. But um really cool. This this is such a fun um issue, and again, I think that they all do a really great job uh getting the scale and intensity all together. Um, and then lastly, we've got our letterer, right? Which is an interesting thing that we're learning more about. But tell us more about our our letterer, Ben.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Yeah, letterer is Clayton Cowells. Uh other work he's known for is Daredevil Thor, Immortal Hulk. And Immortal Hulk is a really cool run that I checked out. Someone I remember I was DJing at the spot in Manhattan, and the guy that uh DJ'd before me on Thursday nights would always try to talk comics with me. And that was one of the ones he was trying to get me to read. Okay. When was that? It was like the year before I moved to London. Um, whatever. But Immortal Hulk, really good. Ken shout out that I know about that. He's known for uh clean, modern lettering and subtle tone shifts through the text, which we we've already talked about as I was setting up the mics. The um the letterer definitely did some really cool, distinct stuff that uh we'll we'll talk about when we when we dig into the book.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Yeah, we'll have to dive in. This is just a random thought, but I think we'll have we'll have to dive into I think lettering in particular because I feel like that's such a that's such a specific skill, you know, to have and something such a specific thing to have worked on for a while, right? And I think it'd be interesting at some point to take a look at um, you know, lettering that's amazing, right? And then lettering that's like either earlier on in somebody's career or different stuff like that. But anyway, we'll get into that. So that's our our creative team for this Venom run. Um, and I think now we can probably just get into the into the general story here.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

For sure. I think for this episode, Antonio, we're saying maybe we're gonna do another uh like issue by issue summary because these one, like the storytelling in this one is uh is a lot more dense and uh doing a lot of setup for stuff that we might read later on, or we're gonna is gonna be referenced in other trade paperbacks for other stories we might read since we're since we're doing more of this Marvel stuff. I know for one thing we've already talked about uh reading some Thor that is directly related to this story. We're coming back. So that could be, you know, prepare for that. That's probably gonna be the next episode that we that we put out. But uh yeah, what do you do you want to do any like overall thoughts about it before we get going?

SPEAKER_03 10:55

I think this was like super interesting. And again, I think what what you touched on earlier was actually a really big part of what made this kind of a lot of fun was you know having venom at the center of of this story, right? It's like and what's also interesting for this one too is that they they talk about how he um he is normally thought of as a villain, and actually earlier, I guess, in this um uh concept of venom, he is a villain, right? It's like they're like, oh, he's in New York and he's doing bad stuff and he was a villain, and then he goes to San Francisco and now he's like a good guy, or whatever else, right? And so it's interesting to see this kind of um other side and other take on Venom. There's very a really big um aspect with Eddie Brock of not wanting to hurt innocent civilians, which is pretty interesting, or innocent, I guess, cops and whoever else too. Um, but it's an interesting take on Venom. The art is super, super cool. I think that we get a really fun, a lot of really fun moments in this when we do get introduced to Noel, right? There's some amazing art that shows him, there's some amazing art that are kind of just in that whole um arc and moment when when Noel is around. There's just so many really amazing panels. And and actually we'll get into that stuff too. I think that there's also just some fun, some more fun panel stuff. Um, that uh shout out to our boy Scott um that goes on in this one as well. But it was super cool. What'd you think, Ben?

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah, I I really enjoyed it as well. This was actually a trade paperback I picked up uh a couple years ago when I was visiting family up in Maine. And there's a little there's a little bookstore uh that I used to go to as a kid, and we were in there, and the Venom, this Venom comic was like one of the staff recommended picks, you know, like on a separate little shelf. And I was like, you know what? This is my comic era, let me read that. So this was one of the first Marvel, especially modern Marvel things that I ever read. And it's it's been a while since I've I've come back to it, so it was really fun to sort of revisit this story. And uh, you know, especially now that I have so much more context and have read so many more comics.

SPEAKER_03 12:45

Um reading it.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Yeah, for sure. I and I mean it's really cool. The whole kid also I I sort of know where this is going. Like I've read I've read up through the end of this uh and and into the king in black.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Ooh.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

So there's a lot of a lot of stuff I obviously won't spoil, but it does it does just keep it. It's got some extra knowledge. Keeps building, it gets crazy. Uh, and it is wild when it's jumping around, you know, venom teaming up with the Vengers and whatnot. Yeah, that's that's gonna be crazy.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

Also, shout out to my shout out to my boy Miles for being in this one too. When they started talking about Spider-Man, you know, I was like, I don't know which Spider-Man it's gonna be. Right. Boy, I mean I'm happy either way, realistically, but shout out to my boy Miles for pulling up. Um pretty cool. We got to see some, again, Venom powers in Venom, right? I think that is kind of a little funny thing that they touch on there. But um I'm gonna try and avoid saying super cool, but I'm gonna uh fail at it miserably. But that's pretty simple.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Thousand percent baby.

SPEAKER_03 13:36

Thousand percent, super cool. Put those on a t-shirt, they're coming, don't you worry about it. Um but yeah, so this was super uh interesting. I did not say cool. And let's maybe jump into issue number one here. So I'll give a I'll give a little um summary of this and then we'll get into a bigger discussion on that as well. So um issue number one, um, Eddie Brock, uh, who's our main character here, is barely holding himself together using pills to quiet the symbiote uh and living like something is already wrong before the bigger plot fully kicks into the story. Um he's abducted by this guy, Rex Strickland, who reveals he knows way more about the symbiotes than Eddie does and is also tying them to an older government program. Um it's always these government programs with these things, but by the end, uh Eddie learns we definitely we definitely um by the end, uh Eddie learns Rex wants help finding the other men from that program. Well, something ancient has begun stirring under New York. So um this is a cool one for a couple of different reasons. Um, there's some really interesting panel stuff in here, but it's also kind of fun how it starts off in this kind of like old Norse um time as well, where uh we we literally start off with seeing these um old uh um are these like they're kind of like Vikings, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yeah, I mean whatever. Viking era. I don't know if these guys are the actual actual guys out on the boats, but yeah, that era type, like Beowulf adjacent. Exactly. I mean they shot out Beowulf later on in this exact scene. So um, and we learn later that this monster that is uh that is attacking them, scooping them out of this castle or whatever, is they're calling it Grendel, which is a uh a figure in the Beowulf story. Original Beowulf story.

SPEAKER_03 15:15

I did look that up, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Uh but yeah, exactly. We open with this this cool flashback and then we cut to uh it's it's Eddie having a nightmare. Yep. And one of the things that really stands out to me, especially in these first few pages, is how much this story is kind of like a horror story. Yeah, it is. All the art really makes you feel that sort of claustrophobic, isolated, they're in a haunted house kind of energy. Uh, and his dynamic, like looking into looking in the mirror and talking back and forth with the symbiote. Sometimes he's saying me, Eddie, sometimes he's saying you, sometimes he's saying we. Yeah, usually. It's all it's always switching between those. Uh and the we also see that the symbiote, Venom, is being really uh sort of all over the place too. Sometimes he's trying to be helpful and supportive, like, oh Eddie, like you need me, please don't you know take the pills and quiet me. But then he'll switch to, oh, I'm gonna murder you, I'm gonna rip your rip your lungs out, I'm gonna fill you with liquid and drown you. Crazy. Crazy. Um so they're clearly going through it in terms of their their relationship and dynamic and inner monologue and all that.

SPEAKER_03 16:19

Definitely. I mean, it's one of the things that I actually was talking to Ben about before we started uh actually recording was this uh this is kind of one of our first little fun moments when it comes to um lettering and and the text that's in here and just kind of show again this nice showcase that comics can do, I think, um, maybe even better than a lot of other mediums for sure. Um but when Eddie is taking these pills that are supposed to kind of quiet down, they're supposed to be, I think, like antipsychotics or something like that. But um he takes these pills to quiet down venom, and we start seeing these these panels that are very distinct to venom. Whenever he uh not panels but text boxes, they're always um white lettering with a black background and a white border. Right, and a white border very clear. Um and what ends up happening when he takes these pills is you get this kind of like nice cool uh moment where the black starts kind of fading into gray that's in the back of these text boxes. It kind of slowly fades out to white as um Venom kind of disappears into the background, at least for the time being. Um so again, starting off with these kind of like little fun things, and then um we get right into a great shot of Venom swinging to go uh basically answer this police call that hears he hears over the scanner of these you know villains getting together, this jack-o'-lantern. I really thought this was gonna be about jack-o'-lantern for a little while. Um, right. It's more into that.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Like one of them is like a a bear or like a duck, like he's in the same kind of goochie costume.

SPEAKER_03 17:42

I didn't end up looking that up, but it definitely looks like that. I think one of these other guys is like a hippo-looking dude. There's like an armadillo. It's it's getting crazy out here. There's some interesting animal choices that are going on around here.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

But it's definitely it's kind of giving Halloween, right? Like the jack-o'-lantern and they're in there in these costumes. But Eddie's there basically, not originally not involved. There's sort of this like crime situation going on, and he's not there to scrap, but he's just taking photos. He's like Venom, I cannot control Venom right now.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

So we just gotta chill and just like watch what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

And again, like Venom originally sort of being this anti-Spider-Man, the Spider-Man spin-off character. His day job is like Peter Parker is also journalism, also photography. I think they both worked the the uh They definitely did. Well, oh why am I blacking? Daily Bugle, man.

SPEAKER_03 18:26

Bro, I I love like Spider-Man 3, bro. When you've got what's his name, bro, who plays Eddie Brock in that in that movie, but like the way he's just like such a addict to Peter. The Turbo McGuire one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't remember what his name is, who's in that movie right now. But anyway, uh yell at me in the comments. But um uh super I love that movie. I love that movie. I'd watch, I'd watch it again. Those those movies are so much fun. But anyway, um, and this here we get yeah, Venom kind of being held back, right? And then this um jack-o' lantern guy makes a crazy decision, steals a gun from one of the cops, shoots him, and then uh Eddie just says, All right, let's uh let's you know let it go. And he he ends up basically releasing Venom, and we get this crazy shot um with lightning in the background, this gigantic, like hulking figure over this uh jack-o'-lantern guy.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Venom is definitely being framed as a terrifying figure. And then he gets even more terrifying as we see Venom, Eddie, the symbiote, all three of them, you know, well, all two of them, whatever, all three personas uh sort of lose control and become this really freaky new, uh new looking symbiote. Instead, like Venom usually has this big white sort of uh bold spider across his chest. Yep. Uh it's transformed into this sort of like what we learn later is a is a dragon. Yeah. Uh but he's got this crazy like dragon symbol on his chest where instead of his sort of iconic white venom eyes, he's got this really uh odd red spiral and no eyes to be seen at all. I think he's got all these sort of like it looks like some kind of blood infection, bloody veins.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

I mean, it ends up being, again, like we said, something different, but it's like it it's all of this is supposed to just be like horrific. He's got all these crazy teeth, he's like turning around, and it's just like this monster. And also, he's speaking in an ancient alien language, too.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

Right. And again, shout out the letterer. Uh this when the Venom, when he's in control, speaks, like we said before, in this sort of cool, jagged black bubble with white lettering in it and a white uh border. Now it's red, completely red, much bolder, thicker, white border, uh much more frantic, and it's he's saying something in a language that's all crazy symbols, like we can't really decipher it.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

Right. Oh, also random thing. I just realized um I was gonna say our our uh letterer here, Clayton Cows, and I also realized we missed somebody, our Inker, JP Mayer, but shout out to JP Mayer for for all of that as well. Oh Dan, JP. JP. Um, but that's our boy. But um, yeah, so pretty crazy. We get this very different than we've seen before look at Venom. He's kind of pretty obviously like out of control kind of right away. He's about to start attacking these cops. You're kind of um seeing this uh there's this text that's going that's that's similar, at least in shape, the boxes are similar, to um when Venom is thinking. But this is Eddie Brock, right? And he's basically just feeling like he's kind of losing control when he's inside, right? When the when Venom and Eddie are kind of interacting, right? There's this kind of same body, but our minds are connected and we're talking to each other type of thing. Um, and it seems like Eddie is kind of being clamped down um uh for this this different version of Venom that's coming up. And then we get this uh kind of sniper scope that's on this venom gets shot by this uh explosive, blows up, and it basically blows uh the symbiote right off of Eddie's body in the first place.

unknown 21:39

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

This first that first scene of the really uh sort of monstrous, deformed venom. Yeah, one of the things that makes it really cool and impactful is we're seeing it through the POV of the police officer. Yeah. Like holding up his flashlight and his gun. Uh which makes it uh it's very threatening. And it's interesting how it's a venom story, but we we get a lot of uh Shots where Venom is you know, like the POV of somebody seeing Venom. Right, Venom, and and how sort of scary he is, you know. Even though he, you know, at least in this story, they have the they have good intentions. Uh they still yeah, they're doing their best out there. Um they're still uh pretty terrifying.

SPEAKER_03 22:19

And so then we have this guy, Rex Strickland, who um the bomb that we ended up seeing getting shot onto Venom's forehead is coming from this guy who um we automatically start learning that he knows way more about Venom than uh Eddie seems to, right? We're like, how does he know all this, right? He ends up showing kind of all these photos. And the thing that's crazy that we learn is he's like, oh, you thought you were the first one. You thought you were like the only Venom, only symbiote, whatever else, right? But what we end up learning, same kind of thing with the government as always, they've been doing some secret shit behind closed doors that they do not have control of, and now it's gonna, you know, eat the world and whatever else. Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Uh there's some there's some pretty good modern analogies for that, right? But uh regardless, it's interesting. So, right, so Eddie wakes up sort of tied to this chair, being interrogated by this guy, right? By Rex. And one of the first things that we realize is Rex doesn't realize it was Eddie Brock. He actually thought he was he was sort of kidnapping Flash Thompson and wanted to get Flash Thompson's help. The context for this, I haven't read any of the Flash Thompson Venom arc, but Venom traditionally is sort of like between two Spider-Man characters. Flash Thompson, who's was originally bullying one of Spider-Man's bullies from school, right? And then also Eddie Brock, who was like a competitor to Peter at the Daily Bugle. Right. Um the Flash Thompson arc was this thing called agent venom, where he was like a special ops venom with a gun. Ooh, interesting. And so that's the run that I think was leading up or at least predated this one.

SPEAKER_04 23:42

Right, and this is a reference here for sure.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

Exactly. So now the symbiote, for whatever reason, is back with Eddie. And if I remember correctly, I think we do get some flash stuff going on in later later on in this run. But uh, I don't remember, is he dead? I don't remember the deal. I I don't know enough. Regardless, this guy thought he was kidnapping Flash Thompson. Turns out it's just our boy Eddie. Our boy Eddie now. Um but yeah, he reveals a bunch of stuff which you you were just about about to get into into.

SPEAKER_03 24:09

Yeah, I was just gonna say that he just reveals, again, like all of this knowledge about Venom that he's like, uh, you know, he he ends up basically kind of like yelling at Eddie, basically saying, like, you know, how, you know, do you know anything about it? Do you know how old it is? What does it eat? What's the ideal temperature? Do you know how many others it's been bonded to? I mean, before it came to this planet, does it even prefer humans? Do you age when you wear it? You know, all this different kind of stuff. And it really does point out how much how or how much how little Eddie knows and how much this guy um has some expertise in what's going on here. Um and what we end up learning is that his old crew um of people that he was with when he was uh in the military using these venom suits um is basically captured and was put uh kind of in these test tube type things to keep them on ice by the government. And now we're learning that basically Eddie's kind of taken upon this uh challenge that this guy's given him to free um these these people that have the symbiotes and learn some more about them, right? So we flash forward to Eddie being in this gigantic tunnel. It's kind of crazy. He's like immediately like teleports in front of these gigantic three trucks that are kind of coming out of this big tunnel. Um, and he ends up uh turning into Venom and smashing these trucks. Um, and these guys end up coming out, and what we end up seeing is something very, very similar to the crazy version of Venom uh that we saw just a little bit earlier with the cops, which is pretty scary that we're seeing a bunch more of these. And the first thing that came to my mind when uh when I saw this, right, is that it's like some kind of like infection, right?

SPEAKER_04 25:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:37

Um, and to a certain extent that ends up kind of being the same thing, but we end up also hearing here, right, is that um this is um Venom and Eddie kind of talking right now, but it says, you know, we feel it as soon as we see them, the same radiating darkness from our nightmare, right? So we're getting this reference to the nightmare that Eddie was having before. Um they say, whatever it is that possessed my uh my symbiote, it's inside of these men too, the same ancient voice, right? Um, and so that's when we keep on seeing these red uh text boxes that have this kind of indecipherable alien language.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Um I think that's a good way to put it, infected, like the the infected symbiotes, which we're later gonna learn are sort of under the control or the influence of null, yes, uh, which is the god of the symbiotes, it's the whole thing this is setting up, right? Um one of the things just to make clear is Eddie himself, uh Eddie and Venom are in control of themselves. Like in if during this scene, they're sort of fighting the trucks and trying to get inside uh for the cargo, which is you know, the supposedly these people, uh they are keeping it together. The it's all these symbiotes that step out that are that are in super infected mode. And then it's immediately revealed to us that there's the the soldiers that they were going to rescue were actually already dead. They're they're just corpses inside the symbiotes themselves. The symbiotes, after this little brief confrontation, the symbiote abandons Eddie in this mo in this like crazy moment confronting uh these guys popping out of the truck, right? And one of them stabs Eddie all the way through the chest, like a big puncture uh right through the middle of him, and you know, clearly messes him up. And uh all of the symbiotes retreat back into this sort of truck bed and toss the bodies to sort of discard these soldiers that were Rex's uh previous squad members or whatever, just onto the floor. And it's all very uh horror movie, you know. It's very horror movie.

SPEAKER_03 27:21

You see these, yeah, these piles of corpses and things like that. And what I what I also kind of find really interesting about this part is um Venom is like so um nice to Eddie. Like he Venom seems to really, you know, it's like Eddie, Eddie, be awake, be okay, Eddie. We fix you. We don't know what happened, we don't want to to leave you, Eddie, forced, forced us in our mind.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Um yeah, and I don't want to call him like a pet, but they're definitely obviously he's not a pet. It's more like an equal dynamic, but there's the way they're having him speak feel like almost makes him cute in a way. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 27:58

Like a dog companion, you know, something that's like uh but like like you said, like a companion, right? I think, right, rather than it's like what it really is, which is this like host or like this um host and uh what is the word that I'm looking for right now?

SPEAKER_00 28:10

Um keeps calling it before, right? Is it is he saying host like a host. It's like a host parasite. There you go, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:16

Host and parasitic relationship, right? And um yeah, but in this moment they again they seem kind of more like uh comrades uh in this.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

But so then the the final uh panel we see is up on the street level. We see the the the floor, the street itself is splitting apart, and this huge fissure erupts out from the underground. And then we get this New York City skyline shot with huge lightning crashes uh you know across the sky and flying out over the city is this massive dragon thing.

SPEAKER_03 28:47

Yeah, crazy. I mean, it's like again, it's like huge. You're seeing this again. This is what we talked about actually earlier with the art and like scale, right? So we're really seeing this thing is, you know, when if you looked at it basically, like the height of this thing is like looking like buildings, right? It's like this is a gigantic thing. And I also think this is super fun. I was thinking about actually the sounds a little bit in this, and we should we'll do a deeper dive into maybe just like sounds and the way that they're presented, right? Um, in these, probably uh at a later date. But um, I did like this crack a boom for the uh for the lightning as well.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Crack a boom.

SPEAKER_03 29:16

Yeah. But so anyway, pretty crazy end to the first issue here, right? We're seeing, and again, this there's this great, great um quote that again comes back um multiple times, and what they end up saying, Venom's saying, uh, oh, you know, this language that we've been trying to figure out says it's a dead language not spoken by my kind in millions of years. It's hard to tr hard to translate to. And then it says, yes, okay, they're saying God. And then we see this gigantic, you know, dragon comes out and it says, God is coming, right? Crazy, crazy.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

I think a couple things to highlight from this issue as well. Um, the first is how we can already feel the story transitioning us from it being a street level situation, like we talked about in a previous episode with Moon Knight, right? Where it's like, okay, confronting some petty villains in a warehouse, the police are there, they're taking pictures. Oh, there's some trucks in the trucks in the underground tunnel, we better go stop them, right? We'll get what's in the truck, you know, and then by the end of the issue, we've got this huge monster guy. Exactly. Uh cosmic, you know, obviously we don't know it's cosmic yet, but you we can feel the the scale of the scale and the fire of the story is just sort of expanding really quickly. And uh obviously we're just gonna that's gonna keep ramping up as we get our way through the rest of these uh rest of these six issues. The other thing I wanted to just point out really quickly that's interesting is in the in the beginning of the chapter when these trucks are coming in, they take the time to show the people in the trucks having like a meet, like a they're bad guys type conversation where they basically see Eddie in the in the tunnel and they're like, oh, don't worry, let's just run him over and choose a homeless guy, let's kill him and whatever else. Right. And then that you know, the symbiote goes like, Did you hear that, Eddie? They're bad guys, you know what that means, right? So I think that's that's like they have some kind of it's implying they have some kind of code where they're only gonna be violent against people who deserve it to some extent, or trying to defend the innocent. If these people were all that innocent, then Venom wouldn't be able to let loose on them or so. That's kind of a funny uh I don't know, a tidbit to Yeah, it is a funny side. They don't need to show us that the guys in the trucks are assholes. But they're like, hey, remember, these guys were gonna these guys are gonna run him down.

SPEAKER_03 31:25

So you gotta take them out. It is what it is, brother. Sorry about it. Right. Um, and they're also transporting insane government stuff. I'm sure they've seen some shit done, some shit for sure. Um, but that that's issue number one. And then uh diving into issue number two here. Yep, issue number two.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Let me read the summary from the dossier. So right at the end of the first issue, Eddie had discovered that Rex's old squad was already dead. And then over the course of issue two, he realized that the thing responsible is an ancient symbiote creature that Rex had believed was gone. Rex explains his Vietnam era origin and how SHIELD bonded him to a symbiote long before Flash Thompson, reframing sort of Venom's history. The issue ends with the monster rampaging through Manhattan and Eddie heading towards what he assumes could be his last fight.

SPEAKER_03 32:09

Yeah, pretty crazy. Um yeah, this issue I think spends a lot of time diving into a little bit of the backstory of not only Eddie, but also of Rex, just to give us some more context for um, well, interestingly enough, it's context for them, but also context for just Venom and the symbiotes as as a whole. Um and it's it's pretty crazy. This this starts off the story starts off with um Eddie being, you know, as he was just stabbed through by one of these symbiotes that jumped out of the truck. Um, Venom is basically putting him back together. We see these crazy, kind of almost gruesome scenes where um uh Venom is is literally like pulling his like ribs back together or his bones back together. We see um uh the symbiote kind of basically becoming intertwined. It probably already was, but becoming totally intertwined and even fixing up the pieces of Eddie, um, like his red blood cells, like all these different sinews and things like that. Um, and then also actually wrapping around his heart and squeezing it to make it start beating again, right? So it's interesting that Eddie, Eddie is also definitely dead here at this point, which is which is wild, but yeah, it's wild for sure.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

As the symbiote is, you know, trying to bring Eddie back to life, uh, he's also sort of probing his memories, and we're getting more context for his backstory, right? We see uh his mom died in childbirth, he had a bad relationship with his father. Uh, like we mentioned earlier, he did some some journalism, got taken over, became venom, rampaged around New York, eventually had an arc as an anti-hero in San Francisco, apparently. Yeah. Uh, and then we get this little stanza at the end that I think is really core to the characterization they're they're doing for Eddie in this arc. So let's see, it says carnage, cancer, toxin, anti-venom, reborn and unborn and reborn over and over and over again. Maybe that's the real story of Edward Alan Brock, the man of a thousand second chances, the comeback king. The comeback king himself. Pretty wild.

SPEAKER_03 33:54

And I, you know, I wonder how this is gonna play uh play through in all these different issues that go on leading up to our um what is that big one called? It's the the the the the king. What is it, black the king in black. The king in black, there it is. Yeah. So leading up to that, I wonder, I mean, Eddie's probably gonna die a whole bunch more times, but it seems like uh Venom, at the very least, right now, has the power to bring him back. And so we'll see um how that ends up playing out. But we It's definitely a sorry to cut you off.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

No, please. It's also I feel like a pretty, pretty cool characterization for a protagonist who, you know, obviously he may have done a bunch of villainous stuff in the past or been been part of, you know, we don't know all these arcs, but at least at this time, he's really trying to do the best he can, and he's willing to sacrifice himself pretty much entirely. Like you see, he's he's uh he's willing to put his own life on the line to try to accomplish what he thinks is right. Um maybe he's making amends, I don't know. But um, you know, we're just getting this cool, at least in this, in this time, he's being a really heroic person.

SPEAKER_03 34:53

Right. He's he you know, they they even have this quote that basically says, why do you care so much for the innocent, right? Which I do think is a very interesting thing, right? It's it's not that um Eddie, at least so far, has had these kind of like super particular like either types of people or whatever else, other than them just being like quote unquote innocent, whatever that means, right? So that's what they've kind of defined as as how they're gonna go about, I guess, keeping keep keeping people safe.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Um, another thing you mentioned earlier, actually, Antonio, that we should we should make sure we talk about is uh we're sort of seeing this dynamic between the symbiote and Eddie as he's saving him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:28

It's yeah, it's weird in this like story of like horror and whatever else, where Venom could be, and I think in in it is in a lot of times just as horrific as the rest of this, right? He has these um or they have this moment these moments where um yeah, Venom like seems to really care about Eddie. And you know, this obviously could be again, this is like a host parasite type of thing, but um yeah, it's it's interesting how nice, and that's like kind of like I think, like you said, you really nailed it with like the cute kind of thing. It's like Venom is very cute with Eddie, which is kind of a funny uh spin on how things normally go. Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

So then we um we move on now that Eddie's back to life again. Uh with the whole sort of middle of this issue is giving us a bunch of like he goes back and confronts Rex Strickland and Rex opens up and gives him way more context about his past and this sort of, you know, his Vietnam shield symbiote soldier origin. Do you wanna do you wanna talk a little bit about that? So Antonio.

SPEAKER_03 36:21

It's it's interesting that um we get this flashback into Vietnam where these soldiers are all pinned down and basically Rex ends up deciding that he's gonna be the one who runs out into this sniper fire that they're hiding from. Again, sac self-sacrifice, right? Very, very true. Very, very true. Um but so he runs out basically into this sniper fire um to try and uh basically draw the fire away from his comrades that are in these um uh what are these dang things called? These dang like little banks, right, where they they be hiding.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

I mean, they're trying to just di they're under fire and they're just trying to dig uh it's actually kind of a truesome scene. Yeah, they're trying to they're trying to quickly dig a trench, and then as they start digging, they find the the dead bodies of uh other U.S. soldiers directly beneath them. So they're like, oh shit, well, these people clearly got trapped the same way we did in their toast.

SPEAKER_03 37:04

So Right, exactly. And so then we have um Rex running out. He gets shot by the sniper, and then he's like, you know, taking this moment, you know, he thought that basically he was gonna die there, but he says that ain't how the story ends. I remember laughing as I looked into the sky to see the air support we had prayed for. I remember feeling guilty at the relief I felt as I closed my eyes and waited, and then all I felt was napalm. And so we get this interesting background for Rex, and then we get even more we basically learn that the U.S. government, and maybe even SHIELD in particular, right, we end up also hearing in this little scene here where he's basically being rebuilt using the symbiote. He's completely burned and scarred and everything like that, but they use the symbiote um to bring it back, and he says, you know, I wasn't really in a position to argue uh against them doing this. And what's also interesting about this is that it seems like Nick Fury is also a part of this. And what's funny for me, having seen like mainly the Marvel movies, when it comes to Nick Fury, right? I don't think of Nick Fury as like an evil guy who's doing like this. I mean, obviously he does secret shit, right? That's kind of his thing, but doing like evil secret experiments type shit in the background, I don't normally think of him that way. But that's how we can do it.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

I think he definitely can be a little a little nefarious, like I believe it. Um what what's the saying we we said in uh in our previous episode where it's like the ends justify the means. Like he'll just do whatever. He'll do whatever it takes to protect America.

SPEAKER_03 38:18

Right, very, very true. Um, and then we get this crazy scene with Rex where as the symbiote takes over him, we get, I think, a really interesting um uh insider look into what it's like to have the symbiote take over you. And he ends up saying, you know, I woke up drowning, couldn't breathe, and then I learned I didn't need to breathe, not anymore. The symbiote they gave me was just a sample of this beast, this horrible old thing, but even with that small piece, I felt like I could break the gods over my knee. I saw everything in that moment, the universe and the tissue that binds everything moving like tendrils through the void. I knew at once that it was ancient, older than us, older than the stars. I saw glimpses of where it had been and and the horrors it had unleashed upon countless civilizations that it had driven insane and then devoured. And just when I thought my mind would collapse from the enormity of it all, it it awoke. I felt it and it spoke. I didn't know what the words meant then, but I do now because I've been hearing them and screaming in my nightmares ever since. It said, God is coming. And so what's crazy about this, this whole backstory, and it's funny how calm they are about this, because this the backdrop to this whole conversation that they're having is like the gigantic dragon that we were just talking about that just like blew out of the the uh underground and is like fighting everybody in New York City.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

And that panel, the the thanks for reading that, bro. Yeah, that that whole that whole monologue is over this crazy cosmic two-page splash panel. We're seeing galaxies and stars. Really gorgeous, all of these uh, you know, symbiote faces and the darkness and this huge the winged dragon. Now, and again, we're now we're going cosmic before, right? We started street level, then it's like, oh, now we're whole city level, uh-oh, and now we're already seeing this this dragon, now we're cosmic level flying around through galaxies. Um, you know, everything is scaling up. And then it cuts as it says, you know, God is coming. We see this pretty terrifying shot of skyscrap, you know, skyscraper-sized dragon throwing cars, helicopters flying all around it. Um it's pretty unbelievable.

SPEAKER_03 40:15

I mean, again, this is like when the art is like super, super fun um seeing these gigantic beasts, and we talked about right why some of these artists in particular are really good at handling this type of stuff. But so um we see this gigantic beast, and Eddie just runs off. He's like, you know, I gotta go try and deal with this thing, right? And they end up realizing that this is obviously when he goes and sees it, this is this is a crazy gigantic creature. And then right before the end of this issue, we get a great appearance from some of our or one of our favorite characters right here, Spider-Man. And not only is it Spider-Man, but it is Miles Morales. He's got his super dope black suit on, um, and he it looks like maybe he and Venom, uh, he and Eddie Brock are about to team up pretty wild.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

Exciting stuff. I there I actually just realized there's another some of the dialogue here, uh, like or the internal monologue that Eddie's having uh circles back some of those same themes we were just talking about as well. Um so he says, uh a part of me I don't like to think about knew this day was coming. You don't wrap yourself in liquid black malice and not have a reckoning waiting for you somewhere down the line. True. So Shield dug up some kind of primordial symbiote dragon and used it to turn people into soldiers. Now it's loose. I guess that'll do. The thing feeds on symbiotes. It ate Rex's men. Only a matter of time before it comes for us. Well, we ain't waiting around to die. If our day is coming, let it come.

SPEAKER_03 41:33

Let it come. There it is. Yeah, it's crazy also because you have this again background of of um I think the conversation that is going on inside Eddie's head, right? But then you also have just Eddie reacting in real life, just being like, oh my god, to seeing the scale of this gigantic creature um that they're about to have to fight against, which is pretty wild. Alright, jumping into issue number three, um, we've got our little summary here. So I'll walk through this and then we'll get into some more specific moments here, but the basics of it is that um the symbiote uh Eddie has been kind of repaired, at least for the most part, uh as of now, and we've got introduced also to Miles um in this story as well. And what ends up happening originally is that um Miles and uh Eddie slash Venom uh kind of have some beef with each other in the beginning, and we kind of have to move past that and then get into this gigantic battle with this dragon. Um and between Eddie, Venom, and Miles, they were able to actually take out this dragon, and we'll talk about the kind of specifics of this, but they basically jump into his belly and blow him up. But um they beat against this dragon, and then we end up learning about the true villain of this, who is Noel. So Noel is normally uh is formally introduced that is K-N-U-L-L. Um, and we end up learning a little bit about his backstory, but also just truly about the um the power that Knoll uh has as well, not only over the symbiotes, but just as a creature within this Marvel universe as well. So um this one is uh definitely us jumping into way more of the cosmic uh gigantic, right? We're getting not only are we like, okay, we're on Earth and there's crazy stuff going on Earth, we're getting into this is like a universe level type of threat, right? We I think maybe even in this issue we hear that the Avengers get called up, right? But they're not there yet. And uh Eddie, uh Eddie and Miles are the only ones that are out there. But so pretty crazy. Let's let's jump into some of the specifics in here as well.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Yeah, we have a really interesting first couple pages, right? We see uh this sort of abstract scene of Eddie curled in the fetal position in this big venom web, and his eyes have that sort of galaxy spiral. Yeah, that we had seen earlier, the thing that sort of indicates that they're uh what do we say, possessed, infected. Right. Yeah. Um and so then we sort of cut there's this confusing time jump where at the end of the previous issue we saw Miles kind of swinging up right behind Eddie uh on top of this building, and now we've cut to Eddie in Venom mode with that crazy spiral infected venom mode. Infected. Yeah, we don't we get we'll probably come up. Maybe they'll tell us eventually what what they call it when we're on this uh you know in the mode. In this mode. But he's saying, uh, what's happening, right? I don't remember. And he's saying, Oh, we're killing Spider-Man. And we see Miles is uh on the ground, his eyes looking pretty frantic. One of his Spider-Man uh little eye socket things eye things is.

SPEAKER_03 44:21

We can see actually Miles underneath that.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

Um so cool comic moment. What's definitely going on here is I bet in the same time we actually get to see this fight take place, but if we want to see it, we gotta go get uh Spider-Man. We gotta we gotta get this Miles issue. Because again, circling back, one of the very interesting things about comic, the comic medium, especially the interconnected Marvel universe or DC universe, whatever one you're reading at the time, is all these different chapters are happening simultaneously across different characters' stories, and sometimes they'll overlap and mix up. And uh so you know, and we're seeing all this go down here in Venom, and I'm sure these same exact pieces are happening in the whatever Miles' Miles' uh issues are called.

SPEAKER_03 45:04

Yeah, we're definitely gonna get around to some Miles at some point for sure, uh, for reading some of those. But yeah, pretty crazy. We have them what's interesting is that they're watching this, yeah, this crazy fight going on, but then they um yeah, they start throwing it down, and um Venom basically kind of ends up coming back after um Miles basically used his little Venom power to blow the symbiote off of Eddie Brock, but he comes back, uh tosses him. What we end up learning is that Venom actually, or either Venom and I can't actually even tell you.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

Because all of these crazed symbiotes are sort of popping up and uh you know coming out of the woodwork and yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 45:38

And and but basically Miles ends up saying, you know, you hurt my mother, um, you put my dad in the hospital uh and took my mom, and you know, we actually don't even end up hearing exactly what ended up happening. But um Eddie basically ends up saying, like, I don't know you to the best of my knowledge. I didn't do this. Um, and if in some world I did do this and you want to have a fight, let's deal with this first, and then we can fight after this, right? Um and so they end up deciding that they're gonna team up and we see again, these are just like these great, I love these team-up moments and all these like superhero things, right? Where they're like, Okay, we're putting our differences aside, and then we're both swinging. Actually, do we even talk about what is Venom's like web? I don't I know all the different like webs for like the Spider-Man. Some it's like you know, Toby Wire is like coming out of him. We got the other ones where they make their own web fluid, and then Venom is just like Venom, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

I actually don't know the specifics, but visually it's it's it's pretty distinctive. Like uh Spider-Mans are usually thinner, you know, and then Venoms are more kind of like ropes, if that makes sense, or lines, like he's swinging uh, you know, you gotta they're just that big old body for real. It's visually visually distinct, certainly. I don't actually know. I imagine it's just like manifestations of his venom goo or what's that.

SPEAKER_03 46:41

Yeah, yeah, it's probably not that were like hardens and something like that.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

But again, it's it's a funny thing as we're going like obviously Venom who started as a character that's just sort of like uh uh you know, what what if the Spider-Man suit was black? How sick would that be? Yeah. Uh and then this whole character, you know, Spider-Man clone, evil Spider-Man clone, whatever, spawned out of that, and then over the years turned into his own character, and now here we are separating it, separating the origin away from Spider-Man even more and getting into this cosmic stuff.

SPEAKER_01 47:08

And uh Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 47:09

Yeah, it's all all you know, this is all part of the conversation, and we're we're trying to trying to make sense of it.

SPEAKER_03 47:14

Trying to make sense of it. But so they're running towards again, we got this gigantic like venom dragon that that is terrorizing the city right now. They got tanks, bro.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

They're shooting, they got the tanks mobilized, they're shooting it with helicopters.

SPEAKER_03 47:25

Helicopters, for some reason there are cop cars in front of the tanks. I think there's a little bit of a misunderstanding of the level of the threat here. But um, what's super fun about this is that they're swinging towards and they're like, what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? Um, and uh basically Miles ends up saying, Ah, that helicopter's firing missiles into that thing. I thought fire and sound were supposed to hurt symbiotes. Venom says, Yeah, so did we. We'll need to get you close enough to uh to Venom uh to Venom Blaster, right? That's kind of the funny thing again. Miles's power is called Venom. And he says, All right, how do you propose we do that without me getting eaten? And Venom goes, Huh, that's a good idea. And then basically Venom basically pulls uh Miles' web away from him and he flies into the mouth of this dragon, and then uh he uses this gigantic venom strike that just blows up the inside of the dragon.

SPEAKER_00 48:08

That venom shot is crazy. Yeah, it's wild. And you're talking about the lettering, like the the things here we hear we see Zachazam. Zachazam, yeah, it screams re in Zachazam.

SPEAKER_03 48:17

Zach Azam is actually a fire, bro. I might start saying that just as a regular, as a regular thing.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

We should also, I just want to like scroll back really quickly because we we noticed something when I was uh we noticed something when I went to get water that we didn't highlight before. When Eddie gets stabbed through the chest by the by that initial symbiote in the tunnel, the whole back of the background of the frame is splitch.

SPEAKER_03 48:40

Spludge. Yeah, that's a good noise. That's a good noise. And again, I'm we're gonna dive some more into this, and I we're gonna do at some point we'll probably do a revisiting of of Scott McLeod's stuff, but I do love the way that the kind of lettering stuff is coming here, and I would love to know more about like what really makes a good letterer versus somebody who's not as good. And uh shout out to our boy here who's doing it. Zachazam, uh, I love this for sure. Um, but so they blow up this gigantic dragon creature, um, and we end up hearing this uh crazy roaring and screaming, and um then uh Eddie sees this this creature or this figure stepping out, and we get this wild thing uh where we see we don't actually know his name yet in this, but this is Noel, right? This gigantic, um almost like gaunt-looking type of guy, but he's very, very tall. Um, and he's got that gigantic, like whenever Venom gets taken over, right? He's got this gigantic dragon thing over him, right? No has that over the top of his chest. Um, and it's funny because he originally says, Does this belong to you, child? And just throws um Miles by the head. By the head, brother. Um and this guy, he's also kind of like wispy. I mean, he really is like the the um manifestation of this symbiote thing.

SPEAKER_00 49:52

He's very scary. He looks like um, he looks like I mean a vampire is definitely some of the stuff that they're taking here. He's really long and lanky in like a scary horror movie monster kind of way.

SPEAKER_03 50:04

Nosferatu type of way.

SPEAKER_00 50:06

Yeah. Um and he's got this armor, you know, sort of medieval-looking armor going on, really long limbs.

SPEAKER_03 50:13

And we see his crazy strength. Actually, this is something that Eddie actually points out in this where he says, you know, whatever this thing is, my other, referring to Venom, is reacting out of pure instinct, showing its belly before the alpha. And they say this actually a couple times, right? It's like Venom itself as the symbiote is reacting to this thing, and as it says, showing its belly before the alpha, basically rolling over it. Eddie cannot move right now as Venom is seeing this. And he goes on to say, there's no hurry in his movements, no fear or anger, just strength, power. Um, uh, and which is again just crazy. We're seeing this guy basically like reach up towards this helicopter, and this gigantic like Venom symbiote hand goes up and just smashes this helicopter. Um, and again, funny moment with Venom where he says, Hey, put it down. There are people, there are people in there. I don't know who you are, what you want, but and then um our boy Noel just absolutely destroys this helicopter right in his hands.

SPEAKER_00 51:06

The whole rest of this issue is really just sort of um like null aura farming. It's just trying to set up for us how farming is so funny. How imposing, sort of, you know, we're the whole next issue, issue four, is just straight null backstory. It's basically all him monologuing and explaining to us like who the hell this guy is. But his first appearance, I mean, he's stepping like they explode the dragon, right? And the dragon is sort of in this big pile of disconnected uh venom goo, and he just strides out from that pile, yeah. Uh super imposing. Like, we don't know what the hell's going on. It's got all these close-up shots of his.

SPEAKER_03 51:40

I was gonna say we see his teeth, right? His teeth are like sharp truly terrifying.

SPEAKER_00 51:44

Yeah, like he just looks insane. Uh, and then uh, you know, Venom runs at him, takes a swing at his man.

SPEAKER_03 51:49

Yeah, this is also this is Venom letting um the uh Eddie and Venom decide to let the like infected version take over because he's like, oh, I'll let this crazy, super strong infected version take over and go after this guy. And then he tries to attack him and he basically says, Oh, my child, you cannot touch me. I pilot this vessel, but I am far, far away from here now. Stop it. And he just blasts the symbiote right off of Eddie, right? So this guy, not to be trifled with, not some uh, you know, small time villain, whatever else. And then he starts basically creating this dome um around them that says, you know, it is loud here, let us be alone. And he creates dome of goo, and then uh we'll we'll talk about what this dome actually is later on, but dome of goo around them, and then he basically goes into monologuing. As Ben was saying, he's aura farming, right? He says, you know, your host is screaming, child, uh, come to me, you know, there now, oh my child, you your host shuts you out, silences you, you are broke, all you are all broken inside, shall I fix you? Um this is interesting because again, Venom's been kind of talking about how like he uh Venom feels broken, Venom feels like there's something wrong. Um and this infection thing actually comes back and says, I see you have been here too long. You are infected, little one, infected by humanity. Let me burn that out of you. And he basically starts, I don't know how he creates this kind of like fire thing. I mean, because he he kind of is a god, so he can probably do whatever he wants, but he basically uses this thing to kind of basically kind of eradicate the um humanity from venom. And then we get this crazy, crazy shot um where he says right before he says, You want to know who I am, host? Let me show you. And he leans in right into Eddie's face with his teeth bearing these crazy teeth. It almost looks like I don't know, there's some fish that has teeth like this, I feel like.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

Oh, yeah, like an anglerfish.

SPEAKER_03 53:29

Right, like an anglerfish doesn't.

SPEAKER_00 53:30

And he's got that's a this is a classic venom thing, right? Where the his mouth is open, his teeth are crazy, and his tongue tongues coming out. Yeah, it's like I mean, we've seen that on a t-shirt, like a threat and stuff. Oh, for sure. And so this guy, it's it's showing how he's like this new character, but he has so many of these like iconic venom iconography. Right. Iconic iconography. But um reversed, you know, but what it's implying is like so much of the and we're about to what we're about to learn is so many of these traits that we know as venom traits actually are from him, right?

SPEAKER_03 53:59

And he says, I am null, lord of the abyss, god of the symbiotes. And we get this crazy I I love this little like actual flashback. I didn't even think about this when I was reading, but it's like we go from now and then it just says like billions of years ago, right? And he's like sitting on this throne in space with all these like symbiote things sitting around him, but yeah, this is the god of the symbiotes, and that's how this issue ends, which is just crazy. This is like when the art I feel like is really this is when the not not only is uh null auraforming, but I feel like these artists are also auraforming a little bit at some of these panels.

SPEAKER_00 54:29

We gotta highlight some of the stuff they're doing to sort of build this intensity, right? As Null is uh, you know, gaining power over Eddie and the symbiote and um you know taking them both in his in his hands and whatever, the background is originally like the space between the panels is originally this off-white, right? Oh my god, and as it goes on, it bleeds red and red and red. And so now all of a sudden the characters are in these like black, uh, you know, black panels just in a in a ocean of blood. It kind of feels like.

SPEAKER_03 55:03

Well, it's like the red, it's kind of like the red that actually surrounded them in this dome that he's created, right? Like we're not only getting that as the background for the actual images here, but we're getting it as the background just for the comic itself, which is super, super cool. Again, shadow comics as an art form. Super, super interesting. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 55:19

So that's pretty uh, you know, pretty cool issue. We got a little Spider-Man Spider-Man throw in.

SPEAKER_03 55:25

So that's issue number three. We'll jive uh we'll jive, we'll jump and dive into issue number four here, and I'll read all our I'll read our little summary here. So issue number four slows down a little bit and becomes a creation myth type of chapter. Umstory and the deeper origin of the symbiotes are laid out, revealing that the Klintar, Clintar, correct me if I'm wrong, go in the comments, tell me I'm an idiot. Clintar are tied to an ancient god of darkness rather than just being alien goop from space. This is uh the issue that basically mostly most clearly transforms the run into from a Venom relaunch into a major retcom, a retcon of the symbiote lore, just in general. So we learn a lot of the backstory of Null um and just the symbiotes in general, and that adds a lot, a lot to the backstory of Venom and just the symbiotes as a whole. Crazy. And we also as we get into this issue, um we learn that null is like, yeah, in the beginning there was nothing, and then war. The light of being exploded into my realm. So the way that they're framing this right now is like null is like the original. Like again, this is null, obviously play on the word null, right? Null and void. He's in the void.

SPEAKER_00 56:32

He's like the god of the vacuum of space before the big bang, or like the Marvel equivalent of the Big Bang, which I think is these gods called um celestials, which are from the Eternals, if you want to watch the Eternals movie or whatever. I don't know that much about it. But they're they're literally, we see they're they're just shooting planets and galaxies out of their hands, right? Yeah, they just rolled up and said, Let's do it, let's get this universe popping right off rip. But to Antonio's point, this is the guy that predates the Marvel Big Bang, which is insane. And he is just like super pissed that there's people putting light and matter into his perfect empty vacuum. Um, and he's just immediately uh it's on site. He just decapitates one of these guy like creation gods. Right, that's and then forges his own insane sword inside the skull of one of them.

SPEAKER_03 57:20

Right. He takes out this gigantic like god, and they almost look like kind of like robot space god things or whatever else, but he kills one. Actually, I just noticed that they also have things on their chest. That's pretty interesting. Like one of the main guys has like a symbol on his chest, but anyway.

SPEAKER_00 57:32

Maybe that's where his symbol, maybe his like the inspiration for how he should put his set his armor up is from. Yeah, maybe I see.

SPEAKER_03 57:38

But yeah, so he basically ends up forging this weapon, um, this sword, in the the flames of this dead celestial and um out of his own goo matter also.

SPEAKER_00 57:49

Like that's sort of the whole thing is like he's the source of all this different antimatter, venom, symbiote material. Yeah. And he can just manipulate it, he can forge it into weapons, uh, whatever he wants to do.

SPEAKER_03 58:03

And so, yeah, he forges the sword. And he basically says that um the first of the race your kind calls symbiotes began life as a blade. I pulled its shape from my own and cast its living edge in the fire of the first creator I felt. That's we want to talk about Donnie Cates. That just those like collection of words right there are so crazy.

SPEAKER_00 58:20

Again, going back to God country, this and which was the god of swords in all these cosmic right? It's like this guy loves a loves a good sword and a good god, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 58:30

Or a bad god, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 58:31

I don't know. Which again, you can see why they're like, look, we're we gotta we need this is the guy to tell this story. He's the one. Yeah, yeah. And so the necro sword is is what he ends up forging.

SPEAKER_03 58:41

God slayer, all black. Shout out to all black from the rapper from the Bay Area as well. Shout out to All Black, but um Yeah, the Necro Sword, the God Slayer. Together we slit the throats of creation. That's a crazy slit the throats of creation and choked a billion stars with the blood of the Almighty. God, Donnie. All right. Um, wow, but so basically what we end up learning is that there's a fight. Um, All Black ends up actually dying in this fight. And what's interesting is all black again is a sword, but also looks like it's this other kind of humanoid-esque creature as well.

SPEAKER_00 59:12

Oh, yeah, so that's okay, so I can I can actually explain some of this. Because this is some context I know, right? So these figures that we see falling out of the sky, all the all black, the necrosword, right? Um, it's actually it's a it's an item in Marvel already. This is already a confirmed item that they're retro recognition. There's this uh Thor villain called Gore the God Butcher. And he's killing all these gods with the Necrosword. Oh and has some like venom adjacent powers. And so this is our f in it like we see these figures, which is null in armor fighting this golden thing. Uh those are fra like those figures we see in that Thor comic. And that's where Gore first picks up the Necrosword. Wow. Uh and then goes on this whole Thor arc with it. So this is one of the first, this is actually like a really common thing in Marvel comics, especially, but this is the first time we've encountered it. There's a little uh asterisk panel here, and it says for more info, see Thor, God of Thunder, number six from 2013, which I think uh is what we're gonna read next, or or one of the coming ones we'll do. And then we can sort of that way we're reading two Marvel stories that are uh and obviously this one's from 2018 and it's referencing. It's sort of like a choose your own adventure, right? And Marvel does this a lot where they'll be like, hey, we're gonna mention this thing. I actually like that like I wish Black Panther had done some of that too, where they're not even gonna try to like half-ass explain it, they're just like check this out. Go read that other show. You want to know about this? Go read that.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:36

Yeah, go read that, go read that. We're not doing all that here. That's that's too much, that's too much, and we already got it, so it's good. Um, but yeah, super fun that they um have this throwback. Yeah, I guess it is a throwback, and this went to Thor God of Thunder, and again, we'll come back to that stuff. But in this issue, uh, again, we've also got these, we're jumping in between these regular kind of panels where actually this is interesting. When he's in space, we start kind of losing the borders to a lot of the stuff that's going on in the background in these panels. Um, but then we go back to inside this uh dome that he's created uh with this great quote quote where it says, you know, can you fathom the madness it would bury inside of a mortal heart to hope to wield something like that in reference to the necro sword, right? And in reference to all black. And uh um Eddie's like, Yes, I can, right? Which is kind of funny. Um and then these again, these crazy shots of Null with his teeth, like these gnashing teeth, right? And he says, you know, shall we continue?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:29

His face is also m sort of subtly morphing all the time. Like he doesn't just look consistent, it's like he kind of it's kind of like it, like the clown sort of, you know, like his features are just super uh super horrific, and like his teeth right now are like inches long. When before he had relatively normal looking teeth, and now he's got like a full-on, you know, shark mouth situation.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:50

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:51

Um another thing that I don't know if we've highlighted yet is his text bubbles are super super metal. They're red with a white lettering, and the lettering is super uh, I don't know, it's just it's like edgelord, heavy metal, like in a very cool way. The design is really intense.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:08

Yeah, shout out to our I guess that's letterers, right? Yeah, shout out to them. Um but we end up learning so basically he's giving Eddie this whole, he's letting all of his venom symbiote stuff go inside of Eddie's brain and basically showing him kind of this history. And we end up learning that after that fight where um the necrosword ended up dying, uh Null ends up learning that he can basically attach this symbiote to creatures and then use those creatures as his like eyes and ears and ability to affect places that are super far away from him.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:36

I discovered I discover I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:38

No, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:39

I discovered if I bonded my living abyss with lesser creatures, I could then manifest and pilot them their forms as new vessels. I could draw strength from the hosts, glean from them information about my surroundings. This moment, this primordial instance of symbiosis on this near barren land, this is where it all truly began. This is where I gathered my horde. And then we f we flash back again to that same panel, the reusing the last panel from the previous issue, which is him just flexing on this space throne. He's alright. We'll definitely have that on the uh metal for sure. For sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:11

Scope that out. But so basically he goes on basically saying that this this hive mind that's he's he's ended up creating, or he's the hive mind for um all of these different symbiotic creatures that have been going all over the universe um and taking back the void or this this um I don't know, I want to say space, but it is like that's what he feels like his thing is. But basically going all throughout space and basically consuming these these planets, consuming the light and bringing back the void. And then he says, and then you know, then there was Earth. Uh I came to this place wrapped in war, uh, this place wrapped in war only to find weakness. Gentle things, small things, what were these creatures that could hide and protect their young um that would cry and scream and not battle? Um but so he basically goes on kind of shitting on Earth, and the thing that's different about this though is he's like, oh, there's there is one thing that I experienced on Earth that was really crazy. Um, and this is probably what happens in some of these other issues that we're talking about. But basically he has a run-in with Thor. Um it says that he reeked of the light. Um basically says, your thunder god unleashed a power I had never before felt on all the worlds I had wrapped my heart around. And in the blink of an eye, he stabbed it like a uh he stabbed it like a billion needles into our hearts. We were done, undone. Um, with my connection to the to my children severed in galaxy between us, they began to unravel, to reach out, right, and to seek new hosts, right? And so this is an example of how um Eddie probably ended up with venom in one way or another. Um, is is Thor. And it's interesting, Thor did not finish the job there, bro. He was like, I'm gonna blast this guy, and then I don't know, the rest is the rest, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:36

But that's all it took was basically that that fight with Thor, and it wasn't even Thor fighting Null, it was Thor fighting this the dragon, the same dragon that is currently going crazy in New York. Or not anymore, they just got blown up. Um, and uh that that fight with Thor severed the connection between Null and all of his symbiotes, yeah, and they immediately uh turn against him, which is crazy. Um and they end up we see basically they form a planet of goo, yes, all trapping him in the inside. And so this is sort of a huge retcon for the previous lore of what everybody thought venom was about. Is Venom was this character from this planet and all the other different symbiotes like uh toxin and anti-venom and carnage and whatever all those kinds of things. I don't either, I don't either, but they're I just know uh I know vaguely of them, they're just different color venoms, basically, right? Different, you know, some of them have claws and hair and but anyways, the cast of venom-like characters, it's saying, you know, whatever it says, what clan tier? What's that word? Yeah, yeah, Clintar, Clintar. Clintar. It says that Clintar, uh what they never told you is Clintar is their word for cage.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:52

Yes. Which is crazy. Yeah, so they make a gigantic cage around uh around our boy Noel. And I mean, this is again Galapagos. Galactic cosmic scale, right? We zoom out from this this planet. We get the zoom in of all these venom type symbiote things, and we zoom out and you look and see like it's a it's a planet, right? And I was saying to Ben um earlier, this is kind of like a um it's like an anthill or like a beehive on super duper crazy um intergalactic steroids.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:19

But super creepy calls himself, he literally says, I became their hive mind, the god host. Yes, like this guy, this guy loves himself. It's crazy. It's also hilarious. I mean, obviously, it's we they're introducing this new character that's gonna be a huge Marvel character in general. This is like a guy, also, I think they were trying to introduce him in the last Venom movie, which I don't know if it's gonna because Sony technically I think owns the rights to him because they own it. But this is definitely a guy that they could bring in uh in Marvel or something. I don't know, we'll see.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:49

We'll see if they if they bring it back and get some good stuff rolling.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:52

But um But regard regardless, he's just this whole this whole issue, it's cool that we're getting all this uh all this backstory, but he is just straight monologuing to Eddie for no. He's like, Oh, you let me tell you everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:03

Yeah, I know. I love I love when uh villains end up doing this.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:06

But so he No wonder though, he's been trapped inside this goop and he's gonna talk to him.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:10

He's gotta be like, look, bro, I've been thinking about this for the last however long. Um but what's interesting is that we also learn that his kind of um goal here um is to build the Grendel, right? I guess that's what he uh ends up describing. When this Grendel is complete, when I find its missing parts, uh it will come for me, it will free me from my Clintar, from my cage, and then I will finish what I begin, I will uh rid my dark kingdom of the invasive light once and for all, and I will start with Earth. Uh and then yo, shout out to Miles also right after that, bro. This guy's like, I am God, and I have a planet of all these things, and I'm gonna whatever else. And then Miles just socks him in the face, bro. Shout out, Miles. Um, and he's just like, Eddie, we gotta move right now. Um, and they end up um realizing that this dome that was built upon that, I remember being like, holy shit, when I realized this, but this dome that they've been inside of is actually the belly of the beast, is the belly of this dragon um that they were fighting against, or maybe it's a different type of dragon. It's the same dragon that they were fighting against pulled the goo all back together, pull all the goo back together, and now they're basically like in orbit almost above Earth, uh, and uh Noel is about to take them with him, which is crazy. And that ends the issue.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:19

Issue number four. Pretty wild. Oh man, these variant covers, though, for four, too. Look how uh look how crazy this is.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:26

These variants are great. Yeah, that's another, you know, this is another thing I'll tell I'll take just a moment here to talk about, right? One of the very cool, unique things that I love about these comics, right, is doing these variant things, especially in these collected issues where you get a bunch of them back to back, right? That's super fun. But um it's just awesome to see a whole bunch of different artists' take on uh how a different character, you know, a certain character looks, or how, you know, because there's a feel that comes from these different things too. And there's also some fun ones that they do. Actually, one of the ones that we didn't mention, or maybe we did in the Black Panther episode was like, or Black Panther episode, um, was somebody doing one that basically was like uh Black Panther, but using like Jay-Z, the black album cover, right? Which was super sick. Um, but anyway, super uh interesting, and I think again, comic specific, right? Comic uh as an art form specific type of thing with these um with these variants that exist there. Wild. So that's issue number four. Diving into issue number five. Do you want to give us the summary for that one, Benny Boy, or should I jump into this one?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:22

I can do it, no worries. All right. All right, let's see. Back to the dossier, Venom number five. Number five. After their encounter with Null, Eddie and Miles are literally falling back to earth. And Eddie discovers the symbiote has changed, including the ability to form wings. Crazy. Pretty crazy, yep. Uh so once Miles is safe, Eddie reconnects with Rex and prepares for the next round. But the issue ends with a major twist when Eddie violently turns on Rex.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:47

So let's let's get into it. This is a crazy first like intro into this issue where they I mean, again, they're literally falling from Earth. It looks like um uh uh Miles, and I wonder again, this is maybe another thing that shows up in Miles' issues or something like that. But Miles, it looks like maybe um used his venom power. That's my guess, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:06

Yeah, he he got them out of the stomach, he ripped them out or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:08

Yeah, right. He basically just like he probably like venom power just blew up the whole dragon again. And so they're falling through the air. Um and it's funny because they're they're literally falling to their deaths, and Venom is like in the background, basically being like, Don't be afraid, Eddie, listen to me. Um you know, grab grab the spider and go limp. Do it now. We will explain later. Just trust us. And then we get this insane panel where it says we've got you. And we get, I mean, this is like a beautiful, again, just beautiful art type of thing where we see Venom with these gigantic wings um spread out across um the moonlit sky, um, holding uh Miles in just like one hand, but again, crazy. Like Venom has leveled up in one way or another, and actually, Venom's actually about to talk about that, but pretty beautiful, beautiful panel that we've got there.

unknown 1:10:53

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:54

Two-pager.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:54

Yeah, it's wild. Basically, what we learn is that now that the symbiote has reconnected to Noel, he's sort of null tried to burn away all the humanity that he's developed over these years on Earth, connecting with Eddie and uh Flash Flash Thompson, yeah. Flash Thompson and whatever. Right. So um that he says that that didn't work. He still retained all that humanity, but it kind of backfired because now he has all of the this access to some of the original hive mind null null powers uh that he never he hasn't been able to access this whole time. So uh yeah, Venom can grow wings now, do all kinds of new shenanigans. We got Eddie's gonna learn, yeah, a bunch.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:33

He basically we seem to have gained new strength from our connection to the godhost and its primordial symbiote. We are now capable of so much more being connected to the hive. It was, it has been a very long time, Eddie. We had forgotten the power that comes from our numbers, right? So there's a lot that's going on here. Not only does he get a lot of powers, but the difficulty with this is that whenever Eddie and Venom basically connect together, um uh Noel can find where uh Eddie and I guess probably specifically where Venom is, but you know, if they're ever together, right, he can find both of them uh immediately.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:04

This is kind of like a reference to something that you don't even know, bro. Which is like a Lord of the Rings type thing. All right.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:11

I'm gonna watch Lord of the Rings. If again, if you want to go for me in the comments, you can do it. You're not gonna hurt my feelings. You just can't do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:17

I've been trying to get this guy. But we're gonna do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:19

We're gonna do it. And and maybe we'll maybe we'll talk about that when it comes to the game.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:22

We need Griff, we need Griff to be here in the show.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:26

I've been to to be clear, just so everybody knows, I have been berated by um all of the Lord of the Rings people that I know. Uh, and it is a gigantic hole in my nerddom.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:35

But anyway, um But the point that I was gonna say is this feeling like so that's one of the things with the ring with Frodo, right? Every time they use the ring can like do all these powers and invisible, yeah. When he puts the ring on, they see him. So that's part so it's like a similar thing, right? Where it's like they have access to all these new powers because of the dark lord item or whatever the hell. But when they use them, you got a big old target on your back. Exactly. Yep. Makes sense. Uh another just shout out this panel. We're getting like so they're doing so many creative things with all these layouts, like having larger backgrounds with the different panels overlaid on top of it. Yeah, they get some more playful kind of as as things go on. Right. And this this one has Venom's face, like his mouth and eyes, as the whole background for the page, and then like a few panels continuing the story like on top of it. It's very uh very striking. I'll try to include that in the gram.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:24

Yeah, it'll be on the gram for sure. Um but so we have these new powers on Venom, and then he flies in to go talk to Rex again. And um it's interesting. This is actually another crazy panel layout one that I feel like I took a picture of this when I was reading through this, but we get a uh a two-page layout thing here where um it's it's like the dream kind of world that that Eddie has been experiencing, and it's like all sinewy and and red and everything like that. Um but what's crazy is after this moment is Eddie and Venom just stab through Rex's head. It's like not even his chest, bro. They basically turn into that like um pointy blade type of thing that Venom can do and stab directly through his head. And what we end up learning through this is that uh Rex is kind of no longer a thing, and we've been being lied to, everybody's been being lied to, um, and Rex is now just the symbiote. And we end up learning that this, you know, the symbiote says, Yes, he was my host in Vietnam, he was a good man and he died out there, and then I became him, I am him, I've been him for a very long time. I didn't want to go back to Noel, Shield was going to lock us away. And you know, this is an interesting thing that the the the symbiotes have like this um again, they once they have this humanity, right? They want to break away from the hive mind and and be different. And this moment that actually Venom and this symbiote have, where it says, Noel built us to hunt the light, but the light it's and then Venom finishes the sentence that says it's beautiful, right? So it's interesting how much these creatures have changed from their original primordial uh uh insanity, at the very least.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:02

And you can see from that, like as soon in that flashback chapter, right? As soon as Thor sort of severed the connection between Null and the symbiotes, the symbiotes were ready to turn on Null right away. Yeah, and they like they clearly obviously their origin is is sort of this dark, evil, cosmic, horror origin, but they really take on a lot of the um like it's not a dominant relationship with their hosts or whatever, whoever they're bonded with, they're gonna get a lot of reciprocal stuff out of that. So and it's crazy seeing that uh Rex Strickland was this um symbiote along. Was a symbiote all along. And again, back to the uh the the text bubbles and the lettering, it makes sense how Rex's tech Rex's text bubbles now look like venoms the whole time. Venoms are outlined in white, and his have been outlined in green this whole time. Uh and so now it's like, oh yeah, we're swapping. It makes sense why. That's that's how the symbiote, that's what it looks like when the symbiotes are talking.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:56

Yep, exactly. Um and this is actually another interesting thing that happens in this in this uh issue where and I don't know if they've probably played on this like a couple of times in the past and stuff that we just haven't read yet, but they end up basically deciding that um venom is going to absorb Rex into their kind of grouping of of symbiotes. Um and you know, basically they end up saying we're gonna work together, we're gonna fight this, and then we get this crazy thing where we've got this supercharged venom that has um venom and rex and and uh Eddie all kind of together, um, which is again. They're leveling leveling up even harder. Yes, we're power scaling right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:33

You see his eyes, this is actually crazy. His eyes have spirals on the top of the eyes. Whoa. That's kind of wild. That's super wild. But again, it's like Unity, like now they uh they're teaming up, but literally physically teaming up, like becoming one entity, which is which is pretty wild. And uh but yeah, what we've come to understand basically it's uh it's all a little bit complicated, but I think the simplest way to put it is that that original dragon thing, right, that the Norse people called Grendel, because Grendel is a um is a Beowulf villain, right? So they they called this thing Grendel. Uh Thor knocked Grendel out of the sky. Shield somehow ended up finding the corpse of Grendel and splitting it up into pieces, which they then used to make these venom super soldiers during Vietnam or whatever. And maybe they were using them at other points too. They probably were. All of those pieces, when they combine back together, are gonna be Grendel and are gonna fly back to Null and supposedly have the power to free him from his prison. Rex is the only one that has his own autonomy and is split off from the rest. Right. So basically now the stakes are if Rex is reunited with the other symbiotes and forms the full Grendel, everyone's toast. It's gonna be a problem. It's gonna go get Null, and then Null is gonna pull up on Earth first, because he's like, that's what he's already just said in his whole monologue, right? So it's like Eddie, Eddie, and and our venom symbiote are like, alright, dude, just combine with us, and we're gonna do our best to keep you away from that Grendel. That's mission number one. And we and in fact, we're gonna take the fight to that Grendel, uh, and we're gonna go uh gonna go blow him up. Yeah, we're gonna blow him up. At the end of this, uh end of this issue, we see Rex Strickland's uh gun vault. Gun vault. Yeah, he's got all kinds of crazy tech.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:22

Um and we're about to see them get active. Yeah, so that ends issue number five. Jumping into issue number six, I'll give our little summary here. So Eddie's brief connection to the god host leaves Venom with new abilities, as we just talked about, just in time for the showdown with um at least the pieces of so far with Grendel. Rex and Eddie um combine forces for this final battle, um, and this issue is basically this big crazy payoff to the arcs mythology and horror setup. Um, and by the end, Rex uh, you know, they they kind of finish this at least current fight, but obviously, as we already know, um, but this this end of the story starts pointing towards you know this bigger, larger null story that's still to come. So um we're wrapping up at least these this part of this, which is pretty interesting, but there's obviously a lot of setup that's happening here. Um so fun issue. You know, I actually have a question for you in particular, Ben, because obviously we see uh in the end of the last issue, Venom opening up this gun vault, and then um actually one of the first uh pages in this is a super fun panel layout where we get that background. I was like, it was almost like a throwback to our moon night stuff, but it's like the background of this um of this whole page is this crazy splash of like Venom's face, right? With a crazy teeth and whatever. And then all these panels of them picking out these guns and weapons and whatever else from this um room are overlaid over the top of that, right? So we get the background, and then we also get this interesting moment where um it's like this psychiatry moment where I can't remember, I think it is Rex who's understanding this, but basically saying, Hey, Eddie, I know what your worst fear is. Um, your worst fear is being alone, which is very interesting. But the question I was gonna ask you actually, Ben, is what do you think of this like venom with like a bunch of like guns and whatever else like strapped onto them? Because I'm like, you know, I'm I'm of the the camp where like, for example, when they're like, hey, here's Batman with guns, you're kind of like like yeah. So what did you think about this? Because I I could go either way, and I think that they use it kind of in a cool way, but I think it's like it's interesting to to go in this direction.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:25

It's not, I mean, it's not the venom that I like I agree with you. I think I probably would prefer venom without guns. Um, but the one thing that's interesting, right, is this the context we had touched on a little bit earlier is this arc is coming after agent um agent venom. I'm pretty sure. Or I know agent venom is a thing. That's sort of like a concept from a concept from Flash, what's his name? Flash Flash Thompson. Right. Flash Thompson's Venom arc is basically a big part of it is what if Venom had guns. Um so this is kind of like a return to that in a way, or maybe a foreshadowing. I think it's possible that some of that stuff takes place in the future and has to do with Guardians of the Galaxy. Or maybe I don't know. I do not understand the Marvel timeline. I just know some of these vague references. But I agree. I mean, I think it's a cool little this is basically like a suit-up scene, you know. We see him like not only is he grabbing all these weapons, they're all like grafted and incorporated into his venom body. And his venom body is a lot, it's looking rough, right? Because it's not just normal Eddie and his symbiote venom, it's venom and rex. Uh, and so there's even more goo going on, um, and he's looking more sort of sinewy and gross and yeah, horror, that horror stuff coming in for sure there. So I don't know, I feel you. I mean, I think it's cool to see him go crazy gun mode for this little uh episode or whatever. I agree with you.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:50

That makes me laugh, bro, is like the little like knife that he has on like his like thigh or whatever else. I'm like, bro, there's no way that thing is coveted to eddy use at any point in this. I think that's probably like that was like the I think the specific thing that I looked at and I was like, that's kind of funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:04

Yeah. I think also maybe uh something we'll talk about when we when we do spawn, which heads up everybody, spawn episode on the way. Something that I've learned about just from watching comics history videos on YouTube and stuff, trying to educate myself or whatever. Um the 90s were like this really epic edgelord era where it became really popular for everyone to have guns and spikes and knives and shoulder plates and all this stuff. So all of these heroes kind of did this. Uh and all the heroes that were popular during that time were one, and I think even Venom, right? Because Venom was hardcore teeth, tongue, rip your throat out, scary. Spawn is like, we're gonna get into it, but spawn is like demonic chains, cloak, weapons, like he's very much of that same uh same sort of energy. So this could be partially sort of like a a callback, throwback to that sort of era and that energy that maybe isn't as popular now or when we were kids or whatever, but it's an interesting thought.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:06

That is true. This is like a different time. I mean, obviously it's not crazy long ago at this point, but it is, I guess what, like eight years ago or whatever else now. So that's an interesting, an interesting thought. And um, it also makes me think of I don't know, from all my Sonic the Hedgehog fans back in early 2000s when Shadow the Hedgehog came out of that, that dude was using guns in his game. That was pretty hilarious. Um I forgot Shadow has Shadow has that. Yeah, he's got he's got his like solo game. His solo game is him just like with guns, like roaming around fighting like alien whatever things.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:35

Um But yeah, I mean I don't I'm not even saying I don't know with any certainty that this is it even directly referencing. But it could be. But it could be. That's my own that's like the only take I really have on Venom with cards. It could also just be cool to put a bunch of stuff up. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:48

It also could just like look at he's got grenades. He's got grenades, he's got a sword, he's got like guns strapped to his shoulders.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:55

And a thigh-thigh knife.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:56

Thigh knife, very important. The most important thing that's on there, absolutely, is the thigh knife. Um But so for the rest of this issue, they build up to um uh Rex calling out for the dragon that it's looking for him. It basically connects to the hive, he connects to the hive mind for just a moment, and they're like, you know, I only could connect myself to the hive. Eddie, I won't uh risk connecting your symbiote unless I have to, and your psyche isn't strong enough to survive the and then it says, What why did you stop? And it says, It's happening, he's close. And then we get the shot of Eddie's face close up and says, God is coming, and Eddie says no, and then it says, God is here, right? Which and there's this crazy again splash panel of Venom basically holding open the dragon's mouth as it jumps at him. Um and so we get this crazy fight that starts. Um right away, Venom is using like this gigantic like laser and shooting into the belly of the dragon.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:44

Um and then he has all it's also funny, he has all these multiple arms, right? Because there's multiple venoms. So that's fun. The main venom is holding the mouth open, and then Rex, we can assume, is tossing tons of grenades, firing all the guns down like the throat of the dragon, right? So it's uh and again, all this is just super metal, super hardcore, also still very horror-inspired. Um, yeah, crazy combat.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:08

You know, it's so interesting how this this dragon is just kind of getting its ass whooped every time that it shows up. It's pretty interesting. But um then we have uh our boy showing up again, and he says, Ah, a little host, right? Being a little creeper that he is. And um, yeah, this is actually kind of a fun, again, just the way that we see uh the way that Noel looks kind of evolve over time. He's kind of got like a little, almost weird, like Joker-esque like creepiness to him in this in this moment here. But um, there's this fight that goes down between Venom and and Null, and it's funny we've got again all these lasers like shooting through him and crazy stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:43

And again, just in clarification, yeah, it's not Noel made this clear earlier. It's not null actually here on Earth, it's just Null manifesting his form through the goo of this one dragon from galaxies away, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:25:57

Yeah, exactly. Crazy. Um You know, it's interesting, there are actually some background dialogue here that I should read here where it says, um Rex, me and my shadow all rage against the end like a caged animal, teeth, machine guns and blood against the first god of the abyss, and right there in the middle of all of it, something hits me. I don't know what I have to live for. I don't know if I'm a good man or if I can ever be one, but I know one thing. With every drop of my blood that fills my mouth, um, or he says, I know it with every blow I take, every bone I break, with every drop of blood that fills my mouth, with every breath in my lungs, I'm not ready to give into the darkness, I'm not ready to die, not today, right? So um what ends up happening as he's saying this is that he, and this is kind of a fun usage of the venom symbiote here. Um is trying to take the symbiote off of him, and they're like, okay, go ahead, right? He's pulling this off, and it seems like Eddie and all of them are fighting against it. Um, but then when Noah finally snaps the symbiote off of him, he ends up looking around, and there are all these grenades, these green beeping grenades that are attached to the symbiote and then blow up um right on null. And it's like he, yeah, this is another crazy one. You're talking about lettering, right? Zark in the background, these big like green, green letters as these like shock grenades or whatever they are end up going off on uh on null.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:12

This page also really stands out in the context of the whole trade, paperback, because this is the it's been all like reds and blacks. Even when Spider-Man pulls up, it's Miles, right? His suit is red and black. Yeah. Uh red, black, white. This is the only big huge green we really have going on. It makes it really sort of stand out. Um and we see whatever these these grenades they had all up inside uh the symbiote goo explode on this null manifestation and blow all of the individual symbiotes off of his body for a moment, which is pretty uh pretty crazy, pretty intense.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:45

Yeah, we end up learning that um you know Rex ended up protecting uh I think Venom from the blast, and they're like, Oh, I can't, you know, Venom says I can't hear him. And so we think that Rex is actually probably dead. Um and then uh Noel kind of reforms him. And says, you know, you have no idea what I am, I am your God, and you will obey me. Um it says, No, you dare. Right. So basically, what we end up seeing is that uh Rex kind of ended up sneaking off as he became uh unattached as a symbiote and wraps himself around Knowles' form that's here, and they rip open these um these blast doors to this gigantic furnace that is in the area where they're at right now, which is we haven't we haven't really mentioned this furnace before, but it's been basically this is where Rex's base has been, is right near this furnace.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:27

And uh, you know, we've talked about a little bit symbiotes traditionally, it seems like it's changing now, but symbiotes are really um vulnerable to fire.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:36

The reason for that was because the original symbiote was forged in that um in, you know, again, like it was forged like a sword, right? And I think what Noel says is like, oh, the reason that the original symbiotes maybe have this weirdness towards fire and loud noises in particular is because of the fire of that first forging and the sound of the hammer hitting against this, you know, like god head that uh he's building the sword as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:02

It's pretty cool. It's like a classic, classic Spider-Man fight. Like in I think it's happened in multiple movies, but like when they're they'll fight Venom in a big bell tower and then ring the bell, and then the super loud noise from the bell will like take the goo off and then they can Venom or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:15

Yeah, that I think that's definitely a Spider-Man 3 where yeah, he's banging on like the church bell, whatever else, and yeah, Venom's just like screaming and and and everything like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:21

But so we're at this furnace. Yes, and we get this insane furnace scene where basically Eddie, Eddie, and Venom rip the doors off the furnace. Uh Rex hurls uh himself and the symbiote uh null, whatever the virgin.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:46

Yeah, and Venom is like tearing off of Eddie because he can't handle the heat right there. And and again, this is kind of that cuteness that you were talking about where Venom's like, you know, you're burning Eddie, we can't take more of this, we'll die. Um, you know, and Eddie's saying, like, go inside me, I'll protect you, turn off all my pain receptors. That's the other interesting thing that Venom can do, right? Is like really affect Eddie's brain.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:05

And this is a crazy role reversal, right? Because usually it's Venom, I mean usually it's it's Eddie safely in the center of Venom's body and operating in the inside. And then now it's the symbiote in the inside of Eddie's organs, and Eddie is the one taking the the brunt of everything that's going on. And again, he's effectively burning to death. Yeah, and he's uh the you know, to the the the symbiote to the best of his abilities is trying to is trying to make it less painful, but still the reality is on fire. The floor is soaked with blood and fire and flames. There's literally fi his hair is burning. He's looking like a super saiyan right now with all his you know, fire hair and whatever else. It's crazy. And this is sort of yeah, how things wrap up is uh Eddie does not give up, he keeps those doors closed, and you can hear the screams of uh of null from the inside.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:54

And um Yeah, it ends up again.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:56

Here's this cuteness, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:57

It says, uh, you know, they're uh he's gone, I can feel it, they're both gone. I'm sorry, Eddie, it was too much. Uh we were still connected. I should have told you uh I love you, Eddie, right? That's crazy, bro. That venom, this like alien thing is being like, I love you to this thing. And then Eddie's saying, I can't, I can't hear you. Where did you go? And the last shot that we have here is Eddie lying basically in this pool of of symbiote with um burning, there's smoke that's going up and whatever else, right? And what it almost seems like to me here, right, and again, it'll probably end up not being the case for a variety of reasons, but it's almost like Eddie and Rex and Venom have died because of this, and that's where like Venom is basically saying, like, Eddie, I was trying to be kind of with you to the end, it was too much, we were still connected. Um, you know, I should have told you that this was what this was what was going to happen.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:45

It's it feels like the the symbiote the Venom symbiote died along with Rex and uh and the rest of the Grendel or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:52

Yeah, well not Eddie, Eddie's here. Right. Eddie's well Eddie's here and as but the thing is like without Venom, right, he would probably die from these from these injuries, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:00

So we'll see.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:01

But yeah, so we'll see. Maybe we are I've already seen a little bit, but um crazy ending to this um climactic. We get some other nice variants at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:10

And feels like, you know, feels like it's Venom Venom the symbiote saying goodbye to Eddie. Yes, exactly. It feels pretty final.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:17

Yeah, I'm saying I love you again. That's crazy. I I don't think I've ever heard Venom say anything even remotely like that. Yeah. Um just cool character progression. Exactly. Tell the homies you love them. Yeah, tell the homies you love them. Uh for real. Do it. You never know what the world might bring. But this was this was crazy. I mean, what did you we talked a little bit a little bit about this in the beginning, but I I I really enjoyed this. I thought it was fun. I think again, we had some amazing, amazing art in this. I think that as we talked about, Donnie Cates is still doing his thing, right, with some really, really great writing. Shout out to our letterers and everybody, um, you know, everybody that's behind the scenes doing this stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:50

Um I think you're absolutely right. It's cool to feel that familiarity a little bit from God Country. Like we we know a little bit of Donnie Cates, and and so we can feel the connection to that story that we really loved before.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:02

This is definitely uh a pretty dense story. Like there's a lot of like the Moon Knight, contrasting it to the previous episode, right? Moon Knight narrative, which I kept I kept saying over and over again. But it's crazy how simple, simple, direct, impact, yeah. You know, these tiny little snapshot stories, this kind of felt like they're trying to package, and I I think they did a really good job.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:23

Yeah, like I'm not trying to say they're not gonna be hard to do, and to the fact that we can understand this and feel like we're not like lost in the sauce during this is impressive.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:31

Yeah, six chapters. We were able to understand, I think, most of what they were trying to explain to us, and we and they introduced another whole character that's like a huge, huge deal in Marvel, uh, at least in in modern Marvel. Uh modern Marvel. Obviously, this was going down in 2018. Um here we are, 2026, baby. Baby, come on now. Almost 10 years later.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:54

It's fucking wild.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:56

All right, anyway, but yeah, I loved it, man. I thought it was cool. It's I'm glad we're reading it again. Um, I think the King in Black is something that's definitely worth us trying to get to eventually. And I think it's fun going forward for us to be, you know, jumping around in some of these different um different Marvel things that are relatively interconnected. Right. And it could be kind of a fun way for us to to um have some of our episodes where we'll read something that'll say, for more context on this, read this. And we could be reading Thor and then go, okay, uh now this is gonna be set up for this other thing. And um, you know, it'll be fun to do it'll be fun to get some different pieces of this larger story and uh and feel like we we know what's going on a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:37

Agree. We'll see. Well, anyway, so this was this was Venom. Um, I don't think we're gonna do the MM thing at the end of this, but yeah, I mean, I mean I'm all right, yeah, I'll do it. I did it. But but this was Venom. Thank you guys so much for for listening. Um, we really appreciate it. Um, as always, go check out uh join the conversation um at Kickback Comics Pod on Instagram. Um, and feel free to share with your friends. Go comment, tell me that I said things wrong. Um, tell me that I said uh it's super awesome a whole lot, or super, what did I say, super cool? That's what it is. Go do that in the comics. Thanks you guys so much for listening. Um, and uh, and yeah, thanks very much. Peace, everybody. Peace.