[SPOILER] Is The New Anti-Venom In Venom Inc.

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for The Amazing Spider-Man & Venom: Venom Inc. Alpha #1 by Dan Slott, Mike Costa, Ryan Stegman, Brian Reber and Joe Caramagna, on sale now

It’s a surprising fact, but “Venom Inc.” is actually the first crossover between The Amazing Spider-Man and Venom. Sure, the title characters been in each other’s books dozens (hundreds?) of times, but after nearly thirty years of one of the deadliest rivalries and uneasiest of alliances, there’s never been a story that jumped back and forth between the two titles.

However, there’s never been a story quite as big as “Venom Inc.,” one that needed all that room. The stage was set in this week’s Alpha issue for the biggest Spider-Man/Venom story of all time, as Peter Parker and Eddie Brock clash for the first time in years, a new symbiote villain is recruiting an army and a brand new Anti-Venom makes the scene.

Symbiote Mania

The issue starts not with Spider-Man or with Venom, but with Andi Benton, the Philadelphia-based hero known as Mania. Andi was a neighbor of Flash Thompson when he lived in the city, as well as a student of his when he taught gym at a local high school. When a bounty was placed on Flash’s life, Jack O’Lantern attacked the Bentons to draw him out, killing Andi’s father. In order to save her, Flash gave her a portion of his own symbiote which bonded with the teenager who became Mania. Flash and Andi went through a lot together, travelling all the way to hell and back to confront Mephisto himself.

Unfortunately, things aren’t going too well for Andi right now. While Flash is in New York looking to track down and regain the Venom symbiote, she’s lured into a trap by a gang of criminals who attack her with sonic disruptors, separating her from the Mania symbiote which is vulnerable to high frequencies. The attack was so bad that it placed Andi in the hospital and has Flash Thompson worried that someone is planning something with the stolen suits. He reaches out to Peter Parker hoping that Spider-Man will help him track them down so he can become Venom again, but Peter tells his buddy that Spider-Man is more likely to destroy them once and for all.

Venom Hunt

Flash Thompson had a unique relationship with the symbiote, which was triggered by a visit to the Symbiote’s homeworld and a run-in with its native species, The Klyntar. It turns out that the Klyntar are inherently noble and heroic, but exposure to unsuitable hosts can cause the symbiotes to be driven mad, which is what happened with the Venom symbiote. However, the Klyntar purified Flash’s symbiote allowing him to unlock new abilities and become a Space Knight, protector of the universe.

Flash had his symbiote stolen from him shortly after returning to Earth with the Guardians of the Galaxy, and it found a home with Lee Price, a small-time criminal who was able to use the suit to move up in the world of organized crime. Meanwhile, Eddie Brock had been working for an anti-symbiote task force and tricked Spider-Man into helping him separate Price from the symbiote, so he could have it for himself. Since then, Venom has been reunited and busy with adventures involving underground dinosaur men and interdimensional parasites, but that doesn’t mean Flash or Lee have forgotten about him.

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Agent Anti-Venom

Flash is able to use his connection with the symbiote to track down Eddie to Alchemax and a brawl breaks out between the two, with the Venom symbiote unable to decide who it wants to side with. Spider-Man arrives and using an experimental new formula designed to keep the symbiote in check, he coats both Eddie Brock and Flash Thompson in the fluid, which seems to dissolve the Venom symbiote and give Flash a whole new look as the new Anti-Venom.

The original Anti-Venom was Eddie Brock himself, who was cured of his cancer by Martin Li AKA Mr. Negative. However, Mr. Negative’s powers interacted with the dormant symbiote cells in Eddie’s bloodstream, giving him the abilities of Anti-Venom, which as the name implies, is harmful to the Venom symbiote. It also had the added ability of negating Spider-Man’s own powers due to the dormant symbiote cells in his own bloodstream, and while he did try to help, his efforts often led to Spider-Man’s powers cutting out at the worst possible time.

He’s A Maniac

Meanwhile, Lee Price is out of prison, and we discover that he was the one who attacked Andi and stole the Mania symbiote, becoming Maniac, a symbiote-bonded villain with a whole new way of operating. Unlike other symbiotes like Venom or Carnage who were about creating as much terror and chaos as possible, Maniac plans on working from the ground up and to do that you need a few good men, or at least a few men. The issue ends in The Bar With No Name as The Looter is commiserating over his recent beating at the hands of Venom, when Maniac coughs a sample of symbiote onto his face, giving The Looter a small fraction of the power, while also making him loyal to Price.

It’s fair to say that the “Venom Inc.” of the story’s title is the racket Lee Price is putting together; getting all the low-level supervillains together under his command, kept in check by the Maniac symbiote. It’s not a bad plan and in some ways is a bit like a Venom version of “Spider-Island”. It also wouldn’t be the first time dozens of little Venoms swarmed the streets of New York; almost ten years ago now Doctor Doom dropped a Venom Bomb on Manhattan, forcing the recently formed Mighty Avengers to step in and save the day. It’s an effective strategy and Price seems to be mixing in aspects of The Hood’s rise to power in order to take control of the underworld. However, with Spider-Man, Venom, Anti-Venom and current kingpin Black Cat to deal with, he might find it trickier than he expects.