WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Venom #20 by Donny Cates, Iban Coello, Zé Carlos, Rain Beredo and VC's Clayton Cowles, on sale Wednesday, Nov. 27.
Absolute Carnage has concluded, and while Venom successfully slayed the serial killer Cletus Kasady, his problems are far from over. In order to kill Cletus and save his son, Dylan, Eddie Brock had to reabsorb his symbiote from Carnage, allowing the Knull, the god of symbiotes, to escape his space prison.
Knull is now heading towards Earth, but that's a problem for another day. One person who played a significant role in Absolute Carnage was The Maker, an evil Reed Richards from the Ultimate Universe. He has taken a major interest in Venom over the last several months, and even created a device to help extract the codices out of previous symbiote hosts. However, instead of Maker's machine destroying the codices, it acted as a storage system for the villain and his mysterious plans.
All we know about The Maker is he works for a shadow organization called Project Oversight. This new threat to the Marvel Universe will continue to be teased as Venom marches on, but The Maker has now set his sights on another target besides Eddie Brock in a preview of Venom #20, though it is still someone near and dear to the Lethal Protector's heart.
Dylan Brock was initially introduced as Eddie's younger brother, but the truth is he's actually Eddie's son with Anne Weying. Eddie has decided to keep the truth from Dylan, but the parentage was finally revealed to Dylan during Venom's climactic battle with Carnage in Absolute Carnage #5. While we wait to see how Dylan will handle this bombshell, a preview of Venom #20 features The Maker observing Dylan on a monitor screen.
The footage details a scene from Absolute Carnage #5 when Dylan displayed his powers against Carnage. Various clues have been peppered to make readers believe all is not as it seems with Dylan; most notably, Anne Weying may have given birth to a symbiote instead of a human baby. This could be the next best alternative for The Maker after losing out on his collection of codex samples, which is why Maker decides to keep eyes on Dylan.
Venom #20 is an Absolute Carnage tie-in, and should help wrap up the event series while also planting seeds for future story arcs. One of those stories will involve The Maker, Project Oversight and Dylan Brock.