WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Venom #7 by Donny Cates, Iban Coello, Andres Mossa and VC's Clayton Cowles, on sale Wednesday, Oct. 10.
Writer Donny Cates and artist Ryan Stegman have taken Eddie Brock and his alien symbiote on a rollercoaster of a story arc, expanding Venom's mythos while introducing a literal symbiote god. The storyline concluded with Venom defeating the Grendel, Knull's oversized symbiote dragon, but at a massive cost.
Venom #6 ended with the symbiote sacrificing itself to trap the creature in a blast furnace, theoretically killing itself in the process. As for Eddie, he suffered numerous burns all over his body from the flames and didn't look to be in good shape. However, Marvel's preview of Venom #7 shows Eddie healed and looking good as new, though he's the prisoner of a mystery character who has a unique way of speaking.
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The man recounts the events of the last issue while revealing he and his organization took a sample of the Grendel symbiote. There's only one problem -- that sample is now missing. Eddie is the top suspect, but he doesn't remember a thing. As interesting as this mystery is, we can't help but focus on the other mystery surrounding the character's identity.
For those not aware, every person in what's been dubbed the Marvel 616 universe speaks with their words in all capital letters (ex: PEOPLE TALK LIKE THIS). However, when the Ultimate Universe launched in 2000, words balloons were filled with letters that only capitalized the first letter in a sentence (ex: People talk like this). The man in the shadows clearly talks like someone from the Ultimate Universe, and judging by his build and the lower part of his face and mouth being exposed, our guess is he's the evil version of Reed Richards, The Maker.
One of the many characters to survive the destruction of the Ultimate Universe in Secret Wars and make the jump to the Marvel Prime/616 Universe, The Maker was last seen in the Ultimates² where he orchestrated the superhero team's confrontation with his Earth's Ultimates.
What The Maker would want with Venom remains to be seen, along with if this is the evil Reed Richards. He could be someone else from the Ultimate Universe that has stayed hidden and is choosing now to make his presence known. Whatever the truth ends up being, he most likely has some devious plans in store for the Lethal Protector.
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