Edward Brock (Earth-616)

This is an abridged version of Eddie Brock's history. For a complete history see Eddie Brock's Expanded History.

Origins

Eddie Brock was born to Carl Brock and Jamie Brock, who died in childbirth - leading to his father blaming Eddie for his wife's death and becoming cold and abusive towards him. Constantly seeking his father's approval, Eddie excelled academically but his achievements were met with half-hearted encouragement.^[39] When Eddie was a teenager, he stole his father's car and snuck out to get drunk with some friends, attempting to sneak it back home before his father noticed. In the process, he accidentally killed his neighbor's young son, leaving him horrified. Carl brutally beat Eddie when he refused to plead innocent, and the charges were dropped when he plead not guilty. However, covering up the incident almost bankrupted Carl Brock, ruining his reputation and further amplified his hatred and resentment towards his son.^[40]

In his teenage years, Eddie gained entrance to ESU's journalism program by fabricating an internship, and he romanced law student Anne Weying.^[41] Though exceptional in athletics, Brock switched his major in college to journalism after reading an article on the Watergate scandal. Upon graduating, he moved to New York City and married Anne. As a member of the Associated Press, he obtained a job as a journalist for the Daily Globe. He proved himself to be highly talented, though even this did not get his father's approval.^[42]

The Sin Eater Incident

Eddie's big break as a reporter came when he intercepted a letter written to the Daily Globe by Emil Gregg, who claimed to be the serial killer Sin-Eater. Contacting Gregg, Eddie wrote front-page exclusives interviewing the Sin-Eater, protecting his identity under the First Amendment, until a crisis of conscience and pressure from the police and his editor forced him to write an exclusive article revealing Gregg as the Sin-Eater.

Although that edition of the paper sold out immediately, that same day Spider-Man captured and revealed the true identity of the Sin-Eater to be Detective Stan Carter. Gregg was found to be Carter's delusional neighbor, making Brock a laughingstock among his fellow journalists. Fired from the Daily Globe, he was forced to write venomous drivel for a tawdry tabloid. Disgusted by Eddie's refusal to accept responsibility for his own mistakes, Anne left him, his father disowned him, and his future appeared to be over. Brock blamed all of these problems on Spider-Man and began an intense physical workout program hoping to reduce the stress of his life. Although his body was honed to physical perfection, Eddie's vengeful obsession with Spider-Man only intensified.^[7]

Birth of Venom

Ultimately overwhelmed by shame and despair, Eddie - who had been raised a devout Catholic - decided to visit Our Lady of Saints Church to beg forgiveness from God before intending to commit suicide. Once inside the church, he was caught by surprise when the symbiote that had until-recently been posing as Spider-Man's Black Suit ambushed and bonded with him - drawn by their mutual hatred for Spider-Man. on which it fed. The symbiote bonded mentally and physically to Eddie, revealing Spider-Man's civilian identity to be Peter Parker.^[7] Agreeing to bond to the symbiote in exchange for revenge against Spider-Man, Eddie agreed to the symbiote's suggestion to name their merged form "Venom" out of resentment over being forced to write drivel for tabloids.^[7][43]

Early Career as a Supervillain

Taking advantage of the symbiote's immunity to Peter's Spider-Sense, Eddie ambushed him several times.^[44][45] Driven by the symbiote's jealousy towards Peter rejecting it, Venom attacked Mary Jane Watson at her and Peter's apartment, leaving her terrified and traumatized.^[46] Realizing the symbiote had returned, Spider-Man obtained a sonic blaster from the Fantastic Four and battled Venom using it. Venom took advantage of Spider-Man's refusal to deal a fatal blow by knocking him out and attempting to kill him using Our Lady of Saints' bell, but Spider-Man escaped and tricked the symbiote into depleting its biomass through overuse of its organic webbing. With Venom incapacitated, Spider-Man turned him over to the Fantastic Four, who imprisoned him in a sonic containment cell before he was transferred to a government-run super-prison in the Colorado Rockies called the Vault.^[7][47]

Posing as a fallen Guardsman, Venom murdered new recruit Hugh Taylor and escaped to New York City,^[42] thwarting the criminal activity of a small militia in Missouri en route.^[48] Hunting for Spider-Man, Venom came across Peter's former lover the Black Cat, and nearly beat her to death.^[49] Getting Spider-Man's attention by menacing May Parker, Venom battled him on the beach of Montauk, Long Island. However, Spider-Man exploited the symbiote's desire to return to him in order to trick it into attempting to separate from Eddie. The trauma of trying to detach itself from Eddie's nervous system knocked both Eddie and the symbiote unconscious, and they were re-incarcerated in the Vault.^[50]

After several foiled escape attempts,^[51][52] Eddie faked his own suicide to escape the Vault and attacked Spider-Man in Central Park but abandoned the battle to save an innocent baby. Approached by Styx and Stone, who were also intent on killing Spider-Man, Venom escaped and lured Spider-Man into a confrontation in his sewer lair. Styx and Stone attacked them, and Venom - unwilling to let anyone but himself kill Spider-Man - intervened, resulting in Styx seemingly killing the symbiote with his carcinogenic touch. Returned to human form, Eddie Brock was sent to a normal prison at Ryker's Island.^[53]

Carnage Rules

Eddie was placed in the same cell as the notorious serial killer Cletus Kasady, and the two developed an intense mutual hatred of each other.^[54] On the night Kasady attempted to murder Eddie, the symbiote - which had survived Styx's lethal touch due to being immune to Earthly diseases - infiltrated the prison and rebonded to Eddie. Venom once more, Eddie escaped to resume his campaign of vengeance against Spider-Man, but the Venom symbiote unwittingly left an asexually produced offspring behind. Unaware of this development, Eddie captured Spider-Man and battled him on a deserted island in the Caribbeans, seemingly succeeding in killing him. With their revenge seemingly obtained, Eddie and the symbiote chose to peacefully settle down on the island,^[55] though that peace was disrupted by arms-dealers,^[20] Darkhawk,^[56] Nightmare, and Wolverine.^[57]

Sometime later, Eddie was enraged when Spider-Man and Human Torch abruptly arrived on the island, the former revealing that he had faked his death. Venom attacked them but stopped when Spider-Man explained that Kasady had bonded to the Venom symbiote's offspring to become the monstrous Carnage and begun rampaging through Manhattan, killing hundreds of people, and that Spider-Man had been easily overpowered. Venom begrudgingly agreed to help Spider-Man stop Carnage in exchange for his freedom, to which Spider-Man reluctantly agreed.^[58] While Carnage proved more powerful than Venom and Spider-Man individually, they managed to exploit the symbiotes' weakness to loud sounds using the Madison Square Garden's sound system. Afraid that Venom would betray him, Spider-Man attempted to incapacitate him as well, but their fight was interrupted by the Fantastic Four, who Venom realized were behind this plan all along.^[59]

"Final Confrontation"

After further misadventures that brought him into conflict with not only Spider-Man but Wolverine,^[60] Daredevil, Hag, Troll, Demogoblin, Doppelganger, Ghost Rider, and Johnny Blaze,^[61] Venom sought out Spider-Man in what was intended to be their final battle. Venom kidnapped Peter's recently returned parents - who were actually robotic doppelgängers - in to use as bait,^[62] but Spider-Man contacted Eddie's ex-wife, Anne Weying, in order to gain info on Eddie's past. Venom and Spider-Man's battle at the Thrill World amusement park, was interrupted by the Wild Pack, resulting in a ferris wheel collapsing on Anne. Spider-Man assisted Venom saving her, and Eddie was persuaded by Anne to agree to a begrudging truce with Spider-Man, with both parties begrudgingly agreeing not to target each other.^[39]

The Lethal Protector

Returning to San Francisco, Venom became the protector of an Underground City of homeless people descended from survivors of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. However, Venom became the target of the Life Foundation, which hired General Orwell Taylor - vengeful father of the Guardsman Eddie had murdered - and the Jury - a taskforce of former Guardsmen, to take down Venom. While the Jury's attack failed, Venom was captured and the symbiote forced to spawn five more symbiotes. Venom was confronted by Spider-Man, who reluctantly helped Eddie incapacitate the other symbiotes and foil Roland Treece's plan to destroy the Underground City to excavate a large mass of gold supposedly buried within it.^[63]

When Carnage escaped from prison and led a group of other supervillains in a massacre across New York City, Venom set out to stop him, allying with a reluctant Spider-Man and other superheroes in an effort to stop Carnage. Once Carnage and his allies were subdued, Venom returned to San Francisco and resumed his tenure as the Underground City's protector; crossing paths with other superheroes, anti-heroes, and villains such as the Punisher,^[64] Juggernaut,^[65] Darkhawk,^[66] Daredevil,^[67] Iron Man,^[68] Morbius,^[69] Mace,^[70] Hulk,^[71] Vengeance,^[72] and a second encounter with Darkhawk and Wolverine.^[73][74] Eddie fell in love with Beck Underwood, a lawyer who was fighting to protect San Francisco's homeless population, but when Eddie - at the time infected with a sentient virus that worsened his already unstable psyche and tormented by demons from the Realm of Madness - attempted to forcibly bond the Venom symbiote to her in a manner evocative of rape, Beck ended their romance; though she agreed to stay friends with him in recognition that he hadn't been in control of himself.^[75]

Initially in-denial that the symbiote was turning him into a monster,^[76] Eddie began to question his relationship with it - unwittingly kickstarting the Symbiote Hive's first invasion of Earth when Spider-Man persuaded him to reject it.^[77] While Eddie re-bonded to the symbiote, its growing appetite for flesh - particularly brains - forced him to commit cannibalism and it abandoned him to hunt on its own when he refused to do so.^[78] After Eddie was arrested, the villainous psychiatrist Doctor Thaddeus Paine informed Eddie of his theory that the symbiote required phenethylamine to survive, and after escaping Eddie acquired some and tracked the symbiote down. When it attempted to devour him in a feral state, Eddie subdued it and fed it the drug to restore its stability. Dr. Paine ambushed them and captured the symbiote, but Eddie rescued and rebonded to it, draining the phenethylamine from Dr. Paine's brain as revenge. Learning that chocolate contained phenethylamine, Eddie began satiating the symbiote's hunger with that, but the symbiote quickly grew dissatisfied with this solution and tormented Eddie until he begrudgingly agreed to let it take over.^[79][80]

Government Agent and Return to Villainy

Placed on trial for murdering a police officer during one of his prison escapes, Venom was recruited via an ultimatum by the government's Overreach Committee to be a special operations counter-terrorist agent.^[81] Eddie agreed, but was tranquilized and had a thermite bomb surgically implanted in his chest to assure complete and utter obedience. As a government agent, Venom was sent after threats such as neo-fascists and the Soviet terrorists Dr. Yes and Terachnid. However, he chafed against the orders of his handler Agent Daryll Smith and his other superiors, who saw him as a loose cannon due to his proclivity for extreme violence.^[82][83] After misinterpreting a vaguely-worded order to intimidate J. Jonah Jameson, Venom attempted to kill the news mogul and came into conflict with Spider-Man. Venom called off their truce and declared his intent to reveal Spider-Man's secret identity to the public, but was knocked unconscious by a dynamite explosion and awoke with partial amnesia - having forgotten Spider-Man's secret identity.^[84] Following this, the Overreach Committee decided to detonate the thermite bomb in Eddie's chest, but Eddie had the symbiote surgically remove the bomb and used the blast to escape.^[85] Venom subsequently exposed the Overreach Committee to reporter Trish Tilby, but was subdued by Agent Smith with help from Spider-Man and injected with an overdose of dopamine inhibitor, forcibly separating Eddie from the symbiote and seemingly killing it.^[86]

Free of the symbiote, Eddie came to fear its influence over him, but it forcibly rebonded to him.^[87] Venom subsequently ripped the Carnage symbiote off of Cletus Kasady and devoured it to become stronger than ever, attacking J. Jonah Jameson and almost killing Spider-Man before departing to finish assimilating the Carnage symbiote.^[88] For a brief period, Venom joined the Sinister Six but turned on them after they mocked the symbiote's mundane weaknesses.^[89][90] Tiring of villainy, Eddie approached his ex-wife, but Anne had been severely traumatized by the symbiote and committed suicide after seeing Spider-Man wearing his black suit, intensifying Eddie's hatred towards Spider-Man even further.^[91]

Relapsing into villainy again, Eddie became an unwitting pawn of the Ararat Corporation when they used a sample of the Venom symbiote to create a clone as part of a complicated scheme to wipe out all life on Earth. The clone symbiote eventually bonded to soldier Patricia Robertson, who travelled to New York to kill Venom. Venom eventually absorbed the symbiote clone into the original Venom symbiote to become more powerful than ever and decided to go along with the Ararat Corporation's plot, which ultimately never came to pass.^[92] When the Hyborian sorcerer Kulan Gath resurfaced in the modern era and attempted to conquer the world by turning it into a medieval-esque version of itself, Venom was one of the villains he enslaved using his magic. Venom was sent after Red Sonja, who was indwelling the body of Mary Jane Watson, and attempted to devour her and Spider-Man before they escaped.^[93] Gath attempted to take the Venom symbiote for himself, but Venom broke free of his control and attempted to eat him; though he was defeated and had his symbiote stolen by the sorcerer.^[94] After Gath was defeated, the symbiote escaped him and returned to Eddie.^[95]

When the Carnage symbiote was about to give birth, Venom tracked Carnage down wanting to raise the newborn as an ally, though Carnage felt threatened by this and attempted to first suppress the birth and then destroy the newborn. After Carnage implanted the baby symbiote in NYPD officer Patrick Mulligan, Venom named the new symbiote Toxin after himself but eventually realized that Toxin's first host being a police officer would influence it to be a hero, which would make it a dangerous enemy. Venom and Carnage agreed to a temporary alliance to kill Toxin but were defeated with the assistance of Spider-Man and Black Cat.^[96]

Life with Cancer

Unbeknownst to Eddie, the symbiote had been modifying his memories and biochemistry to make him believe he had cancer and that it was the only thing keeping him alive; including falsifying memories of him having a sister named Mary Brock and an uncle named Dan Brock who had died of cancer,^[97][98][99] and that he'd had terminal cancer prior to bonding to it. When this resulted in Eddie actually developing brain cancer, the symbiote attempted to forsake him and return to Spider-Man; while Eddie came to see it as a demon sent to punish him for contemplating suicide.^[100] After seeing a spiritual movie, Eddie had a religious reawakening and decided to sell his symbiote off in a supervillain auction, swearing off his life of vigilantism and to donate the money to charity. The winner of the auction was Maggia don Vincente Fortunato, who gave the symbiote to his nebbish son Angelo, in hopes that he would finally make a name for himself. Eddie attempted to warn Angelo of the risks the symbiote entailed, but his warnings were disregarded. Unimpressed with Angelo's cowardice, the symbiote eventually abandoned Angelo in mid-air, leaving him to fall to his death. After learning of Angelo's death, Eddie attempted to kill himself and was hospitalized.^[101]

Rapidly succumbing to his cancer, Eddie began experiencing hallucinations of the symbiote representing his dark side. After a while of being tormented by these hallucinations, Eddie spotted Mary Jane Watson watching over Aunt May, who had been seriously wounded by sniper hired by the Kingpin. Eddie's dark side persuaded him to order a black suit similar to Spider-Man's and put it on with the intent of murdering Aunt May while she was in a coma. Eddie killed a nurse for getting in his way, but after sneaking into Aunt May's room he had a change of heart, finding he could not murder someone as innocent and helpless as Aunt May. Peter entered the room moments later to find Brock sitting on the shattered window, having slit his own wrists dozens of times. Believing he had done too many terrible things to live on, Eddie jumped out of the window, but Peter broke his fall by catching him. Awakening chained to his bed, Brock decided to take control of himself for the remaining days he had left, telling the hallucination of the symbiote that he was in control.^[102]

New Ways To Live: The Rise of Anti-Venom

Cured of his cancer by Martin Li's healing powers, Eddie became a volunteer at the F.E.A.S.T. center. Mac Gargan, who had become the Venom symbiote's host after Angelo's death, attacked the F.E.A.S.T. center having sensed the presence of a former host. Gargan mocked Eddie for having given up the symbiote, but it abruptly tried to leave Gargan and return to Eddie. A white symbiote - formed from the remnants of the Venom symbiote inside Eddie's body being altered and fused to his white blood cells by Martin Li's powers - emerged from Eddie's body and repelled it. Dubbing himself Anti-Venom, Eddie teamed up with Spider-Man to fight off the Thunderbolts and decided to call off his long-time vendetta after witnessing Spider-Man rescue an innocent old man. Anti-Venom was able to severely injure the Venom symbiote, forcing the Thunderbolts to retreat; and upon sensing remnants of the Venom symbiote in Peter's body he attempted to "cure" him as well. In doing so, Eddie almost ended up stripping Spider-Man of his powers, which began shorting out whenever they were in close proximity.^[12]

Anti-Venom helped Peter escape Osborn's plot to assassinate Spider-Man and infiltrate Oscorp, facing Gargan - who had been equipped with a Scorpion battlesuit to protect the recovering Venom symbiote - in a rematch. While "Ven-orpion" was able to incapacitate Anti-Venom using a toxin tailor-made to kill Eddie's new symbiote, the Venom symbiote refused to let Gargan kill Eddie and destroyed his Scorpion suit. Eddie's Anti-Venom suit reformed, and he planned to resume his former vigilante antihero career with an increased religious emphasis as the Anti-Venom; curing a young woman named Jenna Cole from her heroin addiction and direct her towards F.E.A.S.T.

After finding out that Martin Li was the super-villain Mister Negative,^[103] Eddie's mental instability worsened, and he began working with Jenna Cole to fight street gangs and drug cartels in the sleazier areas of New York, coming into conflict with the Punisher, who he begrudgingly helped take down the Quintas cartel after they captured Jenna.^[104]

Cutting ties with Jenna, Anti-Venom later teamed up with Spider-Man and the new Wraith to take down Mr. Negative, exposing his identity as Martin Li to the public.^[105]

Anti-Venom was recruited by Simon Williams to serve in his new Anti-Avengers team, the Revengers, but they were defeated by both the Avengers and the New Avengers and later imprisoned.^[106][107]

At some point afterwards, Anti-Venom was either freed or escaped from prison, returning to Our Lady of Saints Church. During the release of a virus that gave New York's civilians copies of Spider-Man's powers and ultimately mutating them into spider-monsters, Anti-Venom used his curative abilities to return people to normal. Agent Venom was sent to capture him so that the Anti-Venom symbiote could be used to make a cure, but Eddie sensed Venom's presence and a fight erupted between them. With the Anti-Venom symbiote having been weakened from Eddie overusing its healing abilities, the Venom symbiote abandoned Flash Thompson and re-bonded to Eddie. Flash managed to convince the symbiote to return to him and took Eddie to Horizon Labs. As an ultimatum, Reed Richards proposed that Eddie use his Anti-Venom symbiote as a cure to be distributed to everyone; although this would result in its destruction. Eddie agreed, and as a result was considered the hero of Spider-Island.^[108][109]

Becoming Toxin

Despite having helped to save New York, Eddie was left homeless and poor. Not being bonded to a symbiote anymore, Eddie obtained an arsenal of anti-symbiote weapons and intended to hunt down Carnage, Venom, Toxin, and the other symbiotes to prevent an event called the Spawning; starting with Hybrid and Scream.^[110]

When Eddie tracked down and tried to kill Agent Venom, he was knocked out in battle and captured by the Crime-Master, who bonded him to the Toxin symbiote in order to serve in his Savage Six.^[5] Dominated by the Toxin symbiote, Eddie tracked down Venom in order to kill him but was incapacitated by a sonic weapon and webbed up by Venom. He later recovered and returned to Crime-Master's hideout. When Agent Venom arrived there searching for Betty Brant, Megatak faced him but was devoured by Toxin. Agent Venom attempted to free Eddie from the Toxin symbiote and immolate it, but the burning symbiote grabbed Eddie and both seemingly perished in the flames.^[111] However, both the symbiote and Eddie survived, feeding on numerous criminals and gang members to recuperate from their injuries, and agreed to work together as Toxin for the purpose of hunting down and killing Agent Venom.^[112]

Using his investigative skills and the Toxin symbiote's superior sense of smell, Eddie tracked Agent Venom down to Philadelphia and found Thompson trying to reason with a man who had been parasitized by carnivorous alien machines called Symbiote Slayers. To prove his point that it was impossible to resist the predatory urges of the symbiotes, Toxin ate the cyborg before attacking Thompson and nearly killing him. Using the sedative, he was saving for the Venom symbiote, Flash incapacitated Brock, who left the scene vowing to return. Toxin tracked down Flash to the high school he now worked in, hypocritically berating Flash for endangering the innocent children with his symbiote; but the alien machines whose host Toxin had killed infected a group of homeless people and tracked Toxin and Venom down. In order to save innocent lives, Flash convinced Brock to temporarily team up and defeat the monsters, who were ultimately killed. Realizing that Flash was doing good as Agent Venom and re-evaluating his own relationship with Toxin, Eddie offered Flash a deal: he would let Agent Venom live as long as he had control over the symbiote but would mercy-kill him if he lost control.^[113]

Anti-Symbiote Task Force

After Flash left Philadelphia to join the Thunderbolts and Guardians of the Galaxy, Toxin filled the void and began taking down Philadelphia's drug gangs, coming to accept and enjoy his bond with the Toxin symbiote. He was hunted down and captured by the FBI, but rather than kill him the FBI offered Eddie an opportunity to become an agent of the new Anti-Symbiote Task Force. Eddie accepted, but his handler Claire Dixon saw him as nothing but a monster, had him constantly dosed with symbiote suppressant drugs, and to Eddie's frustration only unleashed the Toxin symbiote as an absolute last resort.^[114]

Under Dixon's command, Eddie, John Jameson, and Manuela Calderon instigated a trap to capture Carnage that resulted in Jameson, Carnage, and several agents being trapped in Grey Ridge Mine, Virgina, but the entire operation was part of a plan orchestrated by the mine's owner Barry Gleason to sacrifice Carnage in a temple hidden deep within the mines for a Chthonic ritual. The team failed to apprehend Carnage, who had been empowered by the eldritch tome known as the Darkhold and escaped to investigate his new abilities and the dark god they came from.^[115]

Even after the Anti-Symbiote Task Force was disbanded by the FBI, it continued operating with funding from Victoria Montesi, an occult expert looking for the Darkhold. Early into their new adventure, Dixon was captured by Carnage and bonded to a Darkhold-enhanced symbiote to become Raze. Soon afterwards, they were joined by Jubulile van Scotter, a young woman who had assisted Kasady on her boat when she found him adrift, unaware he was a serial killer, and who had also been bonded to a Darkhold-altered symbiote in a failed attempt by Carnage to control her.^[116] Brock saw his team's subsequent quest to find Carnage and stop him from unleashing Chthon as a signal that God was giving him a second chance to atone for his past wrongs, and tried to become a better man. While tracking down Carnage, Brock also became very protective towards Jubulile,^[54] who had been discovered to share a psychic bond with Carnage. After Carnage succeeded in unleashing Chthon, Eddie reluctantly gave Jubulile the Toxin symbiote, which she merged with her own and Raze's to enable her to vanquish the eldritch god.^[117]

Back in Black

Eddie returned to the FBI, seeking to recruit new replacement members into the Anti-Symbiote Task Force. When he heard rumors that Venom had returned to villainy, Eddie travelled to New York and volunteered his services. Upon arriving and seeing that his "darling" symbiote had indeed returned to Earth, Eddie tricked Spider-Man into helping separate the suit from its host, Lee Price. Tired of being mistreated by his colleagues and learning that the symbiote was going to be imprisoned in an orbital facility, Eddie freed it from its containment and bonded to it to become Venom once again.^[118]

However, Eddie was not completely at-ease with being bonded to the Venom symbiote again, as its renewed bloodlust and outbursts of rage interfered with his desire to go straight and not relapse into being the Lethal Protector, at one point hospitalizing a priest Eddie was visiting for guidance.^[32] After taking the comatose priest to a hospital, Eddie overheard a young man say that his friends were killed and eaten by a humanoid monster with huge fangs in the sewers near Our Lady of Saints Church. Initially fearing the symbiote was responsible, Eddie became entangled in Stegron's latest plot to conquer the world by creating an army of humanoid dinosaurs. Learning of Alchemax's involvement, Eddie struck a deal with CEO Liz Allan to stop Stegron's plot in exchange for her company's help in finding out what was wrong with the Venom symbiote; and succeeded with the help of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. Alchemax astro-biologist Dr. Steven discovered that the symbiote suppressant drugs that Eddie had been overdosed with by the FBI had rendered his body toxic to symbiotes, slowly killing the Venom symbiote and driving it insane, but he was able to create a medicine that could temporarily stabilize Eddie's metabolism and prevent the symbiote from degenerating.^[119]

During a one-sided fight with Jack O'Lantern, Venom was abruptly pulled through a portal into a post-apocalyptic version of New York, where he was recruited by a group of Venomized heroes and antiheroes - Mania, Agent Venom, Venompool, and Venomized versions of Ant-Man, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Ghost Rider, Old Man Logan, Rocket Raccoon, Spider-Man, Spinneret, and X-23; learning they were waging a war against a species of crystalline extraterrestrials called Poisons, which could permanently bond to symbiotes by consuming their hosts. When Captain Venom was Poisoned and Venompool defected, Venom had Doctor Strange summon an incarnation of Carnage as a last resort. While the summoned Carnage proved unpredictable, he was persuaded to cooperate with the Resistance, who were aided by Poison Deadpool - whose mental instability enabled him to resist being fully consumed. Carnage and Poison Deadpool created a distraction to allow the Resistance to plant a bomb on the Poisons' ship, and Venomized Doctor Strange sacrificed himself to return the surviving Venoms to their home dimensions.^[120]

After returning home from his confrontation with the Poisons, Eddie applied to the Fact Sheet, a tabloid branch of the Fact Channel. As a result of an article Eddie published, Kraven the Hunter came to New York to hunt the Dinosaur-People. Badly wounded and trapped by Shriek, Eddie sent the pterosaur hybrid Tana to find help and retrieve the symbiote's medicine. Losing control of the symbiote and going berserk, Venom attempted to eat Kraven and Shriek, but Tana injected him with the medication and restored his sanity.^[121]

As the symbiote began to develop an immunity to Alchemax's serum, it increasingly relapsed into its bloodthirsty corrupted state. Eddie confronted Dr. Steven, who revealed he had developed a new cure based on the Anti-Venom symbiote. Before they could test it, Eddie was confronted by Flash Thompson, who sought to reclaim the Venom symbiote. Spider-Man arrived to see the Venom symbiote trying to bond to both Eddie and Flash at the same time and doused them in the Anti-Venom Serum in an attempt to kill the Venom symbiote. This inadvertently cured Eddie of his destabilized metabolism cleansed the Venom symbiote of its corruption, and mutated the half that had bonded to Flash into a new Anti-Venom symbiote. Agent Anti-Venom forcibly removed the Venom symbiote from Eddie, but he was still able to sense its presence and began searching for it. Encountering Black Cat, Eddie reunited with the Venom symbiote and learned that Lee Price had returned and stolen the Venom symbiote's clone from Andi Benton, who had travelled to New York to get it back. Venom, Black Cat, Spider-Man, Agent Anti-Venom, and Andi teamed up to take down Price - now calling himself Maniac - who had infiltrated and taken over the Five Families. With Lee Price in prison, Agent Anti-Venom brokered a truce between Spider-Man and Venom, who persuaded Black Cat to give up being a crime-lord.^{[122][123][124][125][126]}

When the space-pirates known as the Starjammers were captured by symbiote-clad alien bounty hunters, Venom was forcibly recruited by the time-displaced X-Men to help rescue them.^[127]

Venom and the Young X-Men managed to hunt down the arms-dealer Haze Mancer, who specialized in weaponizing symbiotes, though the ensuing battle led to the Young X-Men bonding to symbiotes of their own.^[128] Turning Haze Mancer over to the Nova Corps, they tracked down the bounty hunters - led by Killer Thrill - but their battle to rescue the Starjammers was interrupted with the Poisons revealed they had invaded Earth-616. Killer Thrill, her crew, and Jean Grey were consumed, with Venom and the Young X-Men barely escaping.^{[129][130][131]}

En route to Earth, Venom and the Young X-Men contacted Jimmy Hudson and warned him of the oncoming threat. Upon arrival, Venom discovered they were too late when he was confronted by Spider-Man, who had been bonded to a symbiote and initially blamed Venom for the Poisons' attack.^[132] Venom brought the superheroes who had been infected with symbiotes to Alchemax, protesting Liz and Dr. Steve's suggestion of using Agent Anti-Venom to kill the symbiotes and suggesting using Flash to annihilate the Poisons instead when it was discovered his touch was lethal to them. When Cyclops mentioned that he could still sense Jean Grey, Venom scolded him for falling for an obvious trap; though this resulted in Alchemax being attacked by a battalion of Poisons.^[133] Opting to directly attack the Poisons' mothership, Venom and Spider-Man battled Poison Carnage, who nearly killed them before being thrown into orbit. Venom then helped the Young X-Men take down the Poison Queen, destroying the Hive and seeing to it that the surviving symbiotes were returned to Klyntar.^[134]

The Seventh Spawn of Venom

Several weeks after being cleansed of his metabolic affliction, Eddie began to have recurring nightmares - unaware that the symbiote was pregnant with its seventh offspring. Eddie was initially confused by its odd behavior; but was captured by Special Agent Claire Dixon - who had been resurrected by the Darkhold and resumed command of the Anti-Symbiote Task Force. Informed of the symbiote's impending birth, Eddie was angered that the symbiote had not told him it was pregnant; and was further betrayed when Claire revealed the FBI had recruited Mac Gargan to be the newborn symbiote's host. Eddie was rescued by Spider-Woman and - following an argument with the symbiote - travelled to Alchemax to confront Doctor Steve, who had unwittingly provided the FBI with the information. When Dr. Steve protested that he considered Eddie a friend, Eddie asked him for help delivering the symbiote's spawn. Forced to separate from the symbiote due to the strain its labor placed on his body, Eddie attacked the Scorpion when Gargan arrived to kill the Venom symbiote and claim its spawn. Dixon intervened before Gargan could kill Eddie, knocking him unconscious; but Dr. Steven lied that the baby symbiote had been stillborn to prevent any further violence. After Dixon left and Gargan was arrested, Eddie gave Alchemax custody of the newborn symbiote, telling Liz Allan that they could study it non-invasively until he and the Venom symbiote decided it was ready to bond to a worthy host.^[135]

Following Norman Osborn bonding to the Carnage symbiote and becoming the Red Goblin, Eddie was blackmailed by J. Jonah Jameson into protecting Mary Jane, resulting in her initially attacking him with an anti-symbiote defense system. Venom was able to thwart the Red Goblin's attempt on Mary Jane's life with Spider-Man's help, and Eddie agreed to help even the odds against Osborn by loaning the Venom symbiote to his long-time rival, telling Spider-Man to take care of it. Spider-Man later declared to Flash Thompson that he forgave Venom moments before he passed away, and the symbiote separated from him and made its way back to Eddie. After reuniting with the symbiote, Eddie attended Flash Thompson's funeral.^[19]

Soon afterward, Eddie was outraged when Liz proposed utilizing the infant symbiote's unique chemokinetic abilities in order to turn a profit for Alchemax. After storming out of her office, he was attacked by a Skrull Warbride named M'lanz, who tried to sever his connection with the Venom symbiote. Eddie was saved by a Kree man named Tel-Kar, who informed him that he was the Venom symbiote's original host. Venom took Tel-Kar to Alchemax for medical treatment, the symbiote regaining its long-suppressed memories of being bonded to him during the Kree-Skrull War. Revealing that years of torture had filled him with vengeful hatred, Tel-Kar blackmailed the symbiote into rejoining with him by threatening its offspring. Bonding to the young symbiote - dubbed Sleeper, Eddie was forced into an alliance with M'lanz to stop Tel-Kar from unleashing a species-annihilating bioweapon the Skrull had developed during the war. Eddie was able to rescue the Venom symbiote and the Kree armada denounced Tel-Kar, destroying the research station. Venom returning to Earth alongside the Sleeper symbiote, cutting ties with Alchemax. Tel-Kar revealed he had followed Venom to Earth and intended to use the last remaining sample of the bioweapon to exterminate humanity, but the Sleeper symbiote forcibly bonded to Tel-Kar and lobotomized him as revenge for what he'd done to its parent; departing to explore the cosmos after thanking Eddie for raising it.^[136]

Saga of the King in Black

Not long after Sleeper's departure, Eddie lost his job at the Fact Sheet and became a freelance reporter. He additionally began suffering from recurring nightmares about an ancient draconic symbiote, accompanied by renewed outbursts of bloodlust from the Venom symbiote - at one point undergoing a dark transformation and declaring that its god was coming in an eldritch language after mutilating the new Jack O'Lantern.

Venom was subdued by Rex Strickland, who recruited Eddie to rescue a team of symbiote-augmented supersoldiers created during the Vietnam War. When Venom liberated the Sym-Soldiers, he discovered they were being controlled by the same malevolent force affecting the Venom symbiote, and unwittingly unleashed the symbiote-dragon from his nightmares.^[137]

After a short skirmish, Venom teamed up with Spider-Man (Miles Morales) to fight the symbiote dragon, subduing it with one of Miles' Venom Blasts. However, a humanoid entity manifested itself from the symbiote-dragon, introducing himself as Knull - an abyssal god who had created the symbiotes billions of years ago.^[18] Knull's avatar attempted to assimilate the Venom symbiote into the Grendel, showing Eddie the true history of the symbiotes and declaring his intent to conquer the universe. Eddie reclaimed the Venom symbiote and escaped with help from Miles, though its contact with Knull's avatar had unlocked new abilities - such as the ability to manifest a set of draconic wings. Venom confronted Rex, who revealed himself to be Tyrannosaurus - the symbiote that had once been bonded to the real Rex Strickland - and informed him that Knull was hunting him. In order to become strong enough to stop Knull, Eddie merged the Tyrannosaurus symbiote with the Venom symbiote. Using an arsenal of high-tech anti-symbiote weapons, Eddie weakened Knull's avatar enough for the Tyrannosaurus symbiote to sacrifice itself immolating the Grendel symbiote using a blast furnace; but the intense heat severely injured the Venom symbiote.^[138]

Eddie's body was found by soldiers working for the Maker while obtaining a surviving sample of the Grendel symbiote. The Venom symbiote - reduced to a seemingly mindless feral state - took over Eddie and eluded capture for three weeks, eventually resurfacing on Carl Brock's doorstep. Carl allowed the Maker's soldiers to capture Eddie, and for the following two weeks, Eddie was repeatedly interrogated, suffering from partial amnesia due to the seemingly braindead symbiote instinctively erasing traumatic memories,^[139] like the death of Flash Thompson.^[140] Escaping from the Maker, Eddie resolved to face his inner demons and make something better of himself, returning to San Francisco hoping to make amends with his father. A violent confrontation ensued where Eddie learned that Carl had replaced him with a younger son named Dylan, and he fled after the Venom symbiote tried to eat Carl in retaliation for him punching Eddie.

Dylan tracked down Eddie - whose cancer had seemingly resurfaced - and revealed that Carl was physically abusive towards him, Eddie agreeing to help him before passing out after having a hallucination of Dylan turning into Knull. Taken to a hospital in a coma, Eddie interrogated the symbiote and learned that it was pretending to have been braindead, that his sister Mary and uncle Dan had never existed - having been false memories inserted by the symbiote in order to manipulate him, and that the symbiote had been responsible for him developing cancer by altering his biochemistry.^[141] Eddie realized that Dylan wasn't his half-brother but his son, and - furious at this betrayal - told the Maker to separate him from the symbiote; but was knocked unconscious and awakened to find it had rescued Dylan as an act of redemption before departing to parts unknown.^[142]

Eddie returned to New York with Dylan in tow, and as the War of the Realms broke out around them he was approached by of Malekith's war-witches, who offered Eddie a dreamstone and the power to keep himself and his loved ones safe in exchange for him serving Malekith. Despite Dylan's misgivings, Eddie took the dreamstone - which manifested an artificial symbiote from dark elf magic - and promptly turned on the war-witch. Eddie set out to help protect innocents from Malekith's invasion, discovering that the dreamstone symbiote fed off his negative emotions, and used his considerable rage to fuel his new suit at the risk of going berserk. Attacked by Jack O'Lantern, who had also been given a dreamstone by the war witch, Eddie adapted the dreamstone symbiote into a Venomized suit of Asgardian armor but realized that the war witch and Jack O'Lantern would continue hounding him until he succumbed to his rage and the dreamstone's corruption. Eddie used the dreamstone symbiote to empower civilians in the line of fire and help them escape, then defeated Jack O'Lantern with a bolt of mystical lightning -- causing him to drop his dreamstone. Eddie spared Jack, discarded his dreamstone, and returned to Rex's bunker to wait out the War of the Realms alongside his son.^[143]

Learning that Cletus Kasady had been reanimated by Knull and bonded to the sample of the Grendel, Eddie reluctantly rebonded to the Venom symbiote. Easily overpowered by the new-and-improved Dark Carnage, Eddie barely escaped and sought Spider-Man's help. When Peter reluctantly agreed, Eddie discovered the Maker had set up shop in Rex Strickland's warehouse and built a machine to extract codices. With Spider-Man refusing to let the Maker use his godson, Normie Osborn - a former host of the Carnage symbiote - as a test subject, they set out to Ravencroft to retrieve Norman Osborn only to find that Cletus had laid a trap for them by infecting John Jameson with an offshoot of his symbiote. Cletus used his deific symbiote to turn Ravencroft's inmates into a horde of four-armed monsters and bonded Norman to another offshoot to turn him into a duplicate of Cletus' original Carnage form. As Dark Carnage unleashed his horde on the city, Venom and Spider-Man set out to save as many former symbiote hosts as they could find. Tracking down the Scorpion, whose fight with Miles Morales had been interrupted by Carnage's horde, Venom was unable to stop the Carnage-ized Osborn from rendering Gargan a paraplegic or infecting Miles with an offshoot of the Dark Carnage symbiote. Narrowly escaping with Gargan, Venom returned to Rex's warehouse to discover that the Maker had fled and Bruce Banner had completed the machine, dubbed the S.C.I.T.H.E. While the heroes had their codices extracted, Dark Carnage and his horde attacked and the Venom symbiote left Eddie to bond to Banner, who transformed into a Venomized version of the Savage Hulk. Taking up a Jury gauntlet and Captain America's shield, Eddie freed Miles from his symbiote and learned that Dark Carnage planned to assimilate the Venom symbiote and attain apotheosis. Arriving too late to stop him, Eddie bonded to a gestalt of the extracted codices and killed Cletus with a Necrosword, absorbing both the Venom and Dark Carnage symbiotes - unleashing Knull in the process.^[144]

Staying at Liz Allan's house, Eddie was offered a spot of the Avengers' roster but discovered that the Dark Carnage symbiote had survived and been indwelled by Cletus' consciousness. Returning to the Isla de Huesos, Eddie attempted to negotiate with Carnage, who assimilated the Venom symbiote and tried to take over Eddie's body to finish what he'd started. Eddie managed to free the Venom symbiote but was taken over by Carnage, though Dylan - revealed to be a symbiote-human hybrid with powers similar to Knull's - remote-piloted the Venom symbiote to rescue his father.^[145] Eddie subsequently told the Avengers about Knull, leaving them furious at him and exacerbating his self-loathing at having doomed the universe to save his son. Venom was attacked by Virus, a vigilante clad in a suit of War Machine armor modified to kill symbiotes, but fended him off.^[146] Worried about Dylan's powers, Eddie took him to see the Maker and discovered he'd bonded to a synthetic symbiote from Earth-1610 and built an interdimensional portal. Virus attacked and destabilized the portal, warping him, Venom, and Dylan to Earth-1051 - a world where Eddie Brock had committed suicide, Anne Weying had become Venom, and Dylan Brock had become Knull's apostle Codex. Despite some tension, Eddie and Dylan allied with Anne and helped restore Codex's humanity, unmasking Virus as Mac Gargan - who blamed Eddie for being paralyzed by Carnage - and imprisoning him.^[147]

Spending a year on Earth-1051,^[26] Eddie and Dylan returned to Earth-616 to prepare for Knull's invasion, helping the Avengers and Earth's other heroes come up with a plan. When Knull and his horde of symbiote-dragons easily overpowered Earth's mightiest heroes, Venom offered to serve the dark god in exchange for Earth being spared. Knull refused, ripped the Venom symbiote off Eddie, and killed him by throwing him from the top of the Empire State Building.^[148] Eddie's consciousness was preserved in the Symbiote Hive-Mind as a codex, where he was reunited with Rex Strickland and Flash Thompson.^[149] With Dylan and Thor freeing the heroes taken over by Knull's symbiotes, Eddie, Rex, and Flash infiltrated the core of the Hive Mind and freed captured symbiotes who'd been severed from Knull's control. When Flash bonded to one and was incarnated as a symbiote-dragon, Knull took over Rex's symbiote and attacked Eddie. The Venom symbiote broke free from Knull's control and rebonded to Eddie's codex, incarnating as a gigantic version of Venom. Before they could attack Knull, Eddie was resurrected by the God of Light, Knull's ancient nemesis and polar opposite.^[150] Transformed into a cosmic version of Venom, Eddie fused Mjolnir and the Silver Surfer's Surfboard into a battle-axe and easily overpowered Knull, ripping off his symbiote and flying him into the core of the Sun before destroying his physical body. Using the God of Light's power, Eddie destroyed Dylan's symbiote half to prevent Knull from taking over him, and was imbued with a measure of Knull's power - becoming the nexus of the Symbiote Hive.^[6] Sensing Carnage had resurfaced, Eddie used his new control of the symbiote hive-mind to direct a group of symbiotes freed from Knull's control to devour Carnage.^[151]

Moving his family into a house purchased by Tony Stark, Eddie began spending most of his time interfaced with the Hive, which let him remote pilot any symbiote with its consent. Eddie began using this to repair the damage Knull had wrought and maintain peace across the universe. However, the strain of being the new King in Black took a toll on Eddie's still-mortal body, causing him to rapidly age over the course of a few months. Meeting with various heroes and heroic organizations via symbiote avatars, Eddie warned the Avengers, Quiet Council of Krakoa, Guardians of the Galaxy, and other gods and cosmic beings of the Maker's plan to conquer Earth-616 and turn it into a copy of Earth-1610. Learning that Dylan had bonded to the Venom symbiote, Eddie gave them his blessing to operate as Venom.^[36]

The Absent Throne

First Codex Iteration: King In Black

Eddie began spending weeks at a time connected to the Hive-Mind but received a cryptic message from the future that his tenure as the King in Black would be short-lived and that his son and the Venom symbiote were in danger. Returning to Earth, Eddie attempted to ascertain the nature of this threat from the future by using the Hive-Mind to project his consciousness into the future, learning that his son was being targeted by an organization called the Absent Throne. Before Eddie could relay this information to Dylan - who had been lured to his location as part of a trap set by the Absent Throne - he was killed when struck by a missile fired by soldiers working for Absent Throne. While Eddie's charred bones were collected by the Absent Throne's troops and taken to their headquarters, his codex was pulled through the timestream and incarnated as a symbiote millions of years in the future, being greeted by a horned humanoid entity called Meridius - unbeknownst to Eddie the leader of the Absent Throne.^[29] Feigning benevolence, Meridius introduced Eddie to the other Kings in Black stranded at the Garden of Time. Eddie intervened when the vicious symbiote Bedlam attacked Finnegan when he tried to warn Eddie of something but was unable to stop Bedlam from taking Finnegan. Confused and angry, Eddie confronted Meridius, who dismissed his concerns and left him in the care of Tyro.^[37] Frustrated and panicking after a vision of Dylan being attacked by Bedlam, Eddie time-jumped to the 602nd century, piloting a weaponized symbiote dubbed Warstar, a vassal of Kang the Conqueror. Confused by Kang claiming they were old friends, Eddie reluctantly agreed to study time-travel under him -- unaware that Kang was working for Meridius.^[152]

Second Codex Iteration: Finnegan

Having undergone Kang's training, Eddie tapped into the Timestream attempting to change the past, only to set in motion the very events he'd been trying to prevent.^[153] Trapped at Bedlam's mindspace, he witnessed as his fellow King in Black attempted to murder his son; to make matters worse, Bedlam revealed his true identity to be Eddie himself. Horribly traumatized by what he saw, Eddie's codex was pulled back into the Garden of Time in the form of the King in Black "Finnegan". Confronting Eddie, Meridius explained that he was stuck in a time-loop and that all the other Kings in Black - including Meridius himself - were future versions of himself. Eddie refused to believe it until he witnessed the time-loop in action, coming across his newly-arrived past self with the other Kings in Black. "Finnegan" tried to warn his past self, only for Bedlam to appear and repeat that very same scene Eddie had witnessed earlier. As Bedlam attempted to devour Finnegan in order to erase them and the other Kings from existence, Meridius appeared and persuaded him to return to the past to fight Dylan, arguing this would make the boy stronger, which could help him defeat Meridius in the boy's future. As Meridius gloated that he was inevitable, Finnegan however, remembered Meridius explaining there were seven junctions at the Garden, one for each King in Black; as there were six present, Finnegan realized that beyond Meridius there was another Venom.^[16]

Dark Web

On the verge of transforming into Bedlam, Eddie learned from Wilde that Dylan wouldn't die from Bedlam's attack and that he could travel between dimensions as well as through time. Ending up in Limbo, Eddie agreed to help the Goblin Queen and Chasm in their plans in exchange for them helping him reunite with Dylan,^[17] but Chasm ripped out Eddie's memories to brainwash him into being easier to manipulate, causing him to revert to his old villainous self and attack Spider-Man.^{[154][155][15]}

After battling Spider-Man, Eddie was sent to attack Krakoa's Manhattan headquarters as a distraction for Hallows' Eve to steal a portable Cerebro Unit containing a copy of Jean Grey's mind.^[156] Coming into conflict with Synch, Eddie abruptly realized he wasn't bonded to the Venom symbiote and was informed that he was a King in Black and that his memories had been altered.

Third Codex Iteration: Bedlam

Confused and angry, Eddie fled -- blaming Spider-Man for his predicament -- and was consumed by rage, transforming into Bedlam and vowing to hunt down the one who had stolen the Venom symbiote from him.^[15] Battling Dylan,^[17] the new Red Goblin, and Ms. Marvel Bedlam was almost vanquished when his son transformed into Codex but was healed by Meridius and rescued by Madelyne - who apologized for having damaged his mind.^[157] Bedlam vented his rage on the demons of Limbo, but was teleported away through a portal when he attacked Chasm -- who had usurped Madelyne's throne.^[158] Plunged into the depths of Limbo, Bedlam was attacked by a trio of demons infected by the Transmode Virus and infected himself. Tapping into his King in Black powers to become immune, Bedlam devoured one of the demons before being confronted by the cyborg demon Darkoth from a point in time where he still ruled Limbo.

Outcome: Bedlam Loses

Due to the twisted nature of time in Limbo, a split in the timeline occurred where both possible outcomes of the battle became realized.^[159] In one outcome of Bedlam's duel with Darkoth, Bedlam was cut down by Darkoth's Soulsword and Eddie's codex jettisoned from the symbiote matter it was inhabiting, giving birth to a new symbiote that latched on to Darkoth, seized control of his body and attacked Asgard.^[159][22] Eddie's codex was plunged into the depths of the Symbiote Hive-Mind, where he encountered the Seventh Iteration of himself in the form of Venom's severed hand.^[159][160] In the other outcome, Bedlam killed Darkoth and returned to the Garden of Time to continue the time loop that led to Meridius.^[159]

The version of Eddie who had lost the fight arrived in the Un-Beyond, where he met the Eventuality, the inevitable outcome of his branching timeline as the King in Black. The Eventuality revealed that Eddie's timeline had split in Limbo, the purpose of the King in Black was to maintain the universe from within via time travel, and that Eddie could manipulate his own body the way he could a symbiote. Reinvigorated, Eddie resolved to jump into his own corpse, reunite with Dylan, and kick his own ass.^[24] He successfully reanimated his corpse and escaped the Absent Throne's lab, then stole a motorcycle and drove to Baywater. Arriving there, he found that the Bedlam who would have become Meridius had taken over the town, with the Hell Hounds as his enforcers. Fighting through the Hell Hounds, he confronted Bedlam and prepared to fight him.^[27] After a brief scuffle, Eddie uses his entire nervous system to latch onto Bedlam and subsequently interface with his temporal duplicate's mind. The two then resume the fight in their shared mindscape. Eddie berated Bedlam, and by extension his past self, for being a one-dimensional monster who did nothing but cause pain to himself and others; completely dominating Bedlam before bonding with him in the real world, resulting in Eddie transforming into a red, four-armed form resembling the one he'd held while indwelling Warstar.^[161]

The Royal Rumble

The two set off for Latveria with plans to use Doctor Doom's Time Platform to return to the Garden in their current bodies and change their past. A fight broke out when Doom refused to share, and they repeatedly damaged the controls to the Platform, sending the fight to different eras in time.^[162] They first stopped in the Cretaceous period, where Meridius attacked them in the form of a T. rex, then moved on to World War II. Eddie and Bedlam called on Flexo to protect civilians while Doom slaughtered Nazi occupiers, but realized with horror that they had stopped Flexo from killing Adolf Hitler and ending the war early. Doom refused to stop their past selves from interfering because he recognized that this had always happened in their timeline, and they next went to the early Heroic Age. Separated from Doom when the Time Platform exploded in the upper atmosphere, Eddie encountered the teenaged Peter Parker not long after he'd become Spider-Man. Talking with Peter, Eddie became disillusioned with his credo after realizing that Peter--who he'd come to idolize as his role model--had never held the answers regarding how to be a hero. Offering a truce, Doom took Eddie and Bedlam to one of Kang's ships so they could borrow a time machine from him instead. After a short fight with Kang's temporal duplicates, he agreed and lent them Rosebed II. Travelling to the Garden of Time, Eddie and Bedlam crashed it onto Meridius during the fight in the Garden, but back on the Nathaniel Kang explained to Doom that their time-jump had just made a separate version of the Garden and their pasts were unchanged.^[163]

Eddie immediately attacked his first iteration, blaming him for dooming them all to the timeloop. Bedlam's duplicate attacked, the original version unbonding with Eddie for them to discuss who the "real" Bedlam was. Finnegan assisted Eddie to get up, and as Tyro and Wilde discussed that they weren't trapped anymore in the loop, a disillusioned Tyro attacked Eddie as he still wanted to become Meridius. Finnegan immobilized Tyro, giving Eddie time to turn his hand into claws and chop his head. As Space Venom and Tyro returned, Eddie prepared to fight them again only for Meridius' duplicate to appear and control the Garden as his own body. Things would turn worse as Carnage ripped through his symbiote matter and absorbed his powers, seemingly killing him. As Space Venom prepared to attack, Carnage ripped his heart and destroyed his codex. As Eddie prepared to fight him, Carnage declared he "killed" Dylan and he was next.^[164] During the ensuing fight, Carnage showed him a vision Meridius' final plans to Venom and its future, turning the symbiote into Venomworld, making Eddie explode like a balloon. Finnegan and Bedlam's duplicate were killed and, not long after he and Meridius recomposed themselves, Carnage used All-Blood, a emulation of All-Black, to destroy entirely the Garden, throwing them into the Timestream.^[165]

In the timestream, Meridius blamed Eddie for the destruction of the Garden. However, their other iterations turned against Meridius as now they've seen through his lies and are not caged anymore. Even Tyro turned against him as he's no longer the "winning side". The four other Kings ripped off his symbiote matter and assimilated it, throwing his conscience in the late cretaceous period, thinking they've killed him. Eddie discussed with his alters the future he saw of Venomworld and that they have to return to the present to reclaim Venom so that future don't come to pass, showing distrust with Carnage's claim it killed Dylan. Electing himself leader, the other three agree and prepared to return to the present.^[166]

Venom War

Eddie and his iterations jumped into the Grand Garden Arena, Eddie facing a symbiote possessed wrestler. As they subdued the rest of them, they hijacked the arena and he spoke through the microphone they were taking it over until Eddie got Dylan and the Venom symbiote. As Eddie discoursed, he announced the Venom War. As Dylan furtively arrived with his team, composed of Sleeper, Toxin, Flexo and Normie Osborn, both he and Dylan had a discussion, his son revealing he didn't had Venom anymore and he knows their deeds, along with Dylan learning of Venom's future as Venomworld. When Eddie asked where Venom was, Spider-Man arrived as its current host.^[167]

Spider-Man set a grouding rule of "costume names only", Eddie asking why he was wearing his. Peter revealed his discussion with Venom and how it feel it wont do any good with Dylan, not to mention Eddie himself doesn't seeming as a safe pair of hands either. Instead, he offered himself as a safe third way to avoid both terrible futures from happening should Eddie or Dylan be with the symbiote. Feeling betrayed by both Peter and Venom, Eddie merged with Bedlam as he declared his costume name and prepared to fight Peter, to the point of eating Wilde and Tyro only for a power-up. As the fight escalated, Dylan merged with Flexo and Sleeper. Declaring himself the Prince in Black, he became a contender in the fighting ring.^[168]

As Bedlam prepared to attack, Eddie unbonded with him and offered Dylan a truce, as he didn't want to hurt his son. However, Flexo, who was persuaded by Doctor Doom to exact vengeance in his name against Eddie and use Dylan as its hand, took control of him and attacked Eddie, whose soul was unaligned with his physical body due to Bedlam's symbiote exposure and couldn't heal. Sleeper tried to stop Flexo but was harmed and unbonded to the symbiote. Rascal, that was created by Kang to the purpose to disrupt Doom's vengeance as it would eventually prejudice his war, seized control of Normie and took Flexo away from the Arena. Dylan became desparate as he saw his father at the brink of death. Spider-Man, who was still fighting Bedlam as the amnesiac Eddie still attacked him, and Venom realized both Eddie and Dylan still needed the symbiote. Peter just saw a future in which he kept Venom and became a King in Black; realizing he's no safe pair of hands either, he bonded both of them with the Venom symbiote, them retaking their old aliases as Codex and Venom as they both being bonded to could neutralize both futures.^[169][170]

Bedlam continued to fight Spider-Man; fortunately, Eddie and Dylan proceeded to neutralize Bedlam by ripping his head with All-Black. Bedlam continued to pilot his headless body but the fight was interrupted by the arrival of Agent Anti-Venom, who released Anti-Venom webs onto Bedlam, presumably killing him once and for all. As Spider-Man needed to stop Arachniote, he asked for a portion of the Venom symbiote. As Eddie didn't like the idea of separating the symbiote through long distances, he denied. Spider-Man understood and went on his way to save Mary Jane. As Flash complained he didn't had time to warn him about the Zombiotes, a confused Eddie asked about it only to be interrupted as they arrived inside the arena and infected the commentators and cornered them. Dylan learned through the Venom symbiote that Meridius is Eddie from a possible future and, as they discussed and Eddie apologized, Dylan suggested using the Anti-Venom and Eddie's King in Black powers to cure the Zombiotes. Eddie agreed and, since the Anti-Venom has traces of Eddie's DNA he can still control as his own flesh despite not being a "real" symbiote, he unbonded the Anti-Venom from Flash, using his remnants to revive him as a full human once again. Now Anti-Venom once again, he spreaded a wave through the Hive-Mind to cure the Zombiotes. Observing this, Meridius, who formed an alliance with the Carnage symbiote, obtained All-Blood and merged it to his King in Black powers to corrupt the wave and turn the Zombiotes into Carnage, including the Anti-Venom itself, forming an appearance similar to Knull's armor. Seeing no other way to end this, Dylan used All-Black to impale Eddie, seemingly killing him.^[171]

Fortunately, this only rendered Eddie a normal human, losing his black spider emblem. However, Meridius appeared and tried to stab Dylan with All-Blood. An alternate future version of Dylan created a weapon called Eganrac, and imbued past Dylan with it, making Venom assume a golden form. Eddie tried to restrain Meridius during their fight but was stabbed and taken away by the Zombiotes; Dylan used this distraction to impale him with All-Blood, killing him. After the war was over and the zombiotes dissolved, Eddie was approached by a dying Carnage symbiote, offering itself to bond with him and allowing Eddie to set the terms of their deal.^[172]

By his own admission, Eddie was never a particularly functional or mentally adjusted man, though he frequently made efforts to better himself.^[173][174] Obsessed with and desperate for success, as a child and into his adulthood he stole and lied in order to get the acknowledgement he desperately craved and further his career.^[41] His self-loathing and obsession with protecting the innocent stem from a traumatic incident where he accidentally killed a young child as a teenager, which his father went to extreme lengths to cover up - including brutally beating him when he announced his intent to plead guilty.^[40] Despite excelling academically and becoming a successful journalist, Eddie was never able to impress his father.^[42] Eddie possesses a great deal of intense rage, owing to the various traumatic and humiliating experiences he has endured over the course of his life.^[175] After the Sin Eater incident and bonding with the symbiote, Eddie focused this rage on Spider-Man and was initially obsessed with revenge against him at all cost. Early into his career as Venom he was little better than the criminals he would go on to take down, venting his rage on those unfortunate enough to cross his path, but after a fight with Wolverine he was inspired to use his powers for good - leading to him becoming the Lethal Protector.^[60] His Catholic upbringing significantly influenced his actions, in particular as Anti-Venom, and for a time he came to see himself as having been chosen by God to cleanse Earth of the symbiotes.^[176] However, Eddie's faith was not unshakable, and he would occasionally find himself doubting whether God was listening,^[177] which led him to ultimately abandon his faith.^[32] Eddie also has an odd habit of forming protective bonds to young women such as Beck Underwood, Jenna Cole, and Jubulile van Scotter, using them as a moral compass to guide his actions.

Eddie's attitude towards the symbiotes has changed significantly over the years, though it has been characterized by often-toxic codependency brought about by his fear of being alone, his addiction to their power, and the mutual cycle of rage-induced corruption between symbiote and host. His love-hate relationship with the Venom symbiote is particularly convoluted. Eddie initially refused to believe that the symbiote could have a negative influence over him, telling Anne Weying that it could not make anyone do anything they didn't already subconsciously want to.^[76] However, the symbiote's growing bloodlust began to unnerve him,^[178][77] and as its appetite for flesh grew, Eddie came to fear and despise it,^[78][176] considering it a demon that God had sent to punish him for contemplating suicide.^[179] Even before divesting himself of the Venom symbiote, Eddie blamed it for the violent criminal actions he had committed,^{[77][180][54][175]} and after they parted ways he sought to redeem himself as Anti-Venom; though his worsening mental instability and occasional relapses into his Lethal Protector persona hindered this.^[173] When bonded to Toxin, Eddie was initially dominated by the symbiote,^[181] but later worked out a "temporary" truce with it, taking umbrage with Agent Venom's accusation that he was deluding himself and addicted to the power being bonded to a symbiote gave him.^[182] After receiving a lecture from Agent Venom,^[183] Eddie embraced being bonded to Toxin,^[180] and slowly came to acknowledge that the Venom symbiote had not been solely responsible for the crimes he committed as Venom.^[174][175] Following his return to New York, Eddie's attitude towards the Venom symbiote had taken a complete 180, as he not only possessively referred to it as his "darling" but enacted a complex plan to reunite with it.^[31] Despite living without a symbiote for some extended periods of time, Eddie's greatest fear is being alone,^[184] and that without the symbiote's voice in his head he will go insane.^[4]

Despite reuniting with the symbiote, Eddie refused to relapse into his Lethal Protector mindset, determined to go straight and become a true super hero. The symbiote's re-corruption and renewed proclivity for violence, coupled with its volatile obsession with staying bonded to him, led Eddie to question his decision to reunite with it.^[32] However, Eddie resolved to stay bonded to it and find a way to help it recover.^[185][186] This magnanimity does not extend to non-humans, as he was willing to eat a Deviant Mutate to satiate the symbiote's hunger, devoured an alien he'd noticed spying on him and the Young X-Men,^[128] and wanted to eat Tel-Kar for what he'd done to the Venom symbiote.^[187] Even without the symbiote, Eddie bit off the hand of one of Malekith's war witches after receiving the dreamstone simulacrum "Magic Venom" symbiote, and devoured a chunk out of a frost giant.^[175]

Despite their rivalry, Eddie and Spider-Man eventually developed a sufficient degree of begrudging mutual respect that Eddie was willing to let Spider-Man bond to the Venom symbiote in order to even the odds against the Red Goblin.^[19] Eddie also showed that he had developed a sufficient degree of respect for Flash Thompson after their battle against Maniac, as seen by his attending the fallen soldier's funeral;^[19] begrudgingly acknowledging Flash as having been a badass Venom despite his jealousy over the symbiote's remaining affection towards him.^[139] This led to a mutual respect when they both meet each other at the Symbiote Hive-Mind, Flash saying it meant a lot to him and that Eddie was a hero too.^[188] Eddie and Peter finally put their differences aside for good and became friends/allies in order to stop Carnage from freeing Knull.^[189] Eddie would later express regret over trying to kill Peter in the past.^[20]

Traumatized by Meridius' machinations, Eddie had chunks of his memory ripped out by Ben Reilly, reverting him to his bloodthirsty revenge-obsessed state. Consumed by rage, Eddie further devolved into Bedlam, his bloodlust and hatred comparable to Carnage.^[16] As Bedlam, Eddie held a special hatred for his prior iteration "Finnegan" and the first iteration of himself to arrive at the Garden of Time, attempting to devour them on-sight to erase himself and the others from existence; and also despised his future self Meridius for his part in orchestrating the time-loop.^[16] While initially unaware of their connection due to his memories being altered,^[15] Bedlam was contemptuous towards Dylan and the Venom symbiote for being weak, brutally attacking and torturing them out of the belief that physical and emotional suffering would make them strong enough to defeat Meridius.^[16] As Eddie escaped the timeloop, he gradually recovered his memories and was guided by his seventh iteration, the Eventuality, returning to his old persona to save his son.^[24]

Expert Reporter: Before his bonding with the symbiote, Eddie Brock was an incredibly skilled reporter for the Daily Globe and knew how to investigate. He also had many sources of information that aided him in helping with his plans.

Expert Marksman: Eddie is an expert marksman, as shown when he was hunting symbiotes^[201] and taking down Maniac's men.^[125]

Skilled Hand-to-Hand Combatant: Although he's had no proper training, Eddie is a formidable hand-to-hand combatant when using symbiotes.

Skilled Symbiote Hunter: Even though he is only human, Eddie has been able to take on and defeat several symbiotes. This was shown when he killed Scream and Hybrid while using advanced and normal weaponry.^[201]

Mental Instability: Eddie has been repeatedly shown relapsing into his unstable "lethal protector" mindset. As both Anti-Venom and Toxin, he reverted back to this persona, killing criminals just as offhandedly as when he was Venom. He is also addicted to the power bestowed upon him by being bonded to a symbiote, which has caused drastic shifts in his personality.^{[182][180][31]}

Sonic and Heat: The Venom symbiote, like all others of its kind, is extremely vulnerable to heat and sonic based attacks. They can cause the symbiote physical pain and discomfort, whereas "more powerful" attacks might be completely ineffective.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Eddie developed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) following his encounters with Knull.^[40]

Venom mainly fights using the fangs and claws granted to him by the symbiote. He can shape his limbs into various weapons, though this is not an ability he utilizes frequently, unlike his "son" Carnage.

• Despite Venom making a oath to himself and fellow allies (such as Spider-Man) to never take an innocent life and remain a vigilante of justice, Eddie Brock broke this oath at least three times in the past: he murdered a young and innocent nurse by stabbing the woman several times with a knife in a fit of rage and despair when he was terminally ill with cancer, nearly killed Aunt May when she was hospitalized but stopped after coming to his senses,^[102] and also killed a police officer and a maximum security prison guard by suffocating them with his symbiote.^[7][42][205]
• Despite the common belief that Eddie did not indulge in cannibalism during his original tenure as Venom and that Mac Gargan was the first and only host to do so, there have been several incidents where Eddie engaged in cannibalism, alluded to having done so, seriously attempted to do so, or otherwise used his symbiotes' fanged jaws to kill or maim opponents in combat:
  • In Iron Man #302, Venom bit off the head of an android body-double of Tony Stark, believing it to be the real Tony. After being repelled by Iron Man, Venom voiced his intent to eat Tony if he didn't satisfactorily prove his innocence.
  • Venom killed one of the Sunrise Society's High-Tech Ninja in Venom: The Mace #3 by biting down on his head.
  • Venom attempted to eat the third Sin-Eater in Venom: Sinner Takes All #3, stopping when he realized he was biting into a dummy.
  • Venom ate a man's brain while under the influence of the Venom symbiote in Venom: The Hunger #1, after which Eddie was revolted by the symbiote's carnivorous appetite and stated that he'd never intended his frequent threats of cannibalism as anything more than a joke.
  • After sustaining mild amnesia and relapsing into villainy, Venom declared his intent to actually carry through with his threats of cannibalism while fighting Spider-Man, ate a chunk of the Sandman, and attempted to eat Spider-Man before being driven off by a lighter in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #16.
  • Venom attempted to eat Spider-Man while under the influence of Kulan Gath in Spider-Man / Red Sonja #2, using an attack resembling his "Venom Predate" Forward-Heavy move from the Marvel vs. Capcom series. After breaking free of Gath's control, Venom attempted to eat the sorcerer and licked his blood off his claws after scratching him in Spider-Man / Red Sonja #3.
  • While bonded to the Toxin symbiote, Eddie bit off Megatak's head in Venom (Vol. 2) #21 and devoured two symbiote slayer-infected individuals in Venom (Vol. 2) #34 and Venom (Vol. 2) #35.
  • Both Cullen Bunn and Mike Costa have implied in Venom (Vol. 2) #35, Venom #157, and Venom #158 that Eddie had succumbed to the Venom symbiote's hunger off-panel on other occasions; with Costa having intended for Venom to eat people during his run but having been unable to fit it in beyond the symbiote desiring to devour people as its corruption worsened and attempting to do so while berserk.^{[206][207][122][208][209]}
  • In Poison-X, Eddie threatened to eat Beast's brain but was rebuked by the symbiote, which had been cleansed of its corruption. Later, Eddie attempted to eat Haze Mancer but was ironically stopped by the symbiote and the time-displaced X-Men.^[129]
  • In David Michelinie's story for Venom (Vol. 4) #25, "Paradise Interrupted", Eddie references eating people to feed the symbiote and laments that the arms dealers' corpses - which he refers to as "fresh meat" - were buried when the island's mine collapsed.

• In the book Comic Creators on Spider-Man, David Michelinie revealed that when creating a new character to be bonded to the symbiote, his original idea was for the villain to be a woman. Her origin would be that she was pregnant and about to give birth, and her husband ran into the street to flag down a taxi in order to go to the hospital. However, the taxi driver was distracted by a sighting of Spider-Man and accidentally ran over the husband, killing him. This caused the woman to go into labour, losing her baby and her sanity. Eventually she would regain her sanity but have a deep hatred for Spider-Man, and the symbiote would bond to her in order to get revenge on Spider-Man - which is why the hands that shove Peter Parker in front of a train in Web of Spider-Man #18 and grab his ankle in Web of Spider-Man #24 resemble a woman's. This idea, however, was rejected by Jim Salicrup, who stated that a woman wasn't threatening enough to make a serious super villain.
• After Cletus Kasady, Eddie Brock is the human who has bonded with the most symbiotes, having been bonded to Venom, assimilated the original Carnage symbiote^[88] and Mania through Venom,^[210] Anti-Venom,^[2] Toxin,^[5] Tyrannosaurus merged with Venom,^[211] Sleeper,^[4] Dark Carnage,^[212] and a gestalt symbiote formed from amalgamated codices.^[213]
• Eddie believed that Spider-Man 2099 stole his costume design from him.^[214]
• According to Sensational Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #38, Eddie was only twenty-two years old when he was fired from the Daily Globe and bonded to the Venom symbiote.
• According to a 2021 interview with CBR, Venom's series of miniseries in the 1990s arose as a compromise between Marvel executives who disliked the character but wanted to capitalize on the character's runaway popularity as an antihero. Furthermore, according to Flavio Sette, Venom's reversion to villainy in the late 1990s and early 2000s was due the miniseries' decline in sales.^[215]
• During his Venom run starring Flash Thompson, writer Cullen Bunn originally planned for Eddie Brock to take the clone of the Venom symbiote with the Hell-Mark, becoming a second hellish version of Venom. However, since Eddie was bonded to Toxin around that time and he decided they could stay together longer, Bunn decided to keep the plot point, but introduce Andi Benton to become the symbiote clone's host instead.^[216]
• In Rick Remender and Cullen Bunn's plans for their prospective "War of the Symbiotes" arc in Venom Vol. 3, Eddie Brock was planned to sacrifice himself to stop the Toxin symbiote when it went "into heat" and began producing countless spores that would result in a worldwide plague of symbiotes -- the "Spawning" event alluded to in Venom (Vol. 2).^[217]
• For Eddie Brock's return as Venom starting with Venom (Vol. 3) #6, the character's exaggerated musculature and more monstrous features were toned down in favor of a look which called back to his earliest appearances. The monstrous aspects have instead been used thematically as a visual cue to reflect the symbiote's mental state.^[218]
• Eddie is a fan of Frank Sinatra^[59] and Rolling Stones.^[219]
• Eddie was raised as a devout Catholic - disparaging the notion of gods aside from the Abrahamic one as blasphemy and even developed a messiah complex after becoming Anti-Venom.^{[41][220][176]} Feeling abandoned by God, Eddie eventually came to question his faith,^[177] and eventually forsook it.^[32] However, Eddie is not a true atheist as he currently acknowledges the existence of gods such as Thor and Knull.^[3][184] While falling from the Empire State Building, Eddie prayed to the Abrahamic God to protect Dylan, showing that, while forsaking his faith, he still believes in God and doesn't want to simply discard his beliefs.^[8]
• Eddie likes dogs.^[175]
• He follows the paternal family tradition of not putting ketchup on hotdogs.^[221]
• While Eddie was able to wield Mjolnir, he was not considered worthy as he was only able to lift it due to Mjolnir's enchantment being broken and Eddie having been bonded to Captain Universe.^[6]
• According to Black Cat, there was no grace in Eddie's web-slinging. He didn't swing with finesse, focusing rather on preventing himself from falling.^[222]