VENOM

 

VENOM

Real Name: Edward Charles Allan Brock

First Appearance: Web of Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #18, September 1986 (as Eddie Brock); The Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #299, April 1988 (as Venom)

Powers: Edward "Eddie" Brock became Venom after he was bonded to the Symbiote alien costume that Spider-Man brought back from the Secret Wars. The Symbiotes are a bloodthirsty but otherwise emotionless race composed of viscous protoplasm. They graft onto the adrenal and nervous system of other beings, using them as hosts. Symbiotes reproduce asexually by budding once per generation.

The Symbiote is capable of mimicking many of his abilities. While wearing the costume, Venom possessed Spider-Man's superhuman strength, speed, agility, endurance, and reflexes, added to amplify his own existing physical abilities. As a result, Eddie Brock's Olympic-level strength was added to Spider-Man's Class 10 strength, allowing him to lift roughly 20,700 lbs. as opposed to Parker's roughly 20,000 lbs. When the Symbiote was extended over his hands and feet, it allowed him to stick to objects and climb walls just as Spider-Man does. It protected him from physical injury as well, absorbing kinetic impact to insulate him from harm. At times, it even proved capable of stopping bullets before they penetrated to hit Brock's own body. Long-term symbiosis also increased Brock's natural strength and healing abilities, even when the Symbiote was not directly working for him. The Symbiote was highly vulnerable to flame and certain sonic frequencies, though.The Symbiote itself is capable of altering its appearance, most often to duplicate the look of normal clothing. Though its default state is a one-pieced bodysuit, the Symbiote can reform itself in multiple articles of clothing at once: Shirt, pants, socks, shoes, trench coat, etc. It can also create other effects, such as rendering him invisible by blending in to the environment, opaquing his eye-slits to avoid being blinded, faking his death with a layer of false skin that hides his pulse, synthetic masks which can disguise his appearance as someone else, and his fangs and prehensile tongue. Venom can extend his costume to create organic tendrils, prehensile and responding to his thoughts. These tendrils possess his full strength, allowing him to lift heavy objects with them, snap someone's neck, or crush their skull by wrapping a series of filaments around their head and squeezing. The costume's material is self-regenerating but finite, meaning he can only extend a tentacle out a few feet before his costume begins to lose its integrity, like unraveling a shirt by pulling on a single thread. Venom can also produce organic webbing, duplicating Spider-Man's web-shooting in much the same way as he creates his tendrils. Brock was in constant psychic contact with his Symbiote, apparently governed by an empathic bond which transmitted impressions more than vocal commands. The costume was capable of relaying visual and tactile information directly to Eddie, so Venom could still "see" his surroundings even if Spider-Man blinded his human eyes with webbing, literally had "eyes" in the back of his head, and the costume senses everything that comes into contact with it, meaning Spider-Man couldn't secretly plant a spider-tracer on them. The Symbiote was also capable of neutralizing Parker's spider-sense, allowing them to attack Spider-Man without him being warned of the danger. This effect only applied to Venom himself: Spider-Man would still sense a car that Venom throws at him, for instance.

Brock eventually separated permanently from his Symbiote after contracting cancer. The Symbiote passed to Angelo Fortunado for a time, and later MacDonald Gargan, Flash Thompson, and finally to its current host, Lee Price.

Meanwhile, Eddie Brock was transformed into Anti-Venom. Criminal philanthropist Martin Li had been exploiting a curative power down at his FEAST Centers for the homeless, miraculously curing the sick or injured of physical ailments or disease. His touch not only cleansing Brock of terminal cancer but also interacted with the residual Symbiote cells in his system. The Symbiote matter was purged from Eddie's body and transformed into a negatively-colored recreation of the Symbiote itself, creating "Anti-Venom", a living costume made of human/alien hybrid antibodies. This anti-Symbiote now gives Brock all of his former abilities: It can shift between regular clothes or a costumed appearance, extend massive fists, claws, or animated tentacles, spin web-lines, boosts his physical powers, etc. The anti-Symbiote is even immune to Spider-Man's spider-sense. In addition, Anti-Venom is unaffected by flame or sonics, and seems to have no "other" whispering in his mind anymore. He also has curative powers unique to his genesis at Martin Li's touch. He can break down and disperse the original Symbiote, weakening it and causing it to separate from its current host. Brock can also "cleanse" the radiation in Spider-Man's radioactive spider-blood, effectively rendering Peter Parker normal and "curing" him. Spider-Man broke free before the effect was permanent, but would lose his abilities whenever in close proximity to Anti-Venom. Brock can mentally sense the original Symbiote, and detect other factors in need of curing, like the radioactive spider-blood, merely by focusing his attention on someone. The full extent of his curative powers are unclear.

Eddie Brock holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism. He is a former journalist with a skilled acumen for deductive reasoning and investigative tactics.