How Venom Bonded With Everything That Ever Lived

Venom, the parasitic jelly from space that has carved out its own section of the Marvel Comics mythos. The character has been popular since his first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man 360, but recently, the character has exploded into an A-lister. And as an A-lister, writers, and artists have been eager to get their hands on the character so they can share their ideas with the piranha-like fan base that always wants more. One of those stories was Venom: The End, written by Adam Warren with art by Jeffery Cruz. In this futuristic battle for the existence of organic life, Venom managed to bond with everything that ever lived, but how?

 For those of you who aren’t well versed in symbiotes, allow me to educate you, and to those who are, I’ll make it as quick as possible. Venom belongs to an alien species of parasites called Klyntars. Each Klyntar is a fraction of a hive mind, meaning Venom is always connected to his fellow parasites. During Venom’s travels, he found himself on Earth and bonded to Spider-Man. Why Spider-Man? Well, that’s because our Jell-o like friend needs to bond with a host to survive, but the bond isn’t kind to the host. In comics, we typically see a trend in Klyntar hosts to become rash and unstable as the parasite clouds their judgment. For example, when Peter was bonded with Venom, he became more violent and merciless towards his enemies. The bond deteriorated Peter’s control over his mind and actions, causing him to forcibly separate himself from the symbiote (symbiote is the more common word used instead of Klyntar).

After being rejected by Peter, Venom went on to Edie Brock (his main host) and then off to several other hosts over his countless appearances in comics. Even though Venom didn’t stay bonded long with some hosts, he’s always connected with them as he places a piece of himself in their spines called a “codex.” As for Venom, he also takes a piece of the host’s DNA and stores it in his own codex, or tesseract for those “fancy term” lovers. Venom’s codex is his genetic storage and can be used to replicate the genes of previous hosts. We first saw him use this ability to replicate Spider-Man’s powers as he bonded with Eddie, hence the white spider on the chest, web-slinging, and sticky feet. So, as Venom kept living and bonded with new hosts, he kept storing genes and powers as he became a literal breeding factory.

Now, I must warn you. Starting here is where it gets a little hard to follow, but be patient with me. Fast forward a few million years, or was it billions? Ok, it was millions. Anyway, in the far future, Venom is one of the last organic life forms left after he failed to unite the rest of the symbiotes against an advanced AI desiring to wipe out all life. Venom obviously couldn’t defeat this enemy all by himself. I mean, what can an oversized glob of snot do to an incredibly powerful artificial intelligence? Well, he reached into his codex and pulled out a cheat code of course! Much like replicating the powers of Spider-Man, Venom pulled into the deep plethora of DNA stored in his body and pulled out the multiplicative superpowers of the long-dead mutant Jamie Madrox (Multiple Man). Now Venom could make an army of himself, creating thousands of symbiotes that were all connected to him and becoming a new hive mind of sorts, turning our favorite oversized booger into an army of oversized boogers. The Venoms all escape the threat of artificial intelligence and are now hiding in a galaxy far, far away. It’s here where Venom begins to plant himself in worlds (because bonding with a planet is like bonding with a human apparently) and once again dives into the ocean of genetics he possesses and pulls out the biological manipulation ability of Elixir. Using this long-forgotten ability, Venom produces new hosts, becoming the “Meatgardener” who has entire civilizations of new life forms capable of being suitable hosts and have superpowers: such as advanced durability, super strength, enhanced senses, and tons more.

It isn’t long until the artificial intelligence finds the babysitter, threatening to wipe Venom and his hosts out. The alternative to fighting? Everyone dies anyway and is downloaded as constructs, becoming part of the AI. So, Venom was like “f*ck you” (that was actually in the issue) and went to war. He got his ass kicked, though, since the hosts weren’t able to keep up with the superior artificial intelligence. The hosts simply weren’t efficient enough to go toe-to-toe with the literal machines that were their enemies. So, Venom busted out the big guns and produced a new generation of hosts possessing an amplified version of Quicksilver’s super speed. They could keep up, of course, but the cosmic super-speed combat took a huge tole on the hosts, shortening their lifespans to mere seconds.

Venom was losing Billions of hosts and most of his worlds. Becoming desperate, the symbiote pulled out the time-traveling abilities of Tempus and Timeslip as he sent an army of himself into the past. These Venoms went back in time and bonded with everything that ever lived in the cosmos. They bonded to find a new gene to win the war or for any way to prevent the now “God Mind” from ever existing. Venom searched and searched as he bonded with every life tree to exist since the beginning of time only to find nothing. The God Mind was an inevitability in the universe’s destruction, and Venom had become a database of all living life, a literal deity of genetics, but it wasn’t enough. The God Mind was too powerful, so Venom did the only thing left to do. He ripped his tesseract asunder and used the energy expelled to create a new universe, but that’s a story for another day. For now, just know it’s only a matter of time before Venom bonds with you, so get ready for the disgusting ooze that is a symbiote.