Venom #17 sees the fall of Marvel’s new King in Black, but his defeat has actually transformed him into something even more powerful.
Eddie Brock’s journey from disgraced journalist and Lethal Protector to the King in Black has been among the most astonishing of any in the Marvel Universe, yet attaining literal godhood was far from the end of it. Over the past few months, Eddie has come to know his fellow Kings, all future versions of himself, each as inescapable as they are tragic. At least, that was the way things seemed until Eddie’s most recent demise sent him hurtling into an endless void, one where his only guide is Venom.
Venom #17 (by Al Ewing, Cafu, Frank D’Armata, and VC’s Clayton Cowles) finds Eddie deep in the bowels of Limbo after being betrayed by Ben Reilly and Madelyne Pryor. Having transformed into the hulking Bedlam, all Eddie can do is fight when he comes across the demon Darkoth, though not well enough to escape unharmed. After suffering what seems like total annihilation at Darkoth’s hands, Eddie awakens in a vast pool of darkness with no memory of who or where he is. As an ominous voice calls out to him, he follows with a profound sense of longing. Thankfully, everything he needs is now right at his fingertips in the form of an all too recognizable symbiote hand.
Eddie Brock Bonds with Marvel’s Seventh Venom
While Venom has long been known as Eddie’s symbiote alter ego, the past few years have revealed it to be far more than that. In fact, the place all symbiotes and their respective hosts hold in the Marvel Universe was irrevocably altered by the events of King in Black. This might be more true of Eddie than anyone else following his defeat of Knull and ascension to the throne of King in Black as the first in a myriad of iterations of himself to hold the title.
As Eddie recently discovered, his five fellow Kings in Black from Bedlam to Meridius are merely him at different stages in his evolution. Apart from shaking Eddie to his core, this revelation changed everything about the battle he was fighting. Since then, every attempt Eddie made to prevent himself from following those footsteps has pushed him further into them. By finding the fabled seventh path, however, Eddie may have found exactly what he needs to not only put an end to Meridius’ plot but also prevent him from ever coming into existence.
Venom’s Defeat Has Made Him Into a More Powerful King in Black
If what Eddie discovered in the darkness truly is the “seventh path” Meridius spoke of, then Eddie will have officially uncovered the answer to the biggest mystery he has ever known. He might not realize it in his current state, but it is only a matter of time before the Eddie fans know best comes back to the surface. Or rather, until an Eddie that is reminiscent of the iteration fans know best.
Even though the hand that appears before Eddie in the void clearly belongs to a more classic version of Venom than any of his other Kings in Black, that doesn’t mean it will be anything like it. Between the musings of magicians and the burning fingertips, this Venom is imbued with powers that its counterparts could only imagine. And, it may very well be what undoes all the harm Marvel’s Kings in Black have caused. Or, at the very least, Eddie will be left with a few new tricks up his sleeve.
