"Who Goes There?" Venom does!
Venom (Vol. 1) is a 2003 - 2004 superhero comic series by Marvel Comics, written by Daniel Way and with art by Francisco Herrera; succeeding the miniseries of the 1990s.
Stationed at an Arctic military base, Lieutenant Patricia "Trish" Robertson makes a horrifying discovery: the researchers at the neighbouring Ararat Corporation research facility have been slaughtered. Finding a survivor, she returns to base... and unwittingly brings a dark passenger back with her: the Venom symbiote. As the symbiote rampages across the Arctic, hunted by a mysterious government agent with a lightning-shooting cellphone, Trish must find a way to survive and unravel the mystery of what the Ararat Corporation has to do with the Venom symbiote before it's too late. And if the Venom symbiote is in the Arctic, where is Eddie Brock?
Venom (Vol. 1) provides examples of:
- Aborted Arc: The series ends with the Venom symbiote assimilating its clone and Venom deciding to carry out the Ararat Corporation's directive... and nothing has come of it since aside from the Venom symbiote barfing up its clone in Venom (Remender & Bunn) to get rid of the Hell-Mark and demon inside Flash, and Trish Robertson coming Back for the Dead in Absolute Carnage.
- Alone with the Psycho: At one point, Trish and her colleague Daniel Jackson are tied up by the Suit to keep them from interfering with his hunt for the symbiote and act as bait... which makes them easy pickings when the symbiote finds them and takes over Jackson. Delighting in Trish's terror, it cuts her free and offers her a head start to make the chase more enjoyable... before promptly tripping her.
- Ancient Conspiracy: Bob has been around since Biblical times and is involved with governments and militaries around the world, letting him nuke a town in Canada with total impunity and threaten to have Nick Fury arrested for treason if he continues meddling in the Ararat Corporation's plan for global genocide.
- Ax-Crazy: The Venom symbiote clone is a nightmarish sadist that is initially disinterested in taking hosts in favor of simply tearing them apart without even eating them; and later tortuously kills its hosts by draining their vital energy for no other reason than because it can. It views Wolverine as the perfect host because it can feed on him indefinitely due to his healing factor, but leaves him to bond to Patricia Robertson out of pure spite for her previously escaping it.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Despite the best efforts of the Suit, Trish, and the Fantastic Four, the first stage of Bob's plan comes to fruition when Venom assimilates the symbiote clone and decides to follow its directive.
- Bad Boss: Bob has a veritable army of Vic and Frankie clones at his disposal, gaslighting all of them into believing they are unique individuals and indispensible to his plans. After deeming the Venom symbiote clone to be completed, he has the scientist Vic and Frankie destroy their research on it before shipping it off to the Arctic, compiling a heavily-redacted dossier chock full of misinformation; and when the scientists he assigned to "study" it ask to examine it up-close he sadistically unleashes it to devour them.
- Bald of Evil: Vic and Frankie are introduced wearing wigs, but actually have their heads shaved so they could be fitted with cybernetic devices that would let them control the Venom symbiote clone, with the intent of taking it down to New York to find the original Venom.
- Canon Discontinuity: Up until the Mania symbiote was revealed to be the clone from it, Venom (Vol. 1) was assumed to be this by the vast majority due to the complete and utter lack of any references to it outside of a minor (bordering on Easter Egg) one in the Continuity Cavalcade featured in an issue of New Avengers. It is still unknown what became of Bob, the Ararat Corporation, and the piece of the Venom symbiote in his possession.
- Casanova Wannabe: Eddie and/or the Venom symbiote come across as an extremely sleazy scumbag towards Patricia and her symbiote, making several Entitled to Have You remarks towards them as they fight.
- Clone Angst:
- The Venom symbiote clone briefly displays this after taking over Daniel Jackson, telling Trish that it knows what it used to be but is now something else.
- Vic and Frankie are revealed to be part of a series of clones that Bob carefully gaslights into believing are unique individuals and indispensable to his plans, when he actually sees them as being completely disposable. Realizing the truth causes one of the Vics to have a Despair Event Horizon before undergoing a Heel–Face Turn.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: When Venom attacks Spider-Man looking for Trish, Peter cuts loose and beats him to a pulp while snapping that he's always been faster, smarter, and stronger than Venom.
- Doing In the Wizard: The final arc attempts to do this with the Biblical Great Flood, the Suit explaining that its species was contracted to wipe out humanity by an unnamed entity, and when the plan was delayed by inclement weather they discovered they'd been tricked by the entity — who intended for a handful of its followers to survive and repopulate — and called the job off, refusing to be party to religious genocide. This account completely contradicts various other accounts within the Marvel Universe, and summarily has been completely ignored.
- Driven to Suicide: Implied when the second Vic discovers the corpse of her precursor, realizing that she's just one of a series of disposable clones and that Bob has been gaslighting her and Frankie. However, it's later revealed that — while she contemplated suicide — she actually shot her control unit collar off, intending to get revenge on Bob or die trying.
- Eerie Arctic Research Station: The series kicks off with an evil clone of the Venom symbiote massacring and escaping from the Northern Canadian research station that was studying it. It makes its way to a nearby American military radar base, jumping from host to host as it looks for one that will last long enough to bring it to civilization.
- From a Single Cell: Logan is at ground zero of a nuclear bomb detonation and reduced to nothing but his adamantium-infused skeleton... and still manages to regenerate. The Suit takes advantage of this to plant his cellphone in Logan's chest cavity, letting him blow it up in an attempt to kill the symbiote once it's bonded to Logan.
- Honey Trap: To infiltrate a S.H.I.E.L.D. squad sent to apprehend Eddie Brock, Trish disguises herself as a scantily-clad cowgirl at a bar, seduces one of the soldiers, murders him once they're alone, and then disguises herself as him using the Venom symbiote clone.
- How We Got Here: The "Patterns" arc — issues #11 to #13 — reveal the origins of the Venom symbiote clone and how it wound up in the Arctic.
- Karma Houdini: Bob and the Ararat Corporation plot planetary genocide and drop a nuke in Canada, wiping out a small town, with utter impunity; Vic and Frankie smugly stating that the Canadian government won't even lift a finger against him. When Nick Fury confronts Bob, Bob smugly reveals he vastly outranks Fury and threatens to have him imprisoned for treason if he continues meddling in the Ararat Corporation's plans.
- Kiss of Death: As far as Johnny Storm is concerned, Venom attempted to pull one on the Thing by shoving his serpentine tongue down Ben Grimm's throat. The severed tongue then proves the basis for the clone created by the Ararat Corporation.
- Mistaken Identity: Spider-Man mistakes Trish for Eddie due to their Venom forms being nigh-identical, and even after discovering his mistake keeps attacking her while ignoring her protests due to his Fantastic Racism against symbiotes — leaving him confused and embarrassed at the realization she's not a supervillain.
- Modified Clone: The Venom symbiote seen up until the How We Got Here flashback arc is revealed to be a clone of the symbiote created by the Ararat Corporation, and modified by Bob to induce the original symbiote to spawn uncontrollably once assimilated. It's shipped off to a remote Arctic base, breaks loose, and starts killing the soldiers and scientists one by one. It bonds to the last surviving soldier, Patricia Robertson, but is later assimilated by the original Venom.
- No Sympathy: Nick Fury's reaction to learning that Eddie Brock is dying of cancer is to coldly say "Good."
- Oh, Crap!: When Bob recites a code phrase that proves he outranks Nick Fury by an absurd amount and threatens to have him imprisoned in the Vault if he continues meddling in the Ararat Corporation's business, Nick Fury is horrified and intimidated into standing down.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Presented with the choice of two hosts, the elderly murderer Alfonse Poina and prison inmate Eric Moody, the Venom symbiote clone bonds to the former and then taunts the latter over having been gang-raped in prison before gleefully declaring that it's going to happen again.
- Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: The Ararat Corporation is named after the "mountains of Ararat" where Noah's ark is said to have come to rest. The Ararat Corporation's space station, The Ark, is also named after Noah's ark.
- Robotic Reveal:
- The Suit is revealed to be a shell piloted by spider-shaped alien robots when the Venom symbiote clone tries to bond to him, and upon failing to do so tears him apart.
- The Bobs are revealed to be shells piloted by spider-shaped alien robots when one of them completely remodulates his outfit from a turtleneck and lab coat into a business suit.
- Save the Villain: When Spider-Man realizes that the Fantastic Four are helping the Suit trap and kill Venom, he intervenes to save his enemy and calls them out on doing so, to the FF's exasperation. The Suit decides to just kill Spider-Man too, forcing the Fantastic Four to reluctantly destroy the Suit to save him. This results in Venom not only escaping but absorbing the symbiote's clone and setting out to help Bob destroy the world.
- Sequel Hook: Vic mentions that if the Venom symbiote clone—later known as the Mania symbiote—were destroyed, Bob would just make a new one using the severed tongue.
- Series Continuity Error: The clone agent who has an existential crisis and is implied to have killed herself is identified as Vic, but when she returns towards the end of the run she's identified as Frankie.
- Unwitting Pawn: Upon bonding to the Venom symbiote clone, Trish learns of its purpose and decides to go to New York to kill Eddie Brock and the original Venom symbiote to put a stop to the Ararat Corporation's plans... unaware that that's just what it wants her to do. Bob then impersonates the Suit and further tricks her before deactivating her control harness.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The Shiver arc — issues #1 to #5 — is a pastiche of John Carpenter's The Thing, only being set in the Arctic instead of the Antarctic.
- The Worm That Walks: Both Bobs and the Suit are shells for colonies of cybernetic alien spiders that have been around for thousands of years. Bobs' colony was stranded on Earth and didn't get the memo that the mission to wipe out humanity had been scrubbed, necessitating the Suit's colony travelling to Earth to stop him.
