Podcast # 272-Spider-History of Dec 2003 and Bertone Bio of Stunner

4 Comments

1. Next stop, Cracked.com!

2. Thank you sir! Ever since the Venom minis got out of control, then Mackie writing Venom while he seemed to be burning out on Spidey (and of course all of the plot threads that Jenkins and Way’s stories left dangling that were never revisited), symbiote continuity has really bothered me, so I’ve tried to make sense of it.

3. That explanation makes a lot of sense. It’s better than Cassady losing the symbiote, going to the Negative Zone, and Blastaar just happening to give him a symbiote he had lying around.

4. I think it can be argued that Venom is the genetic grandsire of Toxin.

   During “Maximum Carnage,” since acknowledged in Superior Carnage, it was established that the Carnage symbiote became permanently bonded with Cletus Kasady’s bloodstream. Then, during “Planet of the Symbiotes,” we learn that the Carnage symbiote has another anomalous quality (due to the fact that it was born on Earth): it can absorb other symbiotes (how it never absorbed Venom during prior battles, I don’t know).

   Flash forward to Mackie’s PPSM#10 when Venom “eats” Carnage symbiote. We learn in PPSM#13 that Cletus is still alive and kicking, therefore all of his blood wasn’t drained, therefore all of the Carnage symbiote wasn’t taken.

   Anyways, as a follow up to PPSM#13, in Webspinners #13 (written by Mackie who apparently realized he had nearly removed one of Spidey’s most popular rogues), Kasady escapes from prison (his eyes are completely red, i.e. the dormant remnants of the symbiote are stirring) and follows some kind of premonition into the Negative Zone where he finds another symbiote that turns him into a carbon copy of his original Carnage form.

   Now I understand that Mackie isn’t renowned for having a knack for continuity, but this fits pretty well. What happened was that Venom took enough of the Carnage symbiote to make it go dormant. However, somehow Cletus sensed the proximity of another symbiote (probably because of the open portal to the Negative Zone) which, again, reawakened the remnants of the Carnage symbiote in his bloodstream. He then absorbed the Negative Zone symbiote (which I think, although I could be making this up, it was established in Webspinners that the symbiote was a refuge from “Planet of the Symbiotes”), which served to regenerate the Carnage symbiote remnants in his system and make him Carnage once more.

   So, when Kasady’s symbiote spawns the Toxin symbiote, it would legitimately be in Venom’s lineage.