Alchemax Plaza, New York
The Best Security Money Can Buy.
“What. The shock. Just happened here?” Miguel O’Hara asked as soon as he stepped out of his limousine.
The scene that greeted him was one of pure chaos: Public Eye security forces guarded the plaza to keep the crowd at bay. Fallen debris littered the area, and cleaning drones swarmed like worker bees. Emergency vehicles surrounded the building to such an extent that Miguel had to park a block away from the plaza.
“Explosion in the Special Projects division,” a nearby Public Eye officer – Lt. Aguilar, according to his nametag – responded to Miguel’s question.
Miguel rolled his eyes, once again questioning the education levels of his security personnel. “Yes. Thank you. I can see that from here. So what caused it?”
The young officer blinked. “Well, uh … uh, that’s still under investigation. If you hold on, I could let you talk to my superior...."
"Mister O'Hara doesn't have a minute," an older, larger officer pointed out, shouting over the running engine of his flybike, which hovered above their heads. "He needs to be back in his limo and surrounded by a security escort in case the Venom creature goes for him."
"Well," Miguel commented blandly, "I'm so glad you know what 'Mr. O'Hara' needs. Exactly how big is the security escort going to be, Captain?"
"Six people: myself and five other officers," Captain Marc Braxton replied. "I'd assign more, but that would be spreading the Public Eye too thin on other fronts."
Miguel sighed. "Terrific." He knew he was perfectly capable of taking care of Venom by himself, and the security team would just be in the way. But the Public Eye didn't know that, and he wasn't about to enlighten them. Which meant he was stuck with rent-a-cops who would treat him just like any other Alchemax CEO and prevent him making a move as Spider-Man.
He re-entered his limousine, locking it behind him as Braxton's flybike rose higher into the air. Within moments, five more P.E. officers on flybikes joined in, making Miguel's limo difficult to miss. With that in mind, he had his holographic assistant Lyla contact Captain Braxton. "Hey Cap," he greeted, "you do realize that if Venom wants to hunt me down, all he has to do is look for a limo surrounded by yellow hoverbikes, right?"
"That's the idea," Braxton replied without missing a beat. ”This way he'll come to us. We've equipped our bikes with sonic weaponry. As soon as he comes close, he's paste."
"So, what you're saying," Miguel continued, fighting the urge to bury his face in his palm, "is that there's a deranged serial killer wrapped in an extraterrestrial serial killer ... and the master plan is to get him as close to me as possible?"
"It's the best plan we have, sir."
"You're that eager to break in a new CEO, huh?"
"Sure you want an answer to that?"
He sighed. "Figures. I don't suppose we have any of those SIEGE armor units available to us, do we? Because I could use at least one of those."
"Sorry, sir, but Stark-Fujikawa bought the sole rights to the SItuation Emergency GEar late last year."
Miguel gaped. "Whose brilliant idea was it to let that deal go through?"
"Yours." Braxton sounded entirely too smug.
"Oh. Yeah." This time Miguel really did bury his face in his hands.
Motel room, the middle of nowhere
The M-word.
Unable to face her traveling companion, Xina Kwan locked herself in the motel bathroom. Holding her hands under the faucet to trip the motion sensor, she let her cupped palms fill with cold water which she then splashed on her face.
Reluctantly, she stared at herself in the mirror. The same round Asian face, tan skin, raven hair, and dark-brown eyes greeted her. But she still felt like scum. This was a recurring feeling in her life -- especially recently -- but this time she really felt as if she'd screwed up.
She'd been in a frisky mood, and John Tensen had been a perfectly chaste gentleman since they'd commenced their aimless road trip a month or so ago. So tonight she'd decided to test the limits of his chastity, and the result had been a couple of hours of her showing him her Marilyn Monroe tattoo and everything else. Until she'd called out a name in the heat of passion that wasn't John's.
The name was, "Miguel".
She heard a knock on the door, and quickly turned on the shower, stepping inside. "Sorry," she called out, feeling the insta-warm water attempt to wash away her sweat and grime and shame, "can't hear what you're saying. Taking a shower, here!"
"Fine, then how's this?" John asked, from inside the bathroom.
Xina yelped, tugging at the curtain to see John standing just outside the shower, wearing a hastily-donned t-shirt and sweatpants. She wrapped one end of the curtain around her body like a towel to hide her nudity. The irony wasn't lost on her.
If John had noticed the irony as well, he didn't let on. "Xina, let's talk about this...."
"Why are you in here?"
He shrugged. "I'm the Net Prophet, remember? Teleportation and all that."
"I didn't ask how!"
John stared at his feet. "This really isn't working out."
Xina looked away. "Well ... yeah. I kinda killed the mood back there."
"No ... I didn't mean that. I meant ... this road trip. When I met you, you just wanted to 'go where the wind takes' you. But I could tell you were running from something ... and I guess from someone."
"Who, Miguel? He and I were over a long time ago."
John studied her. "You don't sound convinced of that."
She turned and glared at him. "And what about you? What are you running from. Or should I say 'whom'?"
"I'm not--"
"Gimme a break, Tensen! Who the shock is Sintilla?"
His eyes widened. "How did you...?"
"You said her name in your sleep a couple of nights ago. At first I thought you'd said, 'Synthia', and I was like, 'what's his interest in that synthetics corporation?' Then you kept repeating the name, and I finally figured out what you were saying. So. Who ... or what ... is Sintilla?"
Emotions warred on John Tensen's face, and three times he looked ready to reply. In the end, he decided, "she's no one. Don't worry about her."
"So it is a her. I'm surprised you didn't call out her name when we were christening the bed."
"Leave it alone, Xina," John warned, his gaze and tone serious, "unless you want to explain more about Miguel."
Xina stared right back, silent.
"That's what I thought. Tell you what: I'm going to teleport back to New York in the morning to visit a friend. I'll take you along, then you can stay there and work things out with Miguel."
"So you're just dropping me off? Just like that?"
"Whatever you have to work through, you're not going to solve anything by running away. This has gone on long enough."
"Yeah, what about my car?"
"I'll teleport that too. I'll make multiple trips for your stuff if I have to."
"Hey. I traveled light, y'know."
"Yet here we are, dealing with your baggage."
She sighed. "Just get out of this bathroom. Let me take a shower."
"All right. Fine." He turned and opened the door.
"What? You're not going to just 'port out?"
"It's just to the next room. And I'll need to conserve my energy for New York." He closed the door behind him.
As soon as he left, Xina cranked the hot water all the way, desperate to lose herself in it. She closed her eyes to keep out the water, and to keep from seeing the bathroom around her. The motel room reminded her too much of the one in Mexico she'd rented with Miguel for the Day of the Dead festival. During their stay, she'd flirted shamelessly with Miguel, even though they'd both insisted their relationship was over. Apparently Miguel had meant it, because he hadn't given in.
Now here she was, pulling the same thing with Tensen. He was right: she did have emotional baggage.
New York streets, soon
Sound and Fury.
"I really need to lose the extra weight," Miguel muttered as he sat in the back seat of his limo, glaring out the window.
"Puzzling," Lyla commented as her goldenrod holo-image 'sat' next to him, "your body weight has actually decreased by three-point-six kilograms within the last month. You are no danger of obesity, Miguel. In fact, losing any more would be detrimental to your--"
"Not that," Miguel mumbled, pointing at the six Public Eye officers hovering outside. "I meant them. Six half-ton flybikes plus six Public Eyesores averaging two-hundred pounds apiece equals three-point-six tons of weight I don't need."
Lyla made a motion of smoothing out the digitized wrinkles of her holographic dress. "As Captain Braxton pointed out, Miguel, the Public Eye are here for your protection."
"More like cannon fodder. What I need is a way to change into S-Man without them finding out who they're really trying to protect."
Lyla affected a shrug. "If the Public Eye are as ineffectual as you suggest, would they even be alive to see your costume change?"
Miguel furrowed a brow and thought about it. "That's a fair point, I guess, but a), I don't want anyone getting killed if I can help it, even the Eyesores. And b), Venom would figure it out, and under no circumstances does Kron get to find this out about me." He clenched his fists. "There has to be another option."
A loud crash startled him, and Miguel glanced upward through the limo’s sunroof toward the source of the noise.
Captain Braxton’s flybike was no longer overhead.
“Oh, sh—“ Miguel began, only to be interrupted by another crashing sound off to the side, where an old-model car had slammed Braxton’s flybike against a wall. “Captain!” Miguel shouted into the limo’s commlink. “Can you hear me?” But the Public Eye frequency was flooded with activity, preventing him from getting through. “Lyla, check for life signs!”
“Captain Marc Braxton is still alive, but unconscious,” Lyla replied as she sat next to him, appearing as concerned as her programming dictated appropriate. “I have notified the nearest Docs-in-a-Box; an ambulance is on its way.”
“Great, that’ll just make for more collateral damage,” Miguel remarked, pointing to the weathered jalopy currently parked atop both Braxton and his bike. His eyes squinted as his accelerated vision examined the wreckage. “That car’s not even hover-converted. Looks like it was thrown.”
As soon as that last word had left Miguel’s mouth, excited chatter from the Public Eye officer filled the commlink: “Incoming vehicle! Move move move!”
The quintet of remaining officers veered to the sides, managing to narrowly miss a second thrown vehicle. This one was a minivan. Without missing a beat, they pointed their bikes at the van’s point of origin.
“Sonic emitters at maximum,” Braxton’s second-in-command ordered. The five officers fired up the devices mounted on the noses of their flybikes. “I wanna see windows shatter up and down this block!”
The whine of sonic weapons intensified until Miguel could feel his limo tremble from the vibrations. He pressed a button and the sunroof slid shut with a hiss and a sharp click. “Lyla? Are the Public Eye cameras still operational?”
“Of course, Miguel.”
He had to shout over the outside noise. “Good. Now see if you can work your holo-magic and whip up a 3-D composite of the area using the camera feeds. I want to know what’s going on out there.”
“Okay, Miguel. Please hold; this process will take up to three minutes.”
“Terrific.” He tapped his fingers against the leather seats. “Any day n—“
The sonic racket came to an abrupt end, replaced by screaming. The five Public Eye officers and their flybikes were being doused by a powerful liquid that ate through sonic devices and human flesh with equal ease.
Miguel gritted his teeth, baring his fangs. “Venom.”
Thump. Something heavy landed on the roof of the limo, and for a moment Miguel was afraid it was another vehicle.
No such luck: ten claw-like fingers punched through the armored roof. “Sorry I didn’t make an appointment first,” Venom declared as he ripped the roof open as if it were tin foil, “but this meeting just couldn’t wait! After all, I got bored waiting for Spider-Man, and you’re next on my list!”
Miguel found himself staring up at a ghastly white skull-like face with rows of sharp teeth, a long pink barbed tongue, and sunken blood-red eyes. His black skin was oily, dripping corrosive slime on the limo’s leather seats and Miguel’s expensive suit. The hollow, dried-out spider exoskeleton clung to Venom’s body like a parasite. Staring at the husk, Miguel wondered – not for the first time – if the dead spider was supposed to be an insignia or foreshadowing.
“Step away from the CEO, maggot!” a male soldier with huge muscles and an even bigger machine gun ordered, chomping on a cigar. The soldier was cast in a distinctive shade of goldenrod, making it rather obvious to Miguel that it was Lyla utilizing one of countless other programmed personae.
Apparently, Venom wasn’t fooled, either. He leaned toward the soldier, and his forehead passed through the barrel of the machine gun. “Go ahead, stupid hologram. Just try it. I dare you. Take your best shot, if you can.”
A strong uppercut from Miguel caught Venom completely off-guard as it connected with his chin. “If you insist.”
As Venom reeled from the blow, Miguel held onto his arm, bared his teeth, and sunk his fangs into Venom’s wrist.
Venom roared as burning poison surged through his bloodstream, numbing his arm in its wake. “You … wha…?” He grabbed Miguel by his collar and ripped open his suit jacket and undershirt, exposing a familiar costume underneath. His red eyes narrowed as he realized who he was dealing with: “S … Spider-Man.”
Miguel grinned as he let go of Venom and shed the rest of his business suit, revealing a midnight-blue bodysuit with a red spidery skull design. “That’s right. The real Miguel O’Hara is long gone. He hired me to be his stand-in and gave me the gene-treatment to look like him.” He removed his gloves and mask from his pocket and quickly put them on, hoping Venom and anyone else watching via the Public Eye cameras would buy his half-baked story.
Venom flexed his fingers, working the feeling back into his arm. “Nasty concoction … too bad it doesn’t take me long to work up … an antidote.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Spider-Man replied as he tossed his clothes back in the limo with one hand and slashed at Venom with the finger-talons on the other.
Venom sidestepped the attempt and caught Spider-Man’s arm pinning it behind his back. Miguel could feel as much as hear the symbiote’s acid sizzling his costume. “Think you’re reeeeally smart, don’t you?”
Spider-Man struggled in Venom’s grasp, trying to find an angle to counterattack. “Nah, that’s O’Hara’s biz.” He felt Venom squeeze his forearm just enough, and a stream of web-fluid squirted from the top of his hand. The fluid dried on contact, pinning Venom’s feet to the concrete. Using the distraction, Spider-Man leaped clear of his opponent, then fired a roundhouse kick at Venom’s jaw.
Unfortunately, Miguel O’Hara had barely a fraction of Kron Stone’s fighting experience. Venom simply ducked under the foot as it sailed past, then grabbed Spider-Man’s other leg and flipped him onto his back. Keeping a hold of Spider-Man’s ankle, Venom swung him into the limo, then a nearby wall, then a wall on the opposite side. Each time, Spider-Man left a human-sized impact crater in his wake.
Spider-Man felt himself being swung and released, and he watched as his flight path took him toward a hovering multi-faced vid-billboard. He had the distinct impression that each of the giggling models on the billboard were laughing at him.
Reaching out to his left side, he tensed hi forearm muscles and emitted a thin webline that anchored onto the side of another building. The line pulled taut and swung him away from the billboard. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Venom – his feet now free of the webbing -- was already leaping at his back.
“Ooooh, no you don’t!” Venom bellowed as he slammed into Spider-Man, who felt his breath leaving him. The two fell like a sack of potatoes onto a walkway above the street; the grinning Venom landed on top. “You don’t get to escape. You get to be my next victim … my next meal.” He gestured toward the Public Eye cameras. “And everyone else gets to witness.”
Father Jennifer D'Angelo's apartment, "Downtown" New York, meanwhile
This Whole S-Man Drama.
"Again, you are witnessing a Public Eye exclusive," an anchorwoman's voiceover declared as the fight was broadcast over a newsfeed. "The vigilante known as Spider-Man and the creature the authorities have dubbed 'Venom' are battling it out in a sensational fight to the finish, brought to you by Alchemax, the corporation that reminds you that 'Tomorrow Comes Today'!"
Gabriel O'Hara tried his best to tune out the newswoman's shameless plugging as he watched the televised battle on his palmtop computer. He'd originally planned to check his e-mail during his visit to Father Jennifer's apartment, but once he found out about the situation with Venom, he had to tune in.
Part of him was still trying to digest what Miguel had told him earlier: thanks to an affair their mother had once had with Tyler Stone, Miguel was Gabriel's half-brother rather than his full-brother. Even worse, that meant Tyler's son Kron -- Venom -- was Miguel's half-brother as well. And he'd thought his family had been messed up before. At least Gabriel didn't have to claim a familial connection with the Stone family if he didn't want to. He was pretty sure Miguel didn't want to claim one, either, but there he was, locked in combat with Kron on the evening news.
Gabriel rolled his eyes at Miguel's 'Spider-Man in disguise' ruse. Sure, Gabe himself had inside information on the subject, but who with even an ounce of common sense could have bought it?
"Looks like the S-Man really is in the megacorps' pocket," Father Jennifer O'Hara muttered as she watched the newsfeed over Gabe's shoulder.
He glanced at her. "Huh...?"
Jennifer scowled. "He denied it a while back when the Goblin accused him, but now he's stating it outright. Guess he's showing his true colors at last."
"Yeah ... guess so. I'm still rooting for him."
She raised an eyebrow.
He shrugged. "I mean, I don't like the guy either, but between Spider-Man and the ratbiter that killed Dana? Who do you think I'm gonna root for?"
She seemed to consider this for a moment. "They should finish each other off." Turning on her heel, she walked out of the room and into the hallway, her shoulders rigid with angry tension.
There was something in Jennifer's voice that Gabriel wasn't sure he wanted to investigate, but he did anyway. "Father? Jennifer, wait!" Placing the palmtop on a table, he followed her out. "Wait up, okay? This doesn't sound like you." Catching up with her once she entered another room, he placed a hand on her shoulder. "What's going on?"
She turned to face him, raising an eyebrow. "For starters, Gabriel, what's happening is you're standing in my bedroom, touching me."
Glancing around, he realized she was right. The tiny room was dark, so he didn't get a good look at the decor when he'd walked in. Now he could make out a bed, nightstand, a dresser, a few crucifixes, and evidence she was a neat freak; the room looked like it was barely lived in.
Removing his hand, he chuckled nervously and backed into the hall. "Sorry. Wasn't what I was going for at all."
"I certainly hope not."
"I'm just ... I didn't think you were one to get caught up in this whole 'S-Man' drama."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean...." Gabriel leaned against a wall, searching for the right words. "I mean, all this stuff about whether or not Spider-Man is or isn't a corporate shill? I hear that all the time down here and in C-Space, but you just really didn't strike me as the type to care. I mean, he saved your church from the Vulture, didn't he?"
"Now you're taking his side?" Jennifer folded her arms.
"It also doesn't sound like you to want two people to kill each other, y'know?"
She stepped toward him, leaving her bedroom. "First of all, Gabriel, he’s been lying about his affiliation with the megacorps. And second, he only saved my church after he brought the Vulture into it. He's not as selfless as he likes people to believe."
Gabriel couldn't help but chuckle. "Oh, you have no idea. One time, when we were little, he bought me this toy set for my birthday, but it was a chemistry set so he could use it. He figured I'd have no interest in it, and he got so bent out of shape when I used the stuff in the vials for finger paints! 'Course, Mom and Dad glitched too, but--"
Jennifer was staring at him strangely. "We're still talking about Spider-Man ... right?"
He blinked, mentally backtracking the conversation. Then he felt the need to bang his head against the wall.
New York streets, several blocks from Miguel O’Hara’s limo
Fight to the Finish.
Venom slammed Spider-Man’s head against a solid wall, grinning as the mask-covered skull bounced off. “Having fun yet?”
Spider-Man didn’t answer; he was too busy trying to merge the three Venoms he was seeing into a cohesive whole.
“That’s okay,” Venom went on, clutching Spider-Man’s head in one hand and shaping a serrated blade from the symbiotic ooze of his other hand. “I’m having enough for the both of us.”
The nice thing about Venom, it turned out, was that he had very long arms. Spider-Man took advantage of this by thrusting his leg upward and slamming his foot into Venom’s jaw, raking the skull-like face with the talons on the tips of his toes.
Venom’s roar of pain quickly turned into a howl of laughter as the five green-blood lines carved into his white face healed over and disappeared. “Is that all you’ve got?”
“You’ll see,” Spider-Man answered as he leaped to the side to give himself more room, then fired a webline with the back of his hand. Once the line was anchored, Spider-Man hopped backward off the walkway, pulling Venom with him.
Surprised, Venom yelped as his arm was almost torn from its socket. His acid-oozing skin dissolved the part of the webline that was anchored to him, but that left him in freefall. He extended a symbiotic tendril toward a nearby shopping center, catching a ledge. Coming to a rather painful stop, he braced himself against the side of the building as Spider-Man went on with the next part of his plan.
Swinging near a parking garage, Spider-Man selected an unoccupied car – a Whisper 3000 sports car – and snagged it with his webbing. With a hard tug on the line, he yanked the car airborne toward Venom. The car’s hood collided with Venom’s jaw and crumpled.
Acting quickly as they all fell even further toward Downtown, Spider-Man raced toward Venom and the Whisper 3000, firing and swinging off webs to close the distance. Finally, he was close enough to the Whisper to grab its webline and pull it back upwards. The car hit Venom once again, this time crumpling the hood enough to mash its obnoxious horn.
Battered, Venom landed face-down on a rooftop and rolled several feet. Spider-Man caught the damaged sports car in midair and landed on the roof with it. He was tired, his head was spinning, he was running on the last dregs of adrenaline left in his system, and the constant blare of the car’s horn was right next to his ear, making it all worse. Even so, he pressed on, determined to carry the heavy car the last few feet to stand over Venom. “Ride’s over,” he declared between ragged breaths. “You’re finished.”
He brought the car down like a hammer onto Venom, whose symbiote was vibrating and bubbling in response to the racket of the horn. But strangely, the symbiote didn’t seem to affect as much as Spider-Man was hoping.
“Surprised?” Venom asked, smiling as he swept Spider-Man’s feet out from under him. “One thing about being subjected to all those sonic experiments….” He tossed the car over the rooftop ledge behind him. “You develop a tolerance.”
Weakly, Spider-Man noticed that the webline which he’d anchored to the car was trailing after it as it fell. And the flailing end of it was wrapping itself around Venom’s right leg, dragging him off the roof with it.
Surprised, Venom grabbed onto the ledge, digging in his claws. The Whisper 300 dangled from his leg, weighing him down. It was also still blaring its horn, weakening the symbiote.
“There’s a difference between tolerance and immunity,” Spider-Man muttered as he hauled himself up into a sitting position within reach of his enemy.
“What?” Venom shouted as he clung to the building. “I can’t hear you over my screaming other!” His acidic skin dissolved the webline, and the car dropped the rest of the way to the Downtown pavement, ending the horn once and for all.
“Better?” Spider-Man asked.
“Yeah … no, wait … something’s … wrong.” As he spoke, the symbiote was running off his body, as thin as water, exposing the white-haired visage of Kron Stone. “It’s … leaving?”
“You have my sympathy.” Spider-Man summoned the last of his strength and hauled his half-brother back onto the roof. Then slugged him in the temple.
Satisfied that Kron was unconscious, Spider-Man slumped face down, deciding that the cold rooftop was as good a place as any to take a nap.
Stone Enterprises headquarters, Midtown New York, hours later
Some Hospitality.
"...seems to be waking up, sir," a voice filtered into Miguel's consciousness.
He groaned, squeezing his eyelids shut. "Take a message," he muttered, thinking he was talking to Lyla. "Tell 'em I died ... an' I'll call back later."
Another voice said something, but Miguel was too far gone to understand it. Or care. Hearing a rhythmic beeping noise --sounded like an alarm -- he reached out to grab his blanket and cocoon himself further into it.
Then it registered: there was no blanket. He wasn't even sleeping in a bed; he was upright.
He became aware of cool conditioned air seeping through the unstable molecular fabric clinging to his skin. He struggled to move his arms, but his wrists and forearms seemed restrained by something metal. Shackles, probably -- the kind that squeezed the more one fought them.
He slowly opened one eye, feeling his eyelash gently brushing against the inside of his mask. The scene that greeted him was sterile and scientific: he was in a laboratory filled equally with scientists, technicians, and equipment. The rhythmic sound he'd assumed to be an alarm turned out to be the steady beep of a pulse monitor hooked up to some specimen.
The beeping sound picked up speed when Miguel realized he was the specimen.
"Enjoy your nap?" a depressingly-familiar voice asked, and Spider-Man turned to the side to see Tyler Stone strolling toward him in his hoverchair. His trademark used-hovercar-salesman smile was firmly in place, undiminished by the fluid tube that had been inserted into his nostril. "I apologize for waking you, I really do, but you've been unconscious long enough. You see ... I have a bit of a problem."
Spider-Man hazarded a guess. "You were born? Oh, wait, that's everyone else's problem."
Tyler chuckled. "Clever. And here I was, extending a bit of hospitality. After all, you are a guest at my newly-formed Stone Enterprises."
"Some hospitality. Is this how you treat all your guests?"
"Only a select few," Tyler replied. "Which brings me to my problem." He turned to an employee wearing an SE security uniform. "Crothers? Bring him in."
Crothers pressed a sequence on a keypad next to a closed door. Unlocking with audible clicks like tumblers in a vault door, the door slid open. Three more security guards helped him pull a gurney into the room.
Harnessed to the gurney was an unconscious – and naked -- figure whose very appearance was like a punch to Miguel's gut.
"Kron," Spider-Man ground out through clenched teeth as he stared at Tyler's son.
"Yes, that's him, in the somewhat emaciated flesh," Tyler agreed. "Your fight with him took a lot out of the little delinquent. Might have something to do with the lack of symbiote."
"Lack of...?"
"Yes, when my people arrived at the scene to retrieve the two of you, his 'Venom' half was missing. It must have … oozed away." He paused for effect. “Which is where you come in.”
Spider-Man hoped his mask conveyed his glare. “You want me to recover the symbiote for you.”
“Don’t be silly,” Tyler replied as a group of heavily-armed men and women marched into the room. They wore full helmets and dark blue body armor adorned with the words, “Stone Enterprises Enforcement Division” in bold white letters. “I want you to help them recover the symbiote for me.”
To Be Continued.
Next Issue: "Blood from a Stone"
As you can see, we're back from the hiatus!
And maaan, it's great to be back. I really worked hard on this issue of Spider-Man 2099UGR, and I hope it shows.
This issue and the next comprise the three part Venom storyarc, but as usual with this title, the next storyarc begins where the previous one left off. This has been the case with Spider-Man 2099 from the very beginning, when Peter David concluded the first three-issue origin story with Tyler Stone showing up at Miguel's apartment to rattle his cage and set him up for a two-issue encounter with the Specialist. Then in #5, just as S-Man was wrapping up that fight, he found himself being shot off a rooftop by a Public Eye firing squad and landing in Downtown. Cue another storyarc from #6 to #8 that introduced the Vulture, which led to an issue of Miguel trying to get back home in #9, which led to some family drama with this mother in #10...
Well, you get the idea.
Jason McDonald and I had made a conscious decision to continue that tradition in the UGR series, and we've even left it deliberately ambiguous in some cases where one storyarc ended and another began. Take our co-writing stint over the first five issues: was it all one storyarc, or was it really two stories -- the first one lasting two issues and dealing with Miguel starting to cave to corporate pressures, and the second one beginning with #3's jaunt to 2211 and lasting until #5? Not even we're sure whether that was two stories or one.
But that's the beauty of a title like this: just as the title character's life is ongoing, so is this series' examination of that life.
So where is this title going after Venom wraps up next issue? Astute readers will know doubt have picked up some hints. In the meantime, let me know whatcha think of this issue, whether you liked it or disliked it. Has this series even been missed during the site's hiatus? Let me know that, too.
-- David Ellis, 07.13.2006_
Next Issue:
Just what are Tyler's plans for Kron and the Venom symbiote? And will Spider-Man agree to work with his security team to take down Venom?
Plus: Will Gabriel be able to keep a lid on Miguel's alter ego?
I'm pretty sure the answer to at least one of those questions is "probably not", but find out for sure in
"Blood from a Stone" by David Ellis.