Venom #18: "Illuminations"

[alliterator]

"This is an experiment I've been conducting for quite a while, mostly without even realizing I was doing it - building a cosmology quietly, in the background, linking bits and pieces as they came to me and dovetailed with my own interests in magic and religion. Not that I'm more than a dabbler in that regard, but one of the things I do best is make connections - I've had too much synchronicity happen to me and around me not to at least use it in the work, and I've been wrestling with agnosticism and the essential unknowableness of the divine for years. So it goes in the work - where else am I going to put it? It's made for some decent comics over the years, as well as a structure to work inside. There's something about a gigantic, constantly-evolving shared universe that makes it a very potent tool for this kind of exploration, and I'm not the first to think so."
-- Al Ewing


Eddie Brock as Bedlam, trapped in Limbo, was stabbed with the Soulsword, splitting the timeline. As one Eddie (Bedlam) took off to complete the time loop in the Garden of Time, the other Eddie (stripped off the symbiote and in a human body) fell down...and down...to the very bottom of reality itself, the Un-Beyond.

Where he met a giant floating Venom hand.








And just in case you didn't remember, this is from Defenders: Beyond #2 by Al Ewing and Javier Rodriguez:

Comments

[cainofdreaming]

Except Strange does get his hands dirty. I mean, have you seen him at dinnertime?

[cygnia]

*Bats, under the table, wagging his tail hungrily*

[cainofdreaming]

Oh, Bats. You don't want anything that drops from that plate. And I know that dogs like eating rotten fish carcasses, after having rolled on them.

[scorntx]

It is scientific fact that the best food for any dog is food that belongs to someone else.
Scientific. Fact.

[cainofdreaming]

It might be best food, but in addition to that it might be coma-to-death inducing to anyone who isn't paying the Sorcerer Supreme's price for magic. And, yes, that includes ghosts.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I thought he wore gloves?

[petermilley]

This is...interesting? Yes, interesting.

[blues32]

Okay...so now symboites are the opposites of Beyonders? "The Innards"? Or is that just Eddie now?

[aperturedreams]

Just the Kings in Black. So Eddie, formerly Knull, and also Eddie's future selves.

[deh_tommy]

The King in Black specifically. It used to be just Knull but Eddie took the mantle after killing him which is what led to this whole Kangly debacle between his future selves.

[scorntx]

Interesting.
And I do like a nice bit of continuity welding.

(Liking the bit not seen here when Enlightenment says actually the first choice would've been Peter, but "life happened".
Admittedly, Peter being the big, important cosmic guy wouldn't really be 'on brand' for him, but it is mildly amusing that Peter managed to Peter himself out of that. That is very him.
... and given his track record of late, probably a couple of dodged bullets for the multiverse.)