Ultimate Spider-Man: War of the Symbiotes

[cyberghostface]

In 2005 Bendis wrote the script for an 'Ultimate Spider-Man' videogame which was available for the game systems around at the time. The idea was that it would be a canonical storyline for the comics and a continuation of the Venom storyline. In my opinion it was a pretty enjoyable game although it suffered a bit from the "Grand Theft Spidey" syndrome that the 'Spider-Man 2' game established in that you would have to solve a certain amount of problems throughout the city (stopping robberies, gang fights, etc) before progressing further in the storyline. You can watch it on YouTube if you want.

Three years later in 2008, Bendis probably figured that having a significant storyline occur in a dated game console wasn't the best idea and reworked the storyline with some major changes in the comic. The result is to be honest is kind of a mess.

First off however is Annual #3, which is known for being A.) the first appearance of Ultimate Mysterio and B.) the issue where Pete and MJ talk about sex. Ult. Mysterio sucks so I'm going to focus on the latter.













#123...

The issue opens with Eddie sitting on a bench retelling his story to various people.

















Interesting little tidbit: In the game you could play as Venom and if you were low on health you could eat people to replenish yourself, just like this poor guy here. No one really reacts to Venom eating people but if you start throwing cars around (or even hit one accidentally) then the police arrive to shoot at you.

#124...

We flash back a month ago to when Spidey encounters the Beetle.















#125...

Eddie is brought to Bolivar Trask. In the game Trask is the main antagonist but here he's reduced to this one scene.









Back with Trask, the Beetle arrives and releases Venom from his captivity.










#126...











Peter wakes up in bed the next day. He has an e-mail waiting from Fury.








#127...



Remember that bit from 'Death of a Goblin' where Norman escaped from prison and Gwen was there?






At school Eddie encounters Peter.








#128...

Eddie arrives to threaten Aunt May and Peter takes him out back.





Venom and Carnage have a fight.




The resulting result has Venom as a much larger creature with beady eyes. In the video game the difference was the Carnage symbiote got hold of Peter and Venom (who the player is at this point) has to defeat him. Like here, Venom absorbed the symbiote but the result was the iconic white spider symbol on his chest.












And yes, this was the last time we saw Eddie Brock. The Beetle's business with Doom and Venom was never followed up on. Bendis actually had an opportunity to address what happened with Miles' title but instead of it being Brock it was just some random scientist as Venom.
 

Comments

[scorntx]

Always thought the most annoying thing about Ultimate Spider-Man was that you couldn't freaking dodge.
Gods above, that was just... rrrgh...

Wouldn't have said Ult. Mysterio sucks (but let's face it, the lack of a fishbowl and the reveal were major letdowns)...
But the timeline confuses me. It just... it makes no sense...

A whole freaking panel spent on Peter going "yeah".
I mean, okay, that's an annual so there's more pages, but... c'mon...

Y'know, I almost felt sorry for Eddie, but then I remembered he deliberately stuck his fingers in the Venom after Peter told him it was a truly bad idea.
And then he tries to get it back, because apparently he likes being a giant purple people eater.
So, nah. No sympathy.

The Forrest Gump bit where he eats the dude is kind of funny, though.

(Pedant alert: In the game, Venom had to eat people to replenish his health, which was always depleting.)

And Trask did have another scene, where he says he's seen King Kong, so he's gonna leave his scientists to poke the dangerous experiment.

-"Thou will not touch my holy visage"-
Oh, yeah. Thor had that crappy faux-Shakespearian crap going, did he?
(Dammit, Loeb?)

-"Yeah, the other guy. We lost him in the crowd."-
For the love of...
You're supposed to be leading a top intelligence agency. How the hell can you not track one skinny homeless former university student?!
Urgh...

And why don't they have agents monitoring Pete's school? Seriously, the whole bit with Eddie showing up would just never happen if they actually bothered tracking Pete.
Halfway through his first sentence, Eddie gets tranq'd by some agents and dragged off to wherever they put guys like him (y'know, the Easily Escapable Cells of the Triskelion.)

Gwen being Carnage and coming back...
It is completely ludicrous, buuuutt... Bendis did at least plan some of it ahead. Given his usual approach to "plotting", I'm disposed to be lenient for that. Even if the science is complete crap, it's still some effort.
Plus, y'know, giant Carnage. That's the right kind of ludicrous idea.
Now, if only Ultimate Gwen wasn't so awful after this.

Oh, and there's Ultimate Carol Danvers, being terrible.
Note how when Peter asks what things Gwen supposedly "knows", Carol just changes the subject?
Yeah, she's a terrible person.
Even Maria Hill has a better batting average than her. Maria Hill.

-"And yes, this is the last we saw of Eddie Brock"-
And the last we saw of Latveria, it got frozen over in Ultimatum, then Reed Richards dropped a tentacle on it in Ultimate Enemy.
... so not looking good for our favourite would-be evil hobo.

[aperturedreams]

Actually, I think Latveria showed up again in All-New X-Men when they crossed over to the Ultimate Universe.

[scorntx]

Oh, yeah.
(Forgot that was a thing.)

[aperturedreams]

Yeah I don't blame you for forgetting it was pretty weird that it was a thing

[sarahnewlin]

Oh its Silver Sable!

Carol Danvers just as she is now. Nasty.

[scorntx]

Hey, hey! C'mon. You can't compare Ult!Carol and Regular!Carol.

Regular Carol's actually done, y'know, good things. Helped people. Not gotten anyone killed through pointless stupidity.

[sanjuro]

One thing I've always hated about Eddie Brock (in both universes) was that his hate for Peter was always based on a stupid reason. It was one reason why I didn't like Brock-Venom as I got older. I guess the symbiote amplified his hate though. The symbiote's reason for hating Peter was a lot more valid tbh.

[kd_the_movie]

someone should make a drinking game out of how many times Fury implies that a war is about to erupt from all of the genetic fuckery in the Ultimate universe

[scorntx]

It's not just Fury. Characters written by Bendis in the Ultimate Universe are always going on about how there's Bad Things A'Comin'.

He just seems to like the doomsaying.

[mrstatham]

To be fair, he lives in a world where he was pressed into deploying the Ultimates in the Middle East, and saw the result of that was a coalition of other countries making their own superhumans. I figure they've every right to be worried about a supposedly cancer-curing suit whose MO is to eat people.

[mrstatham]

I always appreciated that Bendis seemed to very much know what he wanted to do with Venom and the Symbiote concept, despite not wanting to bring them in at first. They're used super-sparingly and way, way more consistently than 616, where they couldn't decide if they wanted Eddie to be evil!Spider-Man, a complete brain-eating monster, or the 'lethal protector' nonsense.