Two of Eddie Brock’s symbiotes are helping to keep his family safe and his kingdom on track, but their respective works ethics are very different.
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Venom #35 by Donny Cates, Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Ryan Stegman, Kev Walker, Danilo S. Beyruth, Ron Lim, Guiu Vilanova, Gerardo Sandoval, Mark Bagley, JP Mayer, Jay Leisten, Scott Hanna, Victor Nava, John Dell, Frank Martin, Chris O’Halloran, Jim Campbell, Matt Milla, Alex Sinclair, Chris Sotomayor, Richard Isanove and VC’s Clayton Cowles, on sale now.
Ever since defeating Knull, saving the world, and claiming the throne of the King in Black as his own, Eddie Brock’s life has been busier and more complicated than ever. Now he has to worry about being the living center of the symbiote Hive itself, but Eddie isn’t alone in his endeavors. He also has a couple of symbiotes at home to help in the forms of Venom and their offpsring Sleeper, and their respective personalities couldn’t be more different.
Eddie’s days have been consumed with his duties to his fellow symbiotes and the Hive. The Spire that was relocated for Eddie’s use may allow him to communicate with his symbiote brethren all over the universe, but it does keep him preoccupied enough that his immediate surroundings get lost in translation. While the Sleeper symbiote has made itself right at home as Eddie’s four-eyed feline companion, they have also taken on the most stereotypical cat traits.
Sleeper is happy to tell Eddie that he has been missing phone calls from Spider-Man all morning once the new King in Black isn’t busy, but getting up to tell Eddie the first ten times would have been far too much trouble. Eddie might quite literally be the god of all symbiotes, but Sleeper doesn’t have any problem reminding him that they do not work for anyone in particular.
Though Sleeper isn’t much help, the Venom symbiote has been going out of its way to not only take care of Eddie, but Dylan as well. In fact, the symbiote has grown used to accompanying Dylan wherever it is that he needs to go, shifting into a sleek, muscular dog form for stepping out into public. Venom takes the time to remind Eddie that he needs to rest, that he doesn’t have anyone to impress, and that the most important mission of them all right now is Dylan himself.
This is exactly this deeply rooted, genuinely compassionate relationship between Eddie and the Venom symbiote that brought them both back from beyond the brink to usurp Knull, and it looks like it is the same kind of relationship that Venom is building with Dylan. It couldn’t come too soon, as Dylan clearly needs someone to lean on after having dealt with the end of the world from the front lines. As they walk to school, the symbiote even reveals its true name to Dylan in the form of its emotional pattern, the vibrational frequency which separates symbiotes from one another within the Hive. Although it doesn’t seem like it would be much, the gesture is incredibly meaningful to both of them, even bringing tears to Dylan’s eyes in the moment.
For two symbiotes whose lives have been so entwined over the past few years, the fact that they have both found themselves living alongside Eddie and Dylan isn’t surprising. How diametrically opposed these two are, however, is a bit of a shock. Sleeper and Venom have had wildly different experiences in their respective lives, but they have both been part of the same Hive, and they have each seen many of the same horrors.
While Venom has always been much more deeply embroiled in many of the Marvel Universe’s worst moments, Sleeper has both been around for far less time and been through far fewer harrowing situations. Even if their methods are different, each of them are doing everything they can to keep Eddie and Dylan moving in the right direction.
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