Marvel Announces All-New Venom Featuring a Mystery Host

Potential All-New Venom hosts include Rick Jones, Madame Masque, Robbie Robertson and Luke Cage.

By Timothy Adams

A new Venom series is spinning out of the father-son battle between Eddie and Dylan Brock in Venom War. The event by current Venom architect Al Ewing has Eddie Brock and Dylan Brock on opposing sides, each believing the other is the cause of a hellish future yet to come. Ironically, neither character is in possession of the Klyntar, with the Venom symbiote instead reuniting with Spider-Man in Venom War's opening issue. However, it appears the web-slinger won't be keeping the symbiote, as Marvel has officially revealed All-New Venom (via Polygon). 

All-New Venom is by writer Al Ewing and artist Carlos Gómez. Unlike Ewing's previous Venom – which was a time-traveling, cosmic affair – All-New Venom will be a street-level comic featuring a mystery character underneath the slimey symbiote suit. While the person's identity is being kept a secret, we are given four suspects that Marvel fans will be familiar with: Rick Jones, Madame Masque, Robbie Robertson, and Luke Cage. 

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(Photo:

Cover for All-New Venom #1

- Marvel Comics)

Venom returns to his street-level roots

"If people have a strong hankering for something different from me, this is that. It's almost more like a Spider-Man-level story. It is set on Earth, very much in the normal New York City. Everywhere we go in the story is a place you could go, or at least the type of place you could go. Obviously, when we go to a warehouse… well, I do have a tendency to look up actual warehouses, and then change them just enough to pass legal. So yeah, everywhere we go in this story is a natural place you can go in New York City," Ewing said of All-New Venom going the street-level route.

"So we take a swing away from the big cosmic thing. The pendulum swings away from that and back into a much more intimate, character-based story, but also has a lot of that ground-level superhero action, where it's less about cosmic entities battling in each other's mindscapes, or mysterious zones beyond time, and much more on the street — slinging webs, slinging chains, doing the Venom thing. It's almost like my return to an old-school sort of superhero comic, but with a couple of twists that we're gonna have fun bringing in."

All-New Venom's four host candidates

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Character design sheet for All-New Venom

- Marvel Comics)

On Rick Jones, Ewing said, "It's good writing a version of Rick that has come through a lot of stuff and out the other side. This is a much more laid-back, joke-telling, wisecracking Rick than we're used to from me. No longer going through it… unless he's now going through something else. Who can say…"

Next up is Madame Masque. "Madame Masque is another great suspect. She's coming direct from the Gang War, which is where we last saw her in a Spidey context. She's got plans. Do those plans involve commandeering a symbiote? Do they involve getting revenge on other gangs in an identity which nobody would ever suspect? The ultimate mask for Madame Masque? I couldn't possibly comment…," said Ewing.

"Robbie Robertson is somebody else who was touched by the big Gang War and Spidey. He's never been tempted by power or superpowers. Has that changed after his son got so involved with the New York criminal underworld and falling in love with the Beetle? Does Robbie want to find a way to get things under control in a way that you know he can't as a newspaper man? Is this one of the great secret identities, like Clark Kent, a newspaper reporter — or newspaper editor, in Robbie's case — hearing about trouble, then going out and dealing with it?"

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And finally, we have Mayor Luke Cage: "We've seen heroes get symbiotes to get a little more done. And we've seen that Luke Cage has had trouble hitting the streets and doing what he loves to do while behind the desk of the mayor. Would this be a way to do that? Would this be a way to pull on another identity, kick the ass that he knows needs kicking, but in a capacity where he's not dealing with it in an official capacity? He doesn't have to answer questions that he would if he went out on the streets in his mayor outfit and did what he used to do for the community. Maybe a symbiote is the perfect cover for him. Again, who can say? I'm merely saying words. These are all just possibilities…"

All-New Venom #1 goes on sale in December. 

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