Mary Jane and Venom’s Origin Story Includes One Major Detail That Will Change Everything

A look back at how Mary Jane Watson bonded with the Venom symbiote reveals how their connection comes with a crucial downside. Marvel rocked the comic book community when the publisher revealed that Mary Jane is the All-New Venom. Part of the surprise was because four characters — Madame Masque, Luke Cage, Robbie Robertson, and Rick Jones — were promoted as the top four suspects underneath the symbiote. Issues of All-New Venom slowly eliminated each suspect until only Mary Jane remained. With the big surprise out of the way, All-New Venom moves the story forward to reveal a secret about Mary Jane and Venom’s connection.

ComicBook has the exclusive preview of All-New Venom #6 by Al Ewing, Carlos Gomez, Frank D’Armata, and VC’s Clayton Cowles. It flashes back to Venom War, the event series that preceded All-New Venom and featuring Eddie Brock and his son Dylan Brock vying to be the last Venom standing. Mary Jane, in her Jackpot persona, was losing a fight against an ancient mega-symbiote called Arachniote. At that time, Peter Parker was reunited with the Venom symbiote and wearing it again. The symbiote was able to take the randomness out of Mary Jane’s Jackpot device, enabling her to have a power sufficient to beat the villain.

Mary Jane and Venom are retelling this story to Robbie Robertson and MJ’s boyfriend, Paul Rabin, inside the couple’s apartment, except they’re sitting in a very awkward position on the couch. Mary Jane and Venom are seated as if they are the ones in a relationship, with Venom’s right arm draped over MJ’s shoulder. She explains that they have to maintain contact, and either she’s wearing the symbiote, or it’s in her bloodstream. Venom then explains that they have to stay together or they’ll die.

“Or we’ll die, yes,” Venom says. “And that’s a whole other story.”

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The preview of All-New Venom #6 ends here with that teaser, but it serves as a major development in Mary Jane and Venom’s story. In some ways, it mirrors the new partnership between Eddie Brock and Carnage. They bonded at the end of Venom War, with their story continuing in Eddie Brock: Carnage. Both were near death, choosing to bond out of necessity rather than convenience. All-New Venom appeared to be going well for MJ and the symbiote, but this revelation proves that there is more to this mystery than we initially believed.

When asked how he decided on Mary Jane being the All-New Venom, Ewing told Marvel.com, “I started off wanting to do an old-school ‘who’s the protagonist’ mystery to mark the shift in tone for the new volume to something a little less “crazy cosmic” and a little more ‘street-level thrills.’ So we were coming up with all kinds of names, both for the red herrings and for the potential host, and we kept circling back to Mary Jane.”

Ewing then teased the tone of All-New Venom now that the mystery is behind them: “Still fun and breezy, but the darkness of Venom books of old may start to creep in from the edges. One big change is that now we know who the host is, we can show their relationship in a lot more detail— including some pretty big, blazing fights coming down the line. Just because they’re stuck together, it doesn’t make them friends, and it doesn’t mean they agree about things… things like Eddie Brock, for example.”

We also have Peter Parker’s reaction to look forward to in future issues. “What, we haven’t had enough spoilers for this book?” Ewing joked. “Okay, how about this: Peter won’t be the first to find out… and when he does, it’ll be under some pretty challenging circumstances. We’ll see how he takes it.”

All-New Venom #6 goes on sale Wednesday, May 7th. Let us know your thoughts on the preview in the comments below!