Venom has been going through some big changes in the Marvel Universe with the ongoing War of the Realms event, which has seen Eddie Brock replace his alien symbiote with a new magical symbiote to fight against Malekith and his invading forces.
While his new symbiote has incredible abilities that have allowed Eddie to create Venom Viking armor and even become an enormous Frost Giant killing machine, his original alien symbiote was no slouch in the powers department. Today we are going to take a look at a few of the amazing things the Venom symbiote can do, to prepare for when Eddie comes crawling back after War of the Realms.
POWER REPLICATION
Most of Venom’s immediately recognizable powers are similar to Spider-Man; wall-crawling, web-swinging, and super-strength, mainly. These powers come from the symbiote’s ability to replicate the natural abilities of its previous hosts, which were contained within the symbiote’s genetic memory.
That genetic memory technically means the symbiote has access to any host power it has bonded with before, which as we’ve seen in the ongoing Absolute Carnage event, is a lot of powerful heroes and villains. Most recently we saw Venom encounter the Grendel symbiote, which allowed Venom to replicate the symbiote dragon’s wings, presumably from its Klyntar genetic memory.
SPATIAL AWARENESS
While the symbiote was able to replicate most of Spider-Man’s abilities, it never managed or needed to clone its own version of Spidey’s early warning danger system known as his Spider-Sense. This is due to the symbiote’s own unique spatial awareness, which allows the alien to “see” in every direction at once.
The ability to be aware of your surroundings, coupled with the telepathic connection with its hosts, leads to almost instantaneous warnings and reactions for the host. This ability rivals, if not surpasses Parker’s Spider-Sense, and helps keep the Venom symbiote, and its hosts, alive.
ADAPTIVE SURVIVAL
As a symbiotic organism, one of the main goals of the Venom suit is to keep its host alive. While the symbiote is at times able to create its own humanoid form independent of a host, that ability is short-lived, so protection of its host body is essential.
This has led to the symbiote’s ability to not only keep itself alive in extreme conditions, but also provide whatever its current host needs to survive. This has led to the Venom symbiote producing oxygen for survival underwater or in space, or even generating limbs for former host Flash Thompson, who had lost his legs in the war.
CAMOUFLAGE
Technically, the ability to camouflage is part of the Venom symbiote’s larger ability to shapeshift, but camouflage is used by almost every host of the symbiote in one way or another. Generally, the ability represents itself in how the symbiote can replicate clothing or produce different costumes for each host, but that ability can be actively used as well.
The symbiote can effectively disguise its host as anything by altering its shape or appearance, which Agent Venom used on many missions, and most recently Carnage (who shares similar abilities as Venom) used this power to disguise himself as Eddie Brock. Of course, the simpler act of becoming invisible my mimicking its surroundings is a similarly powerful ability in Venom’s arsenal.
CHEMICAL MANIPULATION
When a symbiote bonds with its host they become one being, with the host retaining control of their symbiote-enhanced body… for the most part. However, over the years we’ve seen the symbiote exert control over its host body through both physical and psychic methods, though those aren’t the symbiotes only form of control.
The Venom symbiote has at times altered the body chemistry of Eddie Brock to serve its own needs. If Eddie is too angry the symbiote might try to calm him down, or even sedate him entirely. The symbiote has no issues with altering its host body chemistry to suit its own needs.
ENHANCED HEALING
The Venom suit has an incredible healing factor, as it is able to reconstitute itself from small amounts after damage from its biggest weaknesses, fire and ultrasonic sound. However, that healing factor also extends to its hosts, who the symbiote is able to rapidly heal from extreme damage that manages to get through the symbiote’s incredibly durable hide.
However, this enhanced healing factor goes further than dealing with cuts and bruises, as the symbiote can monitor and adjust the host’s body to deal with sickness and illness. When Eddie Brock discovered he had adrenal cancer, he learned that the symbiote had been keeping the cancer at bay for years, though it was not able to fully cure the disease.
ASEXUAL REPRODUCTION
There are a number of symbiotes in the Marvel Universe, with characters like Carnage, Mania, Scream, Scorn, and others running around (before Absolute Carnage, at least). What’s incredible is all of these symbiotes are actually the offspring of the Venom symbiote, which first spawned the symbiote that joined with Cletus Kasady in Amazing Spider-Man #345.
Both the Venom and Carnage symbiotes have produced over the years, though their hosts treat the offspring very differently. While Venom attempted to raise and nurture his latest offspring which became known as Sleeper, Carnage attempted to kill his first offspring Toxin, fearing it would grow more powerful than Carnage was.
“COSMIC-SENSE”
Flash Thompson’s time as Agent Venom took the character on huge new adventures, as he joined with first the Secret Avengers, and then the Guardians of the Galaxy. It was during this time in space that Flash and the Venom symbiote discovered their origins on the planet Klyntar, which cleansed the Venom symbiote of its previous hosts’ instabilities.
This new purified symbiote then exhibited a new ability that allowed Venom to hear the “Voice of the Cosmos,” which directed the Venom symbiote and other Agents of the Cosmos to where they were needed to help in the galaxy. This version of Venom became known as a Space Knight, but the symbiote appears to have lost this ability following its renewed corruption by its human hosts.
ONLINE ACCESSIBILITY
One of the oddest abilities shared by both Venom and Carnage comes from an interesting series called Venom: Carnage Unleashed that was released during the early years of the internet, which is very apparent. The story sees the release of a video game based on Carnage, which is played by Carnage, who then uses his symbiote to enter the internet so he can kill the other people playing.
He does this by extruding his symbiote into the computer monitor as a “molecular filament that can travel along communication cables,” which doesn’t really make sense. However, what’s important here is that Venom was also able to accomplish this same feat using his symbiote to battle Carnage in a virtual world created by a hacker changing their symbiote code into video game graphic code… let’s just move on from this one.
“POCKET” DIMENSIONS
Arguably one of the strangest abilities that the Venom suit possesses, and one that doesn’t pop up in modern comics too often, is its ability to create or access pocket dimensions. When Peter Parker first got the suit on Battleworld in Secret Wars, he discovered that the suit would create “pockets” that allowed him to carry things like his wallet and camera safely inside the symbiote.
This was previously explained as the suit shunting these items into a literal pocket dimension, though pretty much every odd unexplained power or ability in the early days of the Marvel Universe seemed to include things going into or coming out of another dimension. This ability hasn’t been explored much by modern writers but stands out as something most fans didn’t know the Venom suit could do.
