Venom, Venom, everywhere! That Klyntar symbiote remains perennially popular, in large part because of his visual simplicity. He’s a big, black, fanged and clawed thing that takes on the shape of hosts it bonds with.
A lot of the time, that host is Peter Parker’s nemesis Eddie Brock. But sometimes it isn’t and a new figure two-pack depicts two other folks who did some time with a piece of Venom: Flash Thompson — known as Agent Venom, Space Knight Venom, and later Agent Anti-Venom — and Andi Benton — currently known as Silence but called Mania when she bonded with Venom parts. Make that “Marvel’s Mania” — clearly somebody else trademarked plain ol’ Mania by itself for toy purposes.
What’s the Deal?
The casual buyer or kid will just see two cool forms of Venom. Anyone wanting the full story on these two, however, has a lot of reading to catch up on. Former school bully Flash Thompson became a hero when he took on the Venom symbiote, but in using it to protect Andi, he inadvertently gave her a bit of the symbiote too.
It gets more complicated, as Flash-Venom was carrying a Hell Mark. This bonded him in a promise to Mephisto, but the mark transferred over to Andi as well, making her a target of Crossbones and later giving her the ability to control demons. Meanwhile, Flash went into space with the Guardians of the Galaxy, found the planet of the symbiotes, and purged his version of Venom of its human-induced flaws. But since there was another part of Venom still out there, the purge didn’t last forever.
Anyway, the bottom line is you get two cool figures out of the deal. The set includes an alternate head for Space Knight Venom and two symbiotic weapons. Priced at $55.99, the set goes up for preorder on Target’s website on June 22 at 1 p.m. ET. Expect delivery sometime in the fall, which will give you time to read all the backstory issues. Get a load of the official product images below:
