Symbiocide

The issue begins in San Francisco, with a pretty young lady getting mugged in an alley. Her attacker decides to take a little more from her than just her purse, when a savior appears to her rescue in the form of the most unlikeliest; Venom! Venom makes quick work of the mugger, choking him to death with his symbiote, saving the lady (who runs off, more afraid of Venom than the mugger), before swinging off.

Changing back into his human alias, Eddie Brock checks himself into an apartment, but his short-term peace is cut short when police officers recognize him as the wanted felon Venom and attempt to arrest him. Brock takes the police down with no casualties and escapes by changing into Venom and web-swinging away, with a tourist taking pictures of the escape.

Later, in New York City, Peter has just turned in some photos for the Daily Bugle when he learns from Ben Urich that Venom has resurfaced in San Francisco after a run-in with the police. The very mention of Venom hits Peter hard, and Peter (after a series of inner monologues used as a recap of Spider-Man & Venom’s history for the reader’s benefit) decides to get to San Francisco as soon as possible to bring Venom down once and for all (Spider-man & Venom made a deal involving Spidey letting Venom go scott-free in their most previous encounter, see me notes at the end)

Meanwhile, Eddie finds himself wandering around a park questioning the status of his homelessness, finding it difficult to find shelter when the police now knows of his existence in the city. Despite being born and raised in San Francisco, everything feels different to him. But some familiar things seem to happen no matter where Brock goes, as Brock stumbles across a scene of men in suits harshly attacking a group of homeless people. Brock gets himself involved, when one of the suits pulls out a gun, stating how much of a mistake it was for Brock to get involved. Crushing his hand with his symbiote-enhanced strength, Eddie reveals exactly who made the real mistake.

Well, it just so happens that Spidey’s in town and has since been looking for Venom. Coincidentally, Spidey happens to be nearby when he hears the commotion of Venom’s battle with the suits. Spidey jumps in, attacking Venom while the suits regroup. Venom restrains Spidey from fighting back, stating how Spidey shouldn’t be there in the first place, before also explaining that the suits Spider-Man helped out are not the good guys. Spider-Man sees that first hand when the suited men open fire on both of the web-slingers. Our web-head clearly has no idea what’s going on. With his spider-like agility, Spider-Man makes quick work out of the gunmen, only to find that Venom, and the group of homeless people, have disappeared!

Portland, Oregon. Our story cuts here for a minute as a man named Orwell Taylor views on his television a newscast revealing that both Spider-Man and Venom have showed up in San Francisco. Holding up a picture of a young man named Hugh, he gets on the phone & calls his contacts; Target Sighted!

Back in San Francisco, Eddie and his group have fled into an underground cavern, leading to their “sanctuary“. Although some in the group are against the decision of bringing a psychopath to their lair, they are all reminded that the decision isn’t theirs to make. Eddie changes the subject, asking about the people who attacked them in the first place. He’s told that those men work for a man named Roland Treece. The “who” is revealed, but the “why” is not as it’s anyone’s guess why Treece sent those men to attack them. And at that moment, the group find themselves encountering two Diggers; large mechanical robot, piloted by more of Treeces men inside. Treece has sent these human-driven machines to these parts before, but the people have always been able to avoid detection, until now. Eddie tries to calmly get the people to retreat, thinking that maybe they wont attack if they his group shows no sign of threat. That plan proves to be a failure as one of the two Diggers grabs Eddie (mistaking him for being one of the homeless living in this area) and lifts a drill to Eddie’s head. Of course, Eddie quickly changes into Venom and easily fights back, to the surprise of the two Diggers.

As if he was playing a game of tag, Venom gleefully pummels one of the Diggers. He stands above the downed Digger, sending some of his symbiote seeping into the Digger’s suit through the cracked glass of the suits “window”. Panicked, the second Digger fires his “sonic shovel”, a beam of sound used to (apparently) dig through the ground, at Venom, which puts a major hurt on him. As the second Digger keeps Venom pinned down to the ground in agony with the sonics, the first Digger, with the suits mighty fists, pounds Venom so hard, the two of them (Venom and the first Digger) fall through the ground into a deep darkness.

They both fall to solid ground, each of their “suits” (the Digger’s suit and Eddie’s symbiote, or what’s left of it after being blasted by sonics) cushioning the impact of the fall. The Digger tries to finish what he started with the weakened Venom, when Venom brings to his attention the area in which they’ve fallen. The two take a look around, finding themselves in the middle of a historic looking city. “We didn’t just fall through some rotted tunnel floor--we’ve fallen through time!!”

This limited series takes place immediately after Amazing Spider-Man 375, where Spidey and Venom go their separate ways after making a deal that Venom wouldn't try to kill Spidey if Spidey let Venom go scott-free. Not one of Spidey's best decisions. An okay start, thankfully things pick-up in part 2.