Poor Eddie.

Eddie Brock has come into Rick Remender's Venom comic and has been playing big roles. It's great that Eddie is still an important character in the world of Venom. I'm very happy that Rick Remender's Venom series has been using Eddie Brock in its stories a lot. But there's a catch. Everything that Eddie has done or experienced since coming full-circle into this current Venom title has ended with Eddie losing, suffering, and being humiliated. You have to feel sorry for the guy; to play such a major role that only ends badly for him. He was temporarily possessed by the Venom symbiote he hates, had to sacrifice his Anti-Venom symbiote, found himself living a derelict lifestyle immediately afterwards, was abducted by Crime-Master and turned into the second Toxin, he has no control of the Toxin symbiote, and after being freed from the Toxin symbiote, is badly burned alive and possessed by Toxin again. Let's recap:

His role during Spider-Island as Anti-Venom, healing the infected citizens of New York, carried over into Remender's Venom with an Anti-Venom vs. Venom battle that ended with Venom triumphant & Eddie Brock defeated and crumpled unconscious on the ground in a heap of his own symbiote's regenerating mass. Eddie was then delivered to Mister Fantastic, webbed up and carried off like a slab of meat.

Later into Remender's Venom run, a now symbiote-less Eddie goes on a crusade to hunt and kill symbiotes. His attempt to take down Venom ends with him being webbed up by Venom and left behind knocked-out, Crime-Master and Jack-O-Lantern finding him after. We later find Crime-Master and Jack-O-Lantern in a secluded lab; in the most humiliating of situations, a nude man lies unconscious & restrained on the floor; Eddie Brock naked & hog-tied like an animal. He wakes up and finds himself being forcefully boned to the Toxin symbiote, against his will.

Eddie has no control over the Toxin symbiote. Toxin joins Crime-Master in his war against Flash Thompson, Agent Venom. Flash's first throw-down against the new Toxin results in Eddie's defeat via sonic pepper spray. Despite how much more powerful and threatening Eddie Brock is as Toxin, Flash takes him down by the simplest of means. A humiliating defeat for Eddie.

Venom storms Crime-Master's safehouses and has his second confrontation with Eddie's Toxin. This time Flash makes an earnest attempt at freeing Eddie Brock from the Toxin symbiote by weakening the Toxin symbiote with incendiary grenades. Toxin catches fire and Venom pulls Eddie from the Toxin symbiote. Eddie regains conscious but is then immediately snared by the burning Toxin symbiote, dragged through the flames, and is recaptured by the alien, with Eddie suffering serious burns. Eddie is once again under the control of the Toxin symbiote.

As of Venom's Savage Six arc, Eddie is once again trapped inside the Toxin symbiote. A tormented man who is only going to have it worse...

I'm not berating Rick Remender's directions for Eddie. I'm actually very happy with Eddie getting so heavily involved with this book, and seeing Eddie constantly put through the ringer only makes me appreciate him more. Attacked & defeated, left unconscious, forced to make critical sacrifices, then forgotten about and discarded by the public he helped save, homeless again, considered crazy, humiliated, stripped naked while tied and bound, bonded to another symbiote against his will with no free will or control. He's a character whose trials are engaging. I may feel sorry for him, but I'm ecstatic to see Eddie have so many key moments in a book he's not even the star of.