With the Venom 26 spoilers posted…
Any thoughts as to who Virus is? The goblin glider and pumpkins are hints one would assume.
And since they did the name tease…cutting him off before he reveals his real identity…it would seem likely that it’s a past character and the name means something. You wouldn’t do the real name tease if it’s a completely new character and the real identity means nothing.
Future Normie maybe?
Future Normie might be a good guess. I think saying it’s Jack O’Lantern or Hobgoblin would be too obvious, but then again, making it obvious could be a way to throw people off as well.
DRogs theory about Phil seems like it works quite well.
Here was my post from a separate discussion.
Hmmm…pumpkin bombs…symbiote involvement?
Soo…how bout this…Phil Urich isn’t dead after all?
Red Goblin gutted him pretty well…BUT…there was symbiote goo involved.
Phil makes it…Maker gets ahold of him (he does track & want all symbiote related specimens). Heals him up, modifies him, etc. Or maybe Maker has no involvement & Phil just uses & modifies the tech he already has. He does have enhanced strength/powers vs just an average dude with tech after all.
Also…in re-reading issue 797…Phil’s “heart” was the specific body part mentioned when he was gutted “You never had the heart!..agghhh”.
So use of the Stark tech/armor even more related.
Death is in issue #797 and Phil has a few other minor keys out there. My personal fav being:
But did Eddie do Phil wrong at anytime in the past? That’s the kicker, cause that’s all Virus seems to mention is he’s going after Eddie cause he ruined his life.
I can’t think of any particular incident or transgression?..but…I don’t know how much he is aware of the varied incantations of Venom, Agent Venom, etc. History with his uncle & Eddie that led to a bad outcome?
He’s fought Agent Venom & had bad outcomes because of it…but did he know it was Flash vs Eddie?
No indication (yet) of a sonic scream so that could negate my theory as well.
Guess we will see & fun to theorize!
Yeah… Thing is, Virus refers to him as Eddie and not Venom. So I wouldn’t think its Venom he’s after, he’s after Eddie specifically it seems.
My apologies to DD.
What does Matt Murdock have to do with this…
In trying to find any connection between Venom & anything related to a “Virus”…the only real link would be the “Madness” mini-series/story. In reading back through it, I just can’t find any other associations with those involved in the virus/the madness plot while coinciding with goblin equipment access.
Ben Urich & Eddie never had any real issue that I’m aware of? Given Phil is his nephew was there anything there I’m missing?
That seems a little far fetched to me. If we’re going for out of left field calls involving dead folks my money is on Eddie’s ex-wife Anne. He drove her completely insane over the years, and she had what I’m sure she views an as an actual virus, if she knows the truth about Dylan, growing inside of her. Plus, I still have a kind of beat up Sinner Takes All run I’d like to get rid of. So, she’s the longshot I’m pulling for.
The trouble with any of our guesses is trying to tie together obvious Green goblin/Hobgoblin ties with apparent Stark Tech and an intense hate for Brock???
Time will tell. We know Cates loves to draw upon past, obscure things…so Anne is certainly another great possibility!
Or Cates is doing this to make people search and search and it’s a completely new character and he’ll bring forth a flashback sequence in a new issue to bring forth the wrong doing… but yes, if this is a existing character, Venom #25 either becomes more sought after (first in uniform) or their actual first blows up…
@agentpoyo
I’ll be interested to see how many copies of #25 were actually ordered. I know there were variants, and now the 2nd prints…but in my area…it really wasn’t an easy to find book (Regardless of cover).
I had one shop owner specifically say he went very light as he just didn’t know what type of response he would get once shops opened back up. Not to mention, at that time, we were still in a bit of limbo with regards to whether they actually would be open. Certainly still a very large print run I’m sure…but compared to other issues/precovid, etc…I’ll be curious to see.
There were quite a few people asking for it here and they were gone on the initial day? Fully realize I’m just generalizing on what I saw in my area.
Yeah, true. Typically we humans love anniversary and other numbers that split up the good old hundreth of a place for some reason… so yeah, with a lot of shops still on edge about opening, people on edge about venturing out… I could see some shops going lighter than usual for their big #25 for this issue.
That holds true in my area too. All the shops are being very cautious with their ordering. They are ordering for their subs, and have a very small amount of shelf copies.
It’s Marvel…maybe their issues haven’t happened yet, or were in another universe…
Also of note, Virus is black and yellow, the same as Sleeper. It is likely not a coincidence the same colors were used.
Yeah, same here in KC as well. I’m wondering if the second print of #25 might end up being less desirable if first print orders were super low. I’ll still be grabbing a copy regardless since that splash page is sick, but it’ll be interesting to see how Covid effects what the key ends up being. It’s already wild a FCBD issue got scooped at this point.
