Warning: SPOILERS for Wolverine & Captain America: Weapon Plus #1
The Venom movie may have skipped over the character's ties to Spider-Man, but Marvel Comics just changed the entire fiction of the symbiote bonded to Eddie Brock - suggesting their connection, and the villain they became... was not coincidence at all.
This isn't the first change that Venom comics have made over the past few years, like the revelation that Venom's logo has nothing to do with Spider-Man's, or the more recent betrayal that the Venom symbiote was lying to Eddie Brock through false memories. However, the latest bombshell may be the biggest change in how Venom is perceived by comic book readers, and the hero's place in the history of the Marvel Universe. It used to be Wolverine a.k.a. 'Weapon X' who was seen as the product of a twisted government experiment, but now Venom may be able to claim the exact same thing… as 'Weapon V.'
The Truth About Venom Finally Revealed
The change to Venom's origin story (known now to fans, but still not to Venom or Eddie) comes in the pages of Wolverine & Captain America: Weapon Plus, as the two biggest success stories of the titular super-soldier program begin to unravel the truth about the figures and forces that engineered them into living weapons. Or the ones who tried to, anyway. And what truths they discovered in their first issue--the most troubling being that, in a way neither ever understood, Captain America helped create Wolverine, and countless other failed test subjects used and discarded by Weapon Plus over the years.
But when Logan and Steve stumble into a Weapon Plus lab, they don't yet know just how large the government program has become… nor do they see the massive chalkboard listing the other Weapon Plus programs by codename, supervisor, and terms for activating the agents. It's on this board that Deadpool is confirmed as Weapon 9, the predecessor to Wolverine's adamantium nightmare. And it's on this board that Weapon 5--sorry, Weapon V--is given the codename Venom… with Nick Fury overseeing it personally.
Yes, Nick Fury Created Symbiote Super-Soldiers
The idea that Nick Fury was working for the Weapon Plus program could be a giant reveal, since it's the group that tortured countless mutants and innocent civilians in the pursuit of turning them into living weapons. However, a single issue of Venom previously shed some light on the program, and Fury's role in it. It was teased back during Venom's war against Knull the Symbiote God. Knull, the first being in Marvel's universe, had remained powerless for decades while his Symbiote Dragon was frozen in the ice of Antarctica. Which is exactly where Nick Fury's team first found it.
As revealed in the one-shot comic Web of Venom: Ve'Nam, Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. extracted samples of the great Symbiote Dragon, with the intention of having them bond to new Symbiote super-soldier test subjects (basically the same plan of The Life Foundation in the Venom movie). The key difference is that the test subjects, Fury reveals, were hand-picked by him personally. And yet, the results were catastrophic. The Symbiotes took control of their hosts and massacred soldiers before being dealt with by a temporarily Venomized Wolverine in the jungles of Vietnam.
But before anyone accuses Nick Fury of playing the villain, Wolverine & Captain America: Weapon Plus establishes that the connections between each test program and the Weapon Plus oversight were kept secret, until recently discovered by Fantomex (before his own presumed assassination to keep the truth quiet). So even if Fury does allude to authorities he and S.H.I.E.L.D had to answer to, it's possible he never knew he was just one of several shocking, and doomed experiments trying to make the next Captain America. But the name of the program can not be ignored.
Venom is No Accident, But 'Weapon V'?
It would be easy to observe the symbiote soldier programs of the 1960s and dismiss it as unrelated to Eddie Brock or Venom, since they never met for several decades after that, and took years to form a true partnership. Not to mention Venom was an accidental creation born when the Symbiote was torn from Spider-Man, and sought out a host who similarly hated Peter Parker. Although the comics have rewritten that relationship in recent years too, revealing that Spider-Man's Symbiote Suit was trying to be a hero all along. Either way, it found Eddie and together they created Venom… but now it's clear there is more to that story than fans know, too.
The fact that "Venom" was the name of the project trying to merge Symbiotes to soldiers is no coincidence at all. Without that codename readers could deduce that Venom is simply the perfect result that Fury's team hoped to create--and who could blame them? But the simplest implication of this new bombshell is that either the Venom Symbiote a) originated from this program, and either can't or won't reveal it was part of Weapon Plus, or b) that finding and bonding with Eddie Brock was the program's doing all along, and not random chance or a partnership for revenge as may have seemed.
So where will the story go from here, Venom fans? The issue ends with the tease of a follow-up comic titled "Weapons Free," which can only be terrible news for everyone involved. But with that same final page included Venom's iconic eyes and mouth labeled as 'Weapon V,' the question may no longer be IF Venom is a product of the program... but whether they even know that themselves.
- WOLVERINE & CAPTAIN AMERICA: WEAPON PLUS #1
- Writer: Ethan Sacks
- Art: Diogenes Neves, Adriana Di Benedetto, Federico Blee
- Cover: Skan
- Variant Cover: Chris Bachalo
- THE SECRET HISTORY BEHIND THEIR ORIGINS REVEALED! In 1940, scientists attempted to make a man into the perfect weapon, a Super-Soldier. They failed and made him a legend instead. Before the turn of the century, they tried again for the tenth time. They failed, making a man into death incarnate. At long last, ETHAN SACKS (OLD MAN HAWKEYE, STAR WARS: GALAXY’S EDGE) and DIOGENES NEVES (GREEN ARROW, DEATHSTROKE) reveals the shadowy connections between Captain America, Wolverine and many more of the Marvel U’s Super-Soldiers…including some surprises! The conspiracy begins here!
Wolverine & Captain America: Weapon Plus #1 is available now from your local comic book shop, or direct from Marvel Comics.