Why Did Doctor Doom Unleash a Venom Bomb on Earth?

Today, see the interesting twist in the story of how Doctor Doom attacked the United States with a “Venom bomb.”

In “Our Lives Together,” I spotlight some of the more interesting examples of shared comic book universes. You know, crossovers that aren’t exactly crossovers.

This is an interesting story about you can add new depth to an existing story without retconning the original story (well, not a blatant retcon, if you are one of those “anything that is retroactively added to a story is a retcon,” then fair enough, but I think that the term has moved past that definition a long time ago), but just using the shared Marvel Universe to add some twists and turns. Not only that, but it’s also a fascinating look at a writer using two titles to tell overlapping stories set in the Marvel Universe. So it’s all kinds of interesting!


RELATED: How Green Lantern Reacted to the Flash’s Trial for Killing Reverse-Flash

DOCTOR DOOM ATTACKS THE UNITED STATES WITH A VENOM BOMB

As you may or may not know, after Civil War, the Avengers (then starring in New Avengers) were torn in two, with Iron Man, Ms. Marvel and Sentry siding with the government in the enforcement of the Superhuman Registration Act while Luke Cage, Spider-Woman (not really Spider-Woman) and Spider-Man went on the run with new team members, Iron Fist, Doctor Strange, Ronin (Clint Barton) and Echo. They continued to do superhero stuff, but also had to keep from getting arrested by Iron Man’s team.

Iron Man, meanwhile, got his own Avengers book, The Mighty Avengers, adding some other veteran superheroes (Wasp, Wonder Man and Widow, Black – just wanted to keep that W theme going) and Ares to a new powerhouse Avengers team. Since Brian Michael Bendis was writing both books at the same time, he did some clever stuff connecting the books in indirect ways (I might spotlight some other examples in the future).

But in this specific instance, a satellite seems to have accidentally blasted a pod down to Earth in Mighty Avengers #7 (by Bendis, Mark Bagley, Danny Miki, Allen Martinez, Victor Olazaba and Justin Ponsor) where it then released a virus that transformed New Yorkers into, well, Venoms…

At the same time, in New Avengers #34 (by Bendis, Leinil Francis Yu and Dave McCaig), the New Avengers were about to fight some bad guys when they were all attacked by the virus, as well…

New Avengers #35 wasn’t actually part of either story (it told the background of The Hood taking control of the supervillains of New York City to sort of form a supervillain union), but it had a brilliant Yu cover with Wolverine as Venom…

That’s one of those covers that is so good that I think it sells for a lot based just on the cover (unless there are people out there who like to pay good money to see Tigra get the crap beaten out of her, which, if there is, please don’t tell me, I’d rather live in ignorance).

In New Avengers #36, Luke Cage ends up fighting alongside the other members of Tony’s team who also can avoid getting the symbiote on them, as the heroes without obvious defenses (like rockhard skin) got turned into symbiotes in both that issue…

and in the corresponding Mighty Avengers #8…

So Luke and the others fought against the symbiotes simultaneously in New Avengers #36 and Mighty Avengers #8 (just shown from different perspectives in each issue)…

Iron Man then whipped up an antidote, which he used in Mighty Avengers #8…

as well as in #36…

THE AVENGERS HUNT DOWN DOCTOR DOOM FOR HIS VENOM BOMB

At the end of Mighty Avengers #8, Iron Man realizes that it was Doom’s satellite…

and we learn at the end of New Avengers #36 that Iron Man’s team was now off to Latveria to arrest Doom (Tony, at this point in time, was now the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., so he had the international authority to do so)…

In Mighty Avengers #9, Doom is all, “Ruh roh” when he gets back from a trip through time to discover that the Avengers are on their way to arrest him for the whole Venom bomb deal…

Doom being Doom, he obviously has a plan to deal with the Avengers, but that’s a whole other story (as in, a whole other column one day), but suffice it to say that at the end of the day, in Mighty Avengers #11, Doom is now arrested…

Of course, the problem THERE was that the Skrull invasion occurred soon afterwards and in the process, Iron Man’s reputation is besmirched (S.H.I.E.L.D. sort of fell flat on its face on the whole “Defend Earth” part of things) and he is kicked out as head of S.H.I.E.L.D. and replaced by Norman Osborn who is, of course, a supervillain really, and so Osborn quickly frees Doom and forms an evil Cabal (the supervillain equivalent to the superhero Illuminati) to run things as part of a storyline called “Dark Reign.”

However, there’s one last twist…

RELATED: How Doctor Doom Inspired Kang to Create Another Variant Identity

THE TWIST BEHIND DOCTOR DOOM’S VENOM BOMB

A few years after the Venom Bomb story, Christos Gage and Mario Alberti did a fun miniseries called Spider-Man/Fantastic Four that was set at different points in the history of the Spider-Man and Fantastic Four (similar to the amazing Spider-Man/Human Torch miniseries by Dan Slott, Ty Templeton and Nelson).

Interestingly, the issue revealed a long unresolved plotline of who freed the symbiote from being held by the Fantastic Four (after Peter Parker initially got rid of it), but that reveal was that it was taken by Kristoff, the young man who was a temporary fill-in for Doctor Doom when Doom was thought to be dead. Kristoff had traveled in time, found the symbiote, created the Venom bomb and then made it so that Doom acquired it, but then made sure it was released and tracked to Doom…

Pretty darn clever, huh? Good stuff by Gage. He’s usually really good at working with continuity like that.

Okay, folks, if you have a suggestion for another interesting piece of shared continuity, drop me a line at [email protected]!

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