Venom? Venom's gone. Feels like it's been gone forever. Maybe I'm just worn out... but everything I remember about it... everything that made Venom real... is all so distant and murky... like a dream that's fading away. 
Appearing in 1st story
Featured Characters:
- Venom (Eddie Brock) (Loses the Magic Venom Costume)
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Jack O'Lantern (Loses Dreamstone)
- Fire Goblin army (Death of several)
- War Witches
Other Characters:
- Numerous unnamed New Yorkers
- God (Yahweh) (Mentioned)
- Sindr, Queen of Cinders (Mentioned)
- Thor Odinson (Referenced)
- Jack O'Lantern (Jack) (Mentioned)
- Malekith the Accursed (Mentioned)
Races and Species:
- Humans
- Symbiotes (Mentioned)
- Golems (Mentioned)
- Fire Demons
- Ponies (Mentioned)
- Asgardians (Referenced)
- Dark Elves
Locations:
Items:
- Jack O'Lantern's Suit (Loses Dreamstone augmentation)
- Magic Venom Costume (Returns to being a Dreamstone)
- Venom symbiote (Mentioned)
- Muspelheim Fire
- Dreamstone
Vehicles:
- Jack O'Lantern's Flying Broomstick (Augmented by a Dreamstone) (Destruction)
Events:
- Halloween (Mentioned)
Synopsis for 1st story
Inside Rex Strickland's bunker, Dylan Brock impatiently wonders where Eddie Brock is.
Elsewhere in the city, Jack O'Lantern laughs maniacally as his Dreamstone-augmented Goblin Glider-like mount spits a torrent of flames at a group of civilians. Clad in a an artificial symbiote in the form of a Venomized suit of Asgardian armor, manifested from a dreamstone of his own, Eddie brandishes a battleaxe and notes that Jack O'Lantern will burn down the city just to draw him out. Coating the axe in the artificial symbiote, Eddie throws the axe at Jack O'Lantern and hits him in the side, smirking as the axe returns to his hand.
As his wound heals, Jack O'Lantern returns fire by throwing his flaming scythe at Eddie, who leaps out of the way and mocks Jack O'Lantern for missing him. Jack O'Lantern's voice mockingly tells Eddie to not be so sure, and he looks up to see Jack O'Lantern suddenly standing on the rooftop. Jack O'Lantern mocks Eddie for his lack of imagination, sneering that the dreamstones allow their wielder to do literally anything - case in point, creating a doppelganger to tag-team an opponent. Eddie snaps that Jack O'Lantern is a hypocrite given his own inability to shake the Halloween motif, Jack O'Lantern snapping that the dreamstone's power is wasted on Eddie. As Jack O'Lantern's doppelganger wonders what he could do with two dreamstones, Eddie slashes him with his axe and mockingly states he'd just make more pumpkins. Jack O'Lantern's doppelganger gleefully impales Eddie with spikes, Eddie inwardly noting that Jack O'Lantern is right regarding his fixation on the Venom symbiote. Manifesting a fanged maw and prehensile tongue, Eddie rips Jack O'Lantern's doppelganger in half. The real Jack O'Lantern looms over Venom, berating him for turning his back on his opponent before blasting him with a torrent of flames. As Jack O'Lantern mocks him for still being weak to fire, Venom lies at the bottom of an alley.
Retracting the fangs, Eddie reflects on his tragic past, noting it makes him dangerous but not imaginative; but that the dreamstone isn't waiting for him to step up and is changing him on its own, controlling itself. Eddie notices a group of civilians hiding behind a dumpster. A man with broken glasses begs Eddie to stay down, saying that if he stops fighting Jack O'Lantern will just go away, but Eddie disagrees. A pair of Fire Demons arrive, declaring their intent to sacrifice Eddie and the civilians to Queen Sindr. Eddie tells the citizens to run, shouting when they don't immediately flee. As the Fire Demons grab him and start burning the dreamstone symbiote away, Eddie remembers why he's fighting - to find a safe place for his son. Angry at himself for having let his dark past make him a victim and for having lost sight of what's truly important, Eddie throws the Fire Demons off himself as the dreamstone symbiote metamorphoses again - becoming sleeker and more streamlined. Manifesting a fanged maw, Venom tears one of the fire demons apart, the other fleeing in terror before being mowed down by a volley of crystaline spikes.
As Venom roars triumphantly, Eddie notes he can't beat Jack O'Lantern at his own game, and that trying will only result in innocents dying. Noting that while he could kill Jack O'Lantern in a one-on-one fight, the collateral damage would be too great, Eddie realizes that he's been playing into the War Witch's hands by falling back on what he knew and giving into his rage. Deciding that he's done being used, Eddie disperses the dreamstone symbiote and its fragments bond to the civilians in the line of fire. Sensing their fear as they're covered in Venomized Asgardian armor, Eddie uses his control over the dreamstone symbiote to direct them to safety. As Jack O'Lantern screams that he's a living nightmare, Eddie notes that they aren't cut out for magic and battles with gods are beyond them. Forming an axe and raising it over his head, Eddie smirks as he notes he only really knows anything about one Asgardian anyway. Jack O'Lantern is suddenly struck by a massive bolt of mystical lightning, sending him crashing to the ground and stripping him of his dreamstone. As rain from the storm Eddie summoned begins extinguishing the flames, Eddie approaches Jack, who begs for mercy and protests that he's not the real Jack O'Lantern, just a nobody who found the suit and gear. As Eddie walks away into the rain, the civilians' Venomized armor crumbles away.
Scrying these events through her cauldron, the tall and skinny War Witch berates Eddie and Jack O'Lantern for squandering the power she gave them when they could have been avatars of chaos. Her sisters appear - the short and skinny War Witch mocking her for having to regrow an arm; and the short and overweight War Witch remarking that she'll never understand her fascination with tempting mortals given that she's not a devil, telling her that Malekith has need of them. Sneering that if her sisters press their luck they'll find she can be both a witch and a devil, the tall and skinny War Witch states that her games have only just begun and that the seeds of chaos she's sown will long outlast even Malekith's presence on Midgard.
Arriving at Rex's bunker, Eddie uses a crowbar to pry open the door and is nearly shot by Dylan, who notes that he's not Venom anymore. Eddie states that Dylan was right about not being able to trust the witch, patting his head affectionately. As they head back inside, Eddie tells Dylan that it's bad outside, but that they can wait it out inside the bunker. Dylan asks what became of Venom, Eddie telling him that the symbiote's gone and his memories of having been bonded to it are fading away like a half-forgotten dream. Outside, one of the dreamstones lies abandoned on the street, a hand reaching out to pick it up.
Appearing in "Everyone Is a Target: Part 1"
Featured Characters:
- Unnamed city workers (First and only known appearance)
Antagonists:
- Cult of Knull
- Carnage's Hive
- Carnage (Cletus Kasady) (Behind the scenes)
- Numerous unnamed New Yorkers (Controlled by Carnage)
- Carnage's Hive
Races and Species:
Locations:
- Earth
- United States of America
- New York
- New York City
- Manhattan
- Lower East Side
- The Bowery
- New York City Subway
- Grand Street (Mentioned)
- The Bowery
- Lower East Side
- Manhattan
- New York City
- New York
- United States of America
Items:
- Dark Carnage symbiote
- Dark Carnage's Spire (First appearance)
Synopsis for "Everyone Is a Target: Part 1"
In the subway tunnels below Grand Street, a pair of workers in hazmat suits follow a signal, one of them noting that someone or something tampered with the enclosure, suspecting squatters who broke in to find shelter. As they move deeper into the tunnel, the walls become coated in organic-looking veins and tendrils - emerging into a cistern where homeless people, rats, and pigeons stand around an enormous red-and-black mass growing from the darkness and blocking several subway tressels. Horrified at the sight, the workers are promptly chased and attacked.
Solicit Synopsis
WAR OF THE REALMS TIE-IN!
• Battered, bleeding and at the end of his rope, Malekith’s War Witches and their henchmen threaten to overwhelm Eddie Brock.
• Meanwhile, Eddie still has 9-year-old Dylan in tow… Now he just needs to keep him alive.
