User blog:X9 The Android/PE Proposal: Venom (Spider-Man: Reign)

Hello guys! Today, here's my thirteenth PE proposal, and it's about the Spider-Man: Reign iteration of Venom, one of the most famous and recurring antagonists in Marvel Comics.

WHO IS HE / WHAT HAS HE DONE?
In Spider-Man: Reign, thirty years have passed since the last sighting of Spider-Man, who retired after Mary Jane Watson's death. During all these time, Venom has posed as Edward Saks, the assistant of Mayor Waters, New York City's mayor and "hero", who merely acts as his pawn alongside the Reign, New York's brutal yet efficient police force. Secretly to the New Yorkers, Saks and Waters plan to encase New York in a laser-conformed dome shield generator known as the WEBB system so they can prevent any potential terrorist attacks. After announcing the WEBB to the media, Saks accompanies Waters to his annual dinner with Kingpin, whom has been reduced to a shadow of his former self, stored away by Saks and Waters for their amusement.

However, when a senile J. Jonah Jameson comes "from the mountain" to encourage Peter Parker to return to the streets to fight crime, Saks proposes to have the Sinner Six to take out Spider-Man, threatening them with death if they refuse. Said and done, the Sinner Six defeat Spider-Man, who is taken away by a deceased Doctor Octopus, while Jameson and his child army are taken into custody. Once on Waters' office, Venom reveals itself when Jameson exposes him. Later on, Saks announces the activation of the WEBB, sealing all New Yorkers inside the city so no one can enter nor exit. Under Venom's orders, Waters then activates the Phase 2 of their plans and it projects Venom's suit, sending his replicated Symbiotes to the streets so they can devour or enslave anyone on his way to serve as a meal or do Venom's bidding.

However, Spider-Man returns from the cemetery and sneaks into the mayoralty, taking out every member of the Sinner Six one by one, minus Sandman, until he reaches Waters' office to confront Venom. When Venom gloats that it and Waters protected New York City from itself and that it will kill him for abandoning it, Spider-Man engages him in their final confrontation as Waters runs away. When Venom comes close to kill Spidey, Spidey is encouraged by visions of his deceased wife to fight back and lures Venom to the roof, where Sandman sacrifices himself and gives Spider-Man the detonator to destroy the Six and the WEBB, freeing New York City and ending with Venom's "Reign" once and for all.

MITIGATING FACTORS?
While the mainstream version of Venom has been never the nicest being, this version of Venom is completely different. Not only it lacks from redeeming qualities, but this Venom is easily the darkest incarnation of the character. Some critics say that Venom is actually the victim of the story as it felt abandoned by Peter Parker, but he's not innocent at all, failing to realize that his evil ways are what made Parker to set him aside. Much like its mainstream counterpart, this Venom started bonding with Eddie Brock after Peter Parker abandoned him and they fought against the wall-crawler from that point onwards. However, when Spider-Man retired due the death of Mary Jane, Venom became an expert and calculating manipulator, recruiting Mayor Waters to be his puppet so it could take over New York City for itself. Much like Waters, in its disguise as Edward Saks, Venom enjoys torturing others, such as the former Kingpin of Crime, whom Waters and Venom keep alive via an IV drip to give him solid food he can't eat to then store him away until next year as an "annual tradition".

As many versions of Venom, this one shares one particular interest: cannibalism. Venom enjoys to devour people, either its prisoners or even its henchmen, as shown when he savagely devours two Reign officers, a nurse and others present in a room to terrorize J. Jonah Jameson and Waters, even expressing disgust that the former didn't kill the latter, demonstrating that he only uses Waters as his pawn and is completely expendable for him if he outlives his usefulness, which eventually leads Waters to run away from him when he realizes Venom's true intentions. Given his feeling of being rejected, Venom spends all those years replicating its symbiote to not feel alone, but what he actually wanted was to feed himself and his symbiotes with all New Yorkers as possible or enslave them to do his bidding in his thirst for power, isolating them inside the WEBB so no one can escape from it.

Only loyal to itself, Venom shows no care for others, neither Waters (who eventually does his bidding out of fear), the Reign officers (who have protected him and the city for all those years under his orders) nor the Sinner Six, whom he threatens to blow them up if they refuse to follow his orders, promising them to allow them to leave New York before the WEBB gets activated. In the case of the Sinner Six, the reward Venom has for them, if they achieve their mission, is allowing them to leave New York but not because he thinks that's what they want: that's because he wants them out of its way so no one would oppose him on his man-eating crusade, totally uncaring on whoever will be damaged and/or killed by the Six once free from New York, showing his extreme selfishness and disregard for the lives of others minus its own.

Although many would say that this Venom still cared for Eddie Brock, it's obvious that he didn't. While Venom scares J. Jonah Jameson to avenge all the abuse of him towards Eddie and it insists that a part of Eddie still remains on it, it's evident that Eddie Brock is no more and that Venom gradually drained up Brock's life until the point Brock ceased to be and there's only Venom, using Brock's resentment as an excuse to antagonize Jameson. A vicious provoker, Venom not only taunts Jameson for his failures to take back NYC, but also Spider-Man when he comes to face him, falsely believing that he protected the city from itself while Spidey was unable to do so and inconsiderately insulting Parker's deceased wife to anger him, which shows Venom lacks any respect for others like many cruel villains.

VERDICT
Taking all of this into account, I would say yes about considering this version of Venom to be approved as PE.