Writer: Donny Cates

Artist: Luke Ross

Colorist: Jesus Aburtov

Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles

What You Need to Know:

After Annie tells Eddie what happened to her Dylan that caused him to become Codex, Scorpion attacks the base. Dylan destroys his Symbiote, and Eddie makes a deal with him to get Gargan to take them to Codex so they can stop him.

 

What Happens:

We open on Codex seeing through Scorpion’s eyes during the fight, as Dylan uses his power to destroy his Symbiote, to which Codex feels pain and shock towards, that someone else has his power. Doc Ock shows up to tell Codex that by studying Virus’ armor, he has figured out inter-dimensional travel. Codex asks how long it will take, to which Otto says a week or 2 tops. Meanwhile at the heroes’ base, Reed is building Gargan a set of mechanical legs so he can walk, and mentions he could build a gate for inter dimensional travel in 5 years tops. Dylan reconciles with Annie, and they bond as they have both lost each other in their universes. Ock finds a bunch of files and footage on Eddie inside the Virus armor, which makes Codex sad as he realizes Venom is his father’s counterpart, and that he cannot feel him in his hive mind.

Venom and friends storm Codex’s base and a big fight ensues. Eddie grabs Codex and starts bonding his Symbiote to him, to show him his world and try to calm him down, but Gargan retrieves his Virus armor and betrays him, attacking him, before Reed destroys his armor once again, knocking him unconscious. Eddie finishes bonding the Symbiote to Codex, and Dylan and him make contact, as they share each other’s memories, resulting in Codex seemingly dying in Annie’s arms, returning to normal as he does. A year passes and as it turns out Codex/Dylan is in a coma. Also Eddie got a new hand to replace the one he lost in Venom Island. Reed has finished the gate, and Eddie and Dylan walk through after saying their goodbyes. However, when they do, all Eddie has too say is this; “Where did all the stars go?”

 

Thoughts:

Overall this was a much stronger issue than the last one. It felt like much more happened this time around, since last time all that really happened was some character development between Eddie and Annie, and then Scorpion showed up and got destroyed in like 2 pages. Codex’s final issue was sad. He genuinely felt hurt that a version of his father exists on his world, but he’s not part of his hive, so he can’t feel him through his hive mind, so he’s still disconnected from his father. Though unless we come back to this Earth(which I guess we could since Gargan is locked up on there now), I don’t really see the need too pull a G.I. Joe The Movie on us and have him clearly die only to follow it up with “Oh he’s in a coma”. Also I am not a fan of Eddie having a human hand back, I actually really liked that he was an amputee, his Symbiote formed a new hand for him and it was cool and neat and fun! And now he just has a regular hand again, off-panel. Anyway, other than that, this issue was great. Luke Ross’ art is still awesome in this storyline. And the ending cliffhanger leading into King in Black is perfect. Just a black page with Eddie and Dylan’s red silhouettes and a single speech bubble of “Where did all the stars go?”. Overall, Venom Beyond is okay, not great, but not terrible, it basically feels like it exists to help space out Absolute Carnage and King in Black apart, which is fine.

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