Do you know what that thing's doing to you?. You can't or you'd never have allowed it to bond to you. And make no mistake -- it chose you. It will drink your soul, leaving behind only cancerous excrement. It's not a black monster from space -- it's a black demon sent from hell. You are an addict -- a damaged and wounded animal -- you have a sickness. I am the cure! 
History
When Eddie Brock separated from the Venom symbiote, traces of it were left in his body. Later, suffering from cancer, Brock started working as a volunteer in the F.E.A.S.T. Center. Martin Li, the founder of F.E.A.S.T. and alter-ego of the supervillain Mr. Negative, used his powers to cure Eddie's cancer.
In the process, Li accidentally infused the remnants of the symbiote in Eddie's bloodstream with his power and fused them to his white blood cells, creating a new hybrid symbiote which manifested when the Venom symbiote attempted to leave its then-current host, Mac Gargan, and return to Eddie.[1]
This new symbiote - dubbed "Anti-Venom" by Eddie, demonstrated tremendous healing powers and other powers that differ from the Venom symbiote, such as producing antibodies that can cure any known disease and remove any other impurities within a human body. Unlike other symbiotes, this symbiote is completely mindless and Eddie Brock is in full control of his actions. This symbiote was destroyed when it was used as a cure for the Spider-Virus.[2]
Years later, Dr. Steven used elements of the Anti-Venom symbiote to create a new cure for the Venom symbiote's toxic shock syndrome that could adapt alongside it. When high concentrations of this serum was exposed to the Venom symbiote's biomass bonded to Flash Thompson, the Anti-Venom symbiote was artificially recreated.[3] However, when Flash died at the hands of the Red Goblin, the replica died along with him.[4] During Knull's invasion to Earth, it would eventually be revived along with Flash when his consciousness (that was stored into the symbiote Hive-Mind as a codex) "downloaded" itself into a Symbiote Dragon in the real world to battle the dark god. Flash would proceed to find his own body at the graveyard, merging with it and successfully being revived.[5]
A sample of the Anti-Venom symbiote was later fused with a sample of the Carnage symbiote where they formed the Misery symbiote.[6]
Iterations and Offshoots[]
- Anti-Venom Serum - While Eddie Brock sacrificed the symbiote to save New York from the Spider-Virus, Alchemax obtained a sample that was used years later to engineer an Anti-Venom Serum.[3]
- Agent Anti-Venom - When Spider-Man overturned a vat of Anti-Venom Serum in an attempt to kill the Venom symbiote - which was attempting to simultaneously bond to Eddie Brock and Flash Thompson - it reacted with the part of the Venom symbiote's mass that had bonded to Flash to create a new Anti-Venom symbiote.[3]
- Anti-Venom Battlesuit - After having been told about the threat of Knull, Doctor Steven mass-produced the Anti-Venom Serum and attempted to convert it into wearable battle-suits by combining it with samples from Weapon V's Sym-Suits obtained from the site of one of Dark Carnage's attacks.[7]
Attributes
Powers
Mutated Symbiote Biology: The Symbiote can mimic any type of clothing whatsoever, as well as blending Anti-Venom in his surroundings, rendering him invisible. The Symbiote has augmented all of its host's physical abilities to superhuman levels equal to, and in some cases greater than, Spider-Man's.
- Superhuman Strength: Before the symbiote was created Brock had conditioned himself to lift (press) 700 lb.[8] Once it was created, the symbiote added Spider-Man's superhuman strength to Brock's vast human strength, enabling him to lift over 70 tons.
- Superhuman Durability: Anti-Venom's body is highly resistant to physical injury, capable of withstanding assault from high-caliber bullets as well as attacks from super powered individuals. When distributed at a typical thickness over Brock's body, the Symbiote is capable of absorbing bullets from small-arms weapons firing conventional ammunition. The Anti-Venom symbiote is invulnerable to the traditional weaknesses of symbiotes, fire and sonics. However it particularly vulnerable to a poison Osborn made using the Freak, and its abilities can be negated by Mr. Negative's Darkforce powers.
- Superhuman Stamina: Anti-Venom is also capable of surviving in harmful areas for long periods of time such as underwater or in toxic gases, the symbiote filtering breathable air to the host.
- Regeneration: Additionally, the symbiote is capable of healing injuries in the host at a faster rate than normal human healing allows. The symbiote is also capable of healing injuries and illnesses that current human medical care cannot such as cancer. This is even more advanced for Anti-Venom, such that it can regenerate from a shotgun wound to the head in a matter of seconds.
- Genetic Memory: The symbiote possesses some limited psychic ability, making it capable of obtaining information from its hosts and even other people and symbiotes simply by touch. It can however, be forced to forget information if the symbiote is inflicted with heavy trauma.
- Offspring Detection: The symbiote is also capable of psychically detecting its offspring, however with effort this ability can be blocked.
- Wallcrawling: The symbiote is capable of Spider-Man's ability to cling to walls by controlling the flux of inter-atomic attraction between molecular boundary layers.
- Organic Webbing and Web-Slinging: Anti-Venom can shoot strands of the alien's substance. The symbiote's substance seems to be composed of tough, flexible fibers of organic polymers, which regenerate swiftly after "shedding". The one limitation to this ability was used to Spider-Man's advantage during their second bout; since the webbing itself comprises the costume, if Anti-Venom uses too much it will be rendered vulnerable since the symbiote is unable to replenish its lost mass for a short period of time while exhausted. Brock implements the symbiote to form webbing, as well as tentacles or tendrils that he would use to attack or ensnare his opponents.
- Constituent-Matter Generation: Anti-Venom can also use the same substance comprising the symbiote in the form of constituent white matter or tentacles, and uses it in this method for lethal force against criminals. Anti-Venom can send a part of the symbiote and direct its movements into a victim's body, smothering them from the inside.
- Danger Sense: Anti-Venom also possesses an extrasensory ability similar to Spider-Man's spider-sense. This response is not as complicated as Spider-Man's inherent sense since the symbiote can detect danger from every direction and conduct giving Brock plenty of response time. This is a lot more efficient than Spider-Man's spider-sense because it takes less time to sense the danger, and Brock's reflexes are faster than Spider-Man's since the symbiote enhances them. Note, for instance, how Anti-Venom can dodge a gunshot or a relatively close barrage of bullets.
- Immunity to Spider-Man's Spider Sense: Because the Venom symbiote originally used Spider-Man as its host, its offspring is able to bypass his spider-sense. As such, Anti-Venom's attacks do not trigger Spider-Man's spider-sense, thus proving Anti-Venom a formidable opponent to Spider-Man.
- Camouflage: The symbiote is capable of mimicking the appearance of any form of clothing, camouflaging with its surroundings, and even mimicking other people. Brock's preferred form of clothing was a white shirt, jacket and pants.
- External Symbiote Rejection: Upon being assaulted by Mac Gargan, the Venom symbiote attempts to leave Gargan to bond with Brock again. However Brock's skin is caustic to his former symbiote, which means the white symbiote has the ability to reject the Venom symbiote and presumably all of its children as well. However, it was later revealed that, if Eddie releases too many antibodies while curing people, it is possible for this power to be weakened and another symbiote can bond with him, as the Venom symbiote did for a while.
- Shape Alteration: Anti-Venom can manipulate its matter to enlarge or stretch its body in order to augment its attacks. For example, it enlarged its host's fist and slammed it into Mac Gargan, magnifying the impact of the blow. Anti-Venom is capable of morphing its host's hands into objects, such as to form a blade (similar to its symbiote nephew, Carnage) or fabricate a shield.
- Impurity Sense: Anti-Venom can sense foreign substances within a person's body. This includes symbiotes, radiation, narcotics, viruses, and other diseases.
- Internal Bodily Cleansing: After sensing an impurity such as toxins, drugs, diseases, and other malignant substances, Anti-Venom can forcefully "cure" the substance from the person's body using antibodies produced by the symbiote. Eddie Brock uses this ability to almost completely destroy his old symbiote and to cure a teenaged girl from her heroin addiction. This power can also be used to depower some superhumans, in one case almost ridding Spider-Man of the radiation in his blood when attempting to destroy remnants of the Venom symbiote, and nearly cleanses Radioactive Man of his powers in a similar fashion. Following Anti-Venom's use of this ability on him, close proximity to the symbiote causes Spider-Man's powers to diminish and disappear (this is also why the symbiote does not trigger Spider-Man's spider-sense).
- Spider-Power Negation: After attempting to cleanse Spider-Man of his symbiote remnants and nearly purging the radiation from his blood, whenever Anti-Venom is too close to Peter, his powers are effectively canceled until enough distance comes between Peter and Eddie. Alternatively, when Anti-Venom ensnares Spider-Man by binding him with the bits of matter fired off as webbing, it negates Spider-Man's powers until he breaks free from it.
- Fire Immunity: In contrast to the other symbiotes, Anti-Venom is immune to fire and extreme heat. Examples of this include withstanding the full force of one of the Punisher's flamethrowers and enduring a super-hot, radioactive blast from Radioactive Man, which was meant to immobilize Venom if that symbiote went out of control.
- Sonic Immunity: Besides immunity to fire and heat, Anti-Venom also shows strong resistance against sonic-based attacks. For example, it was capable of withstanding Songbird's sonic-blast with little discomfort.
Abilities
The symbiote produces antibodies that can "cure" a person afflicted by radioactivity, parasites, diseases, and drugs.
Weaknesses
The Symbiote is extremely vulnerable to a poison made by Norman Osborn using the Freak and Mr. Negative's Darkforce powers. The poison destroys the symbiote for a while, and Mr. Negative's powers halt the symbiote's healing powers until his dark energy is no longer in contact with the symbiote. Furthermore, overuse of the symbiote's healing abilities weakens it to the point where it can potentially be overwhelmed and destroyed by another symbiote.
Paraphernalia
Weapons
Like other symbiotes, the Anti-Venom symbiote is capable of shapeshifting to project pseudopods that can restrain or attack opponents, as well as forming bladed weaponry out of its constituent matter.
Notes
- Unlike most symbiotes, the Anti-Venom symbiote was neither sentient, nor did it have a mind of its own.[9]
Trivia
- When Eddie Brock was linked to Anti-Venom he had developed a Messiah complex.[10]
- In AXIS: Hobgoblin #1, one of the Hob-Heroes in Kingsley's audience appears to be wearing the Anti-Venom symbiote, or at least a costume resembling it.
See Also
- 19 appearance(s) of Anti-Venom (Symbiote) (Earth-616)
- 3 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Anti-Venom (Symbiote) (Earth-616)
- 3 minor appearance(s) of Anti-Venom (Symbiote) (Earth-616)
- 7 mention(s) of Anti-Venom (Symbiote) (Earth-616)
- 2 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Anti-Venom (Symbiote) (Earth-616)
- 80 image(s) of Anti-Venom (Symbiote) (Earth-616)