Eddie Brock is the best known host of the Venom symbiote as the first character to fully bond with the alien entity after Peter Parker cast it off. But in other corners of Marvel's Multiverse, there are other Venom hosts who took Eddie Brock's place in the story, and now What If?...Venom will show readers what might have happened if other well known Marvel characters had bonded with the Venom symbiote first.
Announced back in 2023, the five-issue limited series will showcase alt-realities in which She-Hulk, Wolverine, Doctor Strange, Loki, and Moon Knight each bonded with the Venom symbiote. And now, Marvel has unveiled the Venom-ized designs for several of those characters.
With each issue written by Jeremy Holt and drawn by a different artist including Jesús Hervás, Tadam Gyadu, Manuel Garcia, and Diogenes Neves, each character has their own unique vibe as Venom. In the gallery below you'll see She-Hulk and Moon Knight by Jesús Hervás, Wolverine by Chris Campana, and Doctor Strange by Jonas Scharf, along with some interior pages from What If?...Venom #1 by Hervás, and the issue's cover by Leinil Francis Yu:
All the designs have their charms, but the Venom-zed Doctor Strange by Chris Campana is particularly cool, especially the way the Venom symbiote is incorporated with his cloak, and the monstrous Eye of Agamotto.
"Having the opportunity to play within the Venom sandbox is cool. Having the opportunity to bond five iconic heroes to the alien parasite is cooler," Holt says in an official statement. "In doing so within the What If…? concept, I’ve had an absolute blast crafting a linear revisionist history that’s provided me the latitude to introduce distinct versions of the anti-hero that we’ve all come to love."
It's been something of a tradition at Marvel to show off Venomized versions of its heroes on variant covers for several years now, and the so-called Venom-Verse is almost as prevalent as the Spider-Verse. But What If?...Venom marks one of the few times Venomized heroes will actually appear in full stories of their own rather than just on variant covers.
What If?...Venom #1 goes on sale February 28.
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