Venom's New Gray Form Is More Unkillable Than Deadpool -

Eddie Brock is still lost in time and cut off from Venom and his son, and his new gray symbiote form is indestructible in the worst possible way.

Contains spoilers for Venom #10!Eddie Brock has come a long way since his first days as Venom, and now his new gray form has made him even more unkillable than Deadpool. Eddie's ascension within the society of Klyntar symbiotes has granted him godlike power, but the cost of this rise has made him into the tragic hero of his own story. The damning edge to his newfound immortality is that Eddie has found himself locked in a time loop, and his adversary is a version of himself from thousands of years in the future. Deadpool is often a mess in his own way, but even the Regeneratin' Degenerate would find Eddie Brock's fate pitiable.

As King in Black, god to the Klyntar symbiotes, Eddie Brock is able to psychically travel across the universe in seconds. As leader of the hive, he's able to inhabit any symbiote matter in his domain - including across time. The series of events that follows is a mess of time travel between Eddie and a new enemy, a future King in Black known as Meridius. Having resulted in the physical death of Eddie's body as well as the potential deaths of Venom and Dylan, Eddie's son, this arc comes to a breaking point in Venom #10.

Eddie makes a series of horrifying discoveries throughout the issue, but they are all rooted in the realization that Tyro, Wilde, Bedlam, and Finnegan are all just stops on Eddie's journey to becoming Meridius. This millennia-spanning spiral into darkness was not only kick-started because of curiosity at the time-bending potential of his abilities: it was inspired by Meridius', and therefore Eddie's, own meddling in the first place. Worse still, the last of Eddie's hope to alter the timeline are already dashed as he finds himself transformed into the next aspect of the time loop, the gray King in Black Finnegan. It's here that Eddie wishes for death, but realizes how impossible it is for him EVER to die now. While Deadpool can at least be killed by destroying him at a molecular level, Eddie will exist as long as there is any symbiote matter in all of time and space. The issue comes from Al Ewing, Bryan Hitch, Andrew Currie, Alex Sinclair, VC's Clayton Cowles, and Devin Lewis.

Once Venom, now Finnegan, Eddie finally understands that as a mind without form in the vastness of the symbiote void, he cannot die. No matter how hard he wants to end the suffering before it begins, no matter how much he wants Bedlam to succeed in destroying him, the point is terrifyingly moot. Thematically, being doomed by the future self is a beat that writer Al Ewing has explored before in his stories with Loki and the Hulk, but something feels decidedly dire about the road ahead for Eddie. Only one final future version of Eddie remains to be seen, so hope may still be possible, but even that would exist thousands of years in the future. Or perhaps this is the beginning of Venom's return to villainy, this time on the scale of Kang the Conqueror.

Many characters at Marvel Comics blur the line between mortal and immortal. The Eternals, the X-Men, Deadpool or anyone else with an enhanced enough healing factor all find themselves in this category. Eddie Brock, once known as Venom, now finds himself surpassing them all. He cannot even die and be reborn - instead Eddie can only wait around to grow into a horrifying, even more broken version of himself. Finnegan, his current gray form, is only the first stop that leads from Venom to Meridius.

Venom #10 is available now from Marvel Comics.

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