Venom: First Host #3 (2018)

Eddie Brock kneels in despair, cradling the infant symbiote with a broken expression as he wonders how long it will take for him to go insane without the Venom symbiote. Liz Allan runs up to him, furious that Tel-Kar escaped with the Venom symbiote; then suddenly grabs Eddie by the throat and lifts him with a single hand, slamming him into a nearby intact window hard enough to crack it. As she draws her fist back to punch him, the real Liz Allan arrives with a squad of Alchemax security guards, who take aim at the imposter. Transforming back into her true form, M'lanz laments that she's failed, releasing Eddie and collapsing to the ground in despair. Eddie angrily confronts her over her earlier attack on him, and she says she was only trying to keep the symbiote away from Tel-Kar. Eddie remarks that the Venom symbiote will never cooperate with Tel-Kar and leave him the first chance it gets, but M'lanz states there's much about his symbiote he doesn't know. Filling Eddie in on the Skrulls' side of the Kree/Skrull War, she says that Tel-Kar had been a spy and assassin, compromising an untold number of war efforts. He had tried to sacrifice himself to enable some Kree refugees to escape, but she and her War Sisters had captured him, torturing him for years in order to find out everything about how he had infiltrated them. The War Sisters thought they had broken him, but Tel-Kar had only bided his time - filled with vengeful hatred towards the Skrull - before escaping and killing her comrades. Eddie reiterates that, Kree war-hero or not, his symbiote won't help Tel-Kar; but M'lanz continues, saying that before he was captured Tel-Kar had uncovering the existence of a Skrull bioweapon the Throne had deemed too dangerous to use: a plague that could wipe out entire species. In a derelict building on Roosevelt Island, a pair of children come across Tel-Kar's stolen ship. As they speculate on who it belongs to, Tel-Kar approaches and agrees with the more-cautious child's statement that they should stay away from it - adding that it's a Skrull ship. As the children flee, Tel-Kar reaffirms his desire for revenge against the Skrull; but the symbiote refuses to go into space, stating that it only went with him to protect its offspring. Tel-Kar muses that it's become a lot more vocal and probably ran rampant over the pathetic humans, but the symbiote sneers that the humans were better hosts than him. As it tries to leave him, Tel-Kar seizes control of it and suppresses its mind, forcing it to stay bonded to him. At Alchemax's astrobiology lab, M'lanz explains to Eddie that Tel-Kar received intense training and genetic augmentations to enable him to interface with the symbiote more fully than normal bonding, and also to enable him to mentally manipulate and control it. Eddie interrupts, suddenly remembers the map that Tel-Kar had manifested on the symbiote while bonding to it. In space, Tel-Kar mentally notes he missed being bonded to the symbiote, revelling in its power and the way he can tune its mind - reduced to a single, sustained note - in and out at will, before using it to interface with his ship. At Alchemax, Dr. Steve and M'lanz place the map's coordinates in Messier 78 - known to the Skrull as the D'karr Nebula. Dr. Steve asks her what the doomsday weapon Tel-Kar uncovered was, and she states it's a cureless plague that can be tailored to target a single species and render it extinct. As Dr. Steve expresses relief that it won't affect him, M'lanz remarks that there's nothing stopping Tel-Kar from turning it on the humans once he's finished wiping out the Skrull. Annoyed by their pointless bickering, Eddie states that he's going with M'lanz, who tells him that this has nothing to do with him. Angrily thinking that she doesn't understand his loss, Eddie reminds her that Tel-Kar kidnapped his symbiote. She notes that, while muscular and handsome, he's only human and would be nothing more than dead weight; Eddie thinking that they have to show her before suddenly realizing his thoughts aren't his own. Turning to stare at the infant symbiote, Eddie asks how it can project itself into his thoughts without bonding to him, and it replies that its unique abilities let it communicate via pheromones. As Eddie marvels at this, the symbiote proposes bonding to him to save its parent. Eddie protests, saying that it's too young and not ready, but the symbiote smashes its containment tank from the inside and says that it'll have to be ready. The symbiote bonds to Eddie, taking on a black-and-gold appearance with red eyes and a pair of respirator-like organs on his face. Eddie tells M'lanz to call in her ship, which the symbiote can see despite it being cloaked, and she tells him that he can come. At the D'karr nebula military installation, Tel-Kar disguises himself as M'lanz as a trio of soldiers confront him, saying that they detected his ship carrying an unknown lifeform and that M'lanz doesn't have authorization to be there. Killing two of the soldiers, Tel-Kar stabs tendrils into the captain's eyes to interface with his brain, saying that he needs him alive for the time being in order to access the restricted parts of the facility. On M'lanz's ship, she asks Eddie what abilities his new symbiote possesses, such as whether he can use it to disguise himself. Eddie remarks that he's not sure, but that the symbiote is capable of producing liquid and aerosol chemicals with a wide range of effects - including enducing various emotions and mental states, knocking people out, and psychological manipulation. M'lanz is unimpressed, saying the elite soldiers stationed at the base are unlikely to fall for his silver tongue, but Eddie replies that they won't even know they're being manipulated. Eddie adds that was how he so easily convinced her to let him come along; manifesting a fanged mouth and grinning as M'lanz tells him that if he ever uses his powers on her like that again she'll slit his throat. They arrive at the D'karr nebula military installation, M'lanz hoping that the base's security kept Tel-Kar at bay long enough for them to get there in time, and that if Tel-Kar reaches the bioweapon before they can stop him then it's all over. Meanwhile, inside the base Tel-Kar has massacred the Skrull soldiers and retrieved the canister containing the bioweapon.