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Poisons

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History

The Poisons are a species of crystalline extraterrestrials spawned by the Poison Queen. Originating on Earth-17952, the Poisons spent an unknown amount of time as prey for larger, stronger creatures before discovering that they could assimilate Symbiotes and their hosts to become more powerful.[1] While hunting the Venom Symbiote,[2] they were discovered by an incarnation of Doctor Strange, who bonded to the symbiote and proceeded to recruit an army of Venomized superheroes, antiheroes, and supervillains from across the Multiverse to stop the Poisons. However, the Poisons saw this as an opportunity to swell their ranks, and most of these recruits were either killed or assimilated.[3]

The Hive's second-in-command, Poison Thanos, dispatched a battalion of Poisons led by a Poisoned incarnation of Doctor Doom in order to crush the Resistance and consume Doctor Strange; intending to use him to summon incarnations of Venom from across the Multiverse, largely being unaware of the existence of other, more powerful symbiotes until the Resistance summoned an incarnation of Carnage.[4] Eventually, the Poisoned villains and heroes present during that conflict, along with numerous unbound Poisons, were killed when the Resistance - with the help of Poison Deadpool - infiltrated their ship to rescue Doctor Strange and rigged it to self-destruct. Poison Deadpool, Carnage, and Venomized Doctor Strange also perished during the explosion, but not before the latter managed to send the Venoms back to their proper realities. However, the Poisoned Doctor Doom escaped and reported back to Poison Thanos. Now aware of the existence of other realities, Poison Thanos declared his intent to assemble an even greater army and conquer the Multiverse.[5]

Traveling from universe to universe, the Poisons developed a strategy of raiding the symbiote homeworld and attacking Earth, infecting its heroes and villains with symbiotes before consuming them.[6][7] Targeting Earth-616, the Poisons manipulated Kei Kawade into summoning Poison Fin Fang Foom, but the crystalline dragon was slain.[8] Arriving on Earth-616, the Hive consumed Killer Thrill, her crew, and the time-displaced Marvel Girl. The Hive employed the assistance of Haze Mancer,[9] a symbiote poacher, to locate the symbiote homeworld and raid it, resulting in the destruction of the Agents of the Cosmos and the abduction of every symbiote present at the time of the attack.[10] Arriving on Earth, the Poisons altered the symbiotes to make them more difficult for their hosts to remove and began infecting superpowered individuals with them, seeking out the individuals designated as anomalies in order to consume them before they became a threat: Kid Kaiju for his ability to summon monsters, and Carnage for his insatiable bloodlust.[6] The Hive located Cletus Kasady - who had been stripped of the Carnage symbiote - and forcibly bonded him to a new symbiote before consuming him to create Poison Carnage.[11] However, the symbiote-augmented heroes were able to locate the Poisons' ship and attacked it with help from Poison Marvel Girl - Jean Grey having been resisting the Poison Queen's control. To protect her friends, Jean Grey killed Poison Marvel Girl, siphoning the life force absorbed by the Poison Queen to become an entity of psionic energy. Jean subsequently killed the Poison Queen, causing the unbound Poisons to crumble and most of the bound Poisons to implode.[12]

Of the two surviving Poisons, Poison Wolverine renamed itself Poison and established a begrudging symbiotic relationship with the consciousness of its host;[13] while Cletus Kasady was resurrected and restored by Knull - the god of the symbiotes.[14]

Powers and Abilities

Powers

In their hostless "unbound" state, Poisons are capable of psychically disguising themselves as their targets' loved ones or innocent bystanders in order to catch them off-guard.[15][2] If an unbound Poison comes into physical contact with a symbiote that has bonded to a host, it will form a permanent bond with the symbiote, consuming the host's body to catalyze the process.[2] Upon consuming the symbiote's host, the Poison will assimilate their memories, powers, and abilities; and the mind of the symbiote will then be silenced so the Poison can take full control.[1] This process can take some time to be completed,[2] and can be resisted by some individuals.[1][16] Poisons who have bonded to a host are able to weaponize the assimilated symbiote's biomass, transforming it into tentacles, blades, and other types of weapons.[2] One of the main reasons for them to keep the hosts alive is to use their bodies as nutrient sources while the Poisons complete the bonding process.[17]

Poisons are also capable of some form of inter-dimensional travel, presumably through Doctor Doom or the other consumed magic-users, as the majority of their forces are located in a decimated reality, though a specimen impersonated Daredevil on the world where a Venomized Gwenpool was located in order to ambush and consume her.[15]

Weaknesses

Without a host, Poisons are physically frail and rely on their ability to disguise themselves as a target's loved ones to obtain a host. Once they assimilate a symbiote, they become exponentially stronger, taking on whatever powers the symbiote and its host possessed while discarding their weaknesses;[18] but are unable to consume anyone else, leaving them vulnerable to being killed.[2] They cannot consume a human if they aren't bonded with a symbiote, and neither can consume a symbiote if it is bonded to a human. As a side-effect of assimilating the host's memories, they may be affected by their emotional attachments, as when Poison Spider-Man was unable to bring himself to kill Spinneret - an alternate incarnation of his wife.[17] If the symbiote's host has multiple personalities or is mentally unstable, the Poison may be unable to fully control them, as was the case with Deadpool and Cletus Kasady.[19][16] The merged Poisons are incredibly vulnerable to the touch of the Carnage Symbiote, no matter which incarnation they may be.[1] Experimenting on the Cletus Kasady of Earth-616, Poison Doom determined that Carnage was a threat while clad in any symbiote, but that it was Kasady's insatiable bloodlust that was the dangerous element rather than the symbiote itself.[20] Both bound and unbound Poisons are vulnerable to Agent Anti-Venom's cleansing touch, which kills them instantly.[21] A final weakness of the Poisons was discovered to be the assimilation of potent psionic minds like Jean Grey, who was as much a psychic entity as she was flesh and blood. Because of this, the Hive could not fully assimilate her completely into the collective; making her all the more dangerous as she could hijack their gestalt link to murder them all at once through the Queen.[16]

Miscellaneous

Type of Government

Hive Monarchy (as in Bees and Ants)

Representatives

Numerous hostless Poisons, Poison Rhino, Poison Moon Knight,[3] Poison Hulk, Poison Doctor Octopus, Poison Spider-Man,[2] Poison Sabretooth, Poison Scarlet Witch, Poison Hawkeye, Poison Captain America, Poison Doctor Doom, Poison Green Goblin, Poison Bullseye, Poison Storm, Poison Iron Fist,[17] Poison Deadpool, Poison Ghost Rider, Poison Enchantress, Poison Satana, Poison Sister Grimm,[22] Poison Fin Fang Foom.[23]

Trivia

  • During the planning phase of Venomverse, the role the Poisons were created for was originally going to be given to the Symbiote Slayers from Venomverse writer Cullen Bunn's own Venom (Vol. 2) run.[24]
  • The Poisons were originally envisioned as the true progenitors of the symbiotes before their final role as the perfect symbiote hosts was decided.[24]

See Also

Links and References

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Venomverse #4
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Venomverse #1
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Venomverse: War Stories #1
  4. ↑ Venomverse #3–4
  5. ↑ Venomverse #5
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Venomized #1
  7. ↑ X-Men: Blue #29
  8. ↑ Monsters Unleashed (Vol. 3) #6–8
  9. ↑ Venom #162
  10. ↑ Venom #163
  11. ↑ Venomized #2–3
  12. ↑ Venomized #4–5
  13. ↑ X-Men: Blue #29–30
  14. ↑ Web of Venom: Carnage Born #1
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Edge of Venomverse #2
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 Venomized #5
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 Venomverse #2
  18. ↑ Bunn, Cullen (25 February 2018) Ending One 2nd @ a Time — If the Poisons gain the powers, skills, memories... Tumblr. Retrieved on 25 February 2018.
  19. ↑ Venomverse #3–5
  20. ↑ Venomized #3
  21. ↑ Venomized #3–4
  22. ↑ Venomverse #3
  23. ↑ Monsters Unleashed (Vol. 3) #6
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Weiss, Josh (3 April 2018) Earth's Heroes Get Venomized Marvel.com. Retrieved on 3 April 2018.
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