Eddie Brock’s new gray form makes him even more invincible than Deadpool. He has come a long way from his days as Venom’s first incarnation. Eddie rose to a godlike authority inside the Klyntar symbiote civilization. Still, his price for this elevation made him the tragic hero of his own story. The downside to Eddie’s newfound immortality is that he is trapped in a time loop with a future version of himself as his enemy. Even Deadpool, who can be a bit of a mess himself, has to admit that what happened to Eddie Brock is sad.
Eddie Brock, in his role as King in Black and God to the alien Klyntar symbiotes, can instantly travel anywhere in the universe in seconds. Being the hive’s leader, he can go through the time and into any symbiote matter in his realm. The events involving Eddie and his new adversary, the King in Black of the future by the name of Meridius, are a confusing jumble of time travel. This storyline reaches its climax in Venom #10, with the probable deaths of Venom and Eddie’s kid, Dylan, as well as the physical death of Eddie’s body.
Through the course of the issue, Eddie makes several disturbing discoveries. They all stem from his understanding that Tyro, Wilde, Bedlam, and Finnegan are merely pit stops on his way to becoming Meridius. Eddie’s insatiable curiosity about his powers’ time-bending possibilities kickstarts this millennia-long downward spiral. However, Meridius’ and thus Eddie’s own meddling had set it in motion as well. Still worse, Eddie’s last remaining hopes of changing the timeline have been destroyed as he finds himself converted into the next part of the time loop, the gray King in Black Finnegan.
The failure of Eddie’s attempt to change the past leaves him wishing for death. But now he knows that it’s physically impossible for him to perish at any time. So Eddie will continue to exist so long as there is any symbiote matter in the universe. Whereas Deadpool can at least be destroyed at the molecular level. The issues are from Al Ewing, Andrew Currie, Bryan Hitch, Alex Sinclair, Devin Lewis, and Clayton Cowles of VC.
Eddie, formerly Venom and now Finnegan, realizes that he is immortal as a formless thought in the immense symbiote vacuum. However desperately he wishes for the pain to stop and for Bedlam to succeed in destroying him, the point is frighteningly moot. Something about Eddie’s future feels ominous, even though the theme of being doomed by the future self is one that author Al Ewing has explored before in works involving Loki and the Hulk. Only one more Eddie from the far future still exists, so there is still a chance, although it is thousands of years away. Maybe, the evil of Kang the Conqueror level is back in Venom’s blood, and he’s only getting started.
The boundary between mortal and eternal is sometimes hazy for Marvel Comics characters. This includes disparate groups like the Eternals, the X-Men, Deadpool, and anyone else with a sufficiently boosted healing factor. Unfortunately, former Venom Eddie Brock is now on top of the game. Eddie can’t even die and be reincarnated; instead, he has to sit about and deteriorate into an even more horrific, damaged version of himself. Finnegan’s current gray form is merely the starting point on the road that will eventually take him to Meridius from Venom.
