Venom War- Venomous # 3

 By Mark Rodriguez

Black Widow now has a symbiote and has snuck into the Alchemax building alongside Agent Anti-Venom to stop the production of a symbiote-killing serum. They encounter an angry of savage symbiotes using both the Alchemax staff and corpses as hosts. With the action spilling out into the streets, Agent Anti-Venom rushes back into the building to confront Eddie and Dylan who are currently fighting over the Venom symbiote. This leaves Natasha and Liz Allan (who now also has a symbiote) to face the army of savage symbiotes.

 

The issue opens with Black Widow getting socked in the face by one of the symbiotes. Nastasha says that even when fighting alongside Liz, it seems for every symbiote they defeat, more people get infected and take their place. Liz says it will be impossible to stop them all. Widow says they have to find a way for Liz to heal them all at once or this will never end. Liz says she might be able to if they can gather them all in one place. Widow says she has an idea and tells Liz to follow her as she swings off.

 

Widow and Misery return to Alchemax, elevator shaft 5, and start rounding up the corpses from earlier. Natasha webs one of the people, who wakes up startled. Natasha apologizes, telling the women she thought she was already dead. The woman asks if everything is over. Natasha says it's not over but she is safe for now.

The woman explains she was just working in the lab with a symbiote sample when a co-worker bit her. Everything around her started changing, including herself. Misery tells the woman to come with her. The woman grabs onto Misery as she climbs up the elevator shaft. Widow follows behind her with a huge webbing bag full of corpses. They get the woman back on the floor and tell her that someone will come to get her.

Later on, all the corpses are strung up in front of large chemical vats, hoping to draw the attention of all the symbiotes. Misery will head to the roof while Natasha fends them off. Natasha tells her symbiote, Sliver, to remember the plan as it will draw the symbiotes to her faster. Sliver gets off of her and tells her it can't protect her if it's not with her. Natasha says she'll be fine as she's been protecting herself long before Sliver was a drop of Venom goo. Natasha runs off and tells Sliver to remember what she taught it.

 

Natasha fights and flips her way through the army of savage symbiotes, getting their attention. She calls out for Sliver to rejoin her. Sliver leaps out at her, now being infected by the other symbiotes and acting feral.

 

Elsewhere, Liz is making her way to the roof. She remarks that when she combined the Carnage and Anti-Venom symbiote samples, she never expected to be using them like this. When she reaches the roof, she sees several symbiotes waiting for her. As Liz fights the symbiotes, Natasha is fighting off Sliver. Natasha says she didn't think that symbiotes could infect each other.

As Natasha dodges Sliver's attacks, she remembers Sliver saying that the zombiotes were mindless. She hopes this isn't true as she needs some way to reach it.

Liz knocks out her employees, wishing it didn't have to come to that. She goes into one of the safety panels and replaces the fire-suppression foam with her own Anti-Venom.

 

The feral Sliver pins Natasha up against the wall. Natasha says she knows Sliver is still in there, it would have already killed her otherwise. She tells Sliver that it can fight this and to remember who it is. Sliver says Natasha's name as it remembers.

Just then the sprinklers hit, spraying the symbiotes with Anti-Venom, including Sliver. Natasha reaches out to Sliver as it starts falling apart. Natasha holds onto Sliver as it dissolves in her hands. She apologizes as she mourns her symbiote friend. Natasha says she can't dwell on this as she need to help everyone else.

 

Later on Liz asks Natasha if she's ok, which she's not. Liz asks if her symbiote has been caught in the sprinklers, and Natasha says Sliver is gone. Liz apologizes and says that this is her mess and she will become the leader that Alchemax needs her to be. Natasha says she will have a lot to answer for and Liza says she will be ready. Natasha says she should be happy that the plan worked as Sliver and her knew what they had to do. She says that Sliver was a good student.

Natasha walks off as the Alchemax employees are being cared for. She narrates that as an Avenger she sometimes has to make tough calls which sometimes leads to losing trusted teammates in battle. She remarks that Liz is pretty brave, which might be why Flash likes her so much. She says Liz probably won't go into the superhero thing, but they should probably call her the next time Galactus shows up.

Natasha apologizes to Sliver, wishing things were different. As any fallen teammate, Silver will be sorely missed. As she walks off drop of black goo drips off the wall behind Natasha, which forms into a spider. The story ends with a question mark as Natasha's shadow takes form of Sliver.

My Thoughts- 

So as Eddie and Dylan fight for the right to be Venom, Black Widow was charged with dealing with this symbiote outbreak, running into both Agent Anti-Venom and Misery. Sadly, this cost Natasha her own symbiote Sliver. I'm assuming the original plan was for Natasha and Sliver to go to the roof before the sprinklers were set off. I'm just confused as to why there wasn't some sort of signal of when to set off the sprinklers. Liz didn't even wait for Natasha to join her on the roof before setting them off.

I guess Natasha couldn't have kept her symbiote for too long, but I wouldn't have minded another story or two. We got to see Natasha with her symbiote help out Hawkeye in a 4-issue mini-series. Then we got to see the symbiote train under Natasha and give itself a name in the Black Widow Venomous one-shot. Sadly, Sliver's story ends here,  though it ends on a possible return for the symbiote. Black Widow's next appearance is in Thunderbolts: Doomstrike # 1, and she looks back to her regular self. It seems she's only in the first issue and not featured in Doomstrike # 2.

There's not much to say about the overall story. It was pretty action-packed and had several splash pages and such so it did read pretty fast. Other than Natasha's undercover mission in that black market auction at the beginning of issue 1, this one has been a roller coaster ride of fighting hordes of feral symbiotes for three issues.

If we take everything from the Black Widow and Hawkeye mini-series, the Venomous one-shot and this three part story, it makes for a fun arc. I liked the dynamic between Natasha and Sliver, especially since they openly talk to each other which is what made the live-action Venom movies so much fun. Also in this case, Natasha is very strict and always thinking of the next mission, so it feels more like she's the one in control rather than symbiote. Combine that with Sliver taking everything literally as well as trying its best to be work with Natasha, Widow made an interesting pair. I especially liked when Natasha asked the symbiote to name itself, which gave Sliver a bit more of individuality. 

A fun read overall. I probably won't get the Thunderbolts story but I will be on the lookout the next time the Black Widow returns in another series.