The Deal: I pitch movies set in the Marvel or DC cinematic universes. Also other things.
First things first, dealing with complaints: while this functions as a quasi-sequel to Spider-Man: No Way Home, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and Sinister Seven : Absolute Carnage… it’s not one. It’s the beginning of a new thing, what will likely be a pentalogy of interrelated movies (similar to what I’ve been doing on the DC side with the big Green Lantern event movies– which is also kind of a cheat).
During the end credits scene from Sinister Seven, Peter
Parker gets some of the symbiote on him, and he and Brock get shunted back to
Venom’s original Earth. They swing to the top of the building, and see that the
city is mostly on fire. Peter’s symbiote slides away, and we see just how
devastated he is by the destruction. But for the moment we linger on Eddie and Venom,
who have a conversation; Venom is convinced they’re back on their original
version of Earth; Eddie is skeptical, because this place is nuts, destroyed,
and still smoldering. He hasn’t been gone long enough for this to be their
world. Venom finally says something to the effect that, “I know it does not
seem possible, Eddie, but this is the world from which we originated.” That
thought steals Eddie’s breathe away, and we pull back, to see Peter staring out
over the city.
That’s when he hears a familiar voice: MJ (yay, we get a
Zendaya cameo! Of course, if she wants, we’ve got a symbiote with her name on
it…). She’s soothing, giving him little tidbits of what happened, but telling
him it’s okay, now that he’s here, now that he can save them, that they’ll need
him to be strong- that she needs him to be strong- but that right now,
more than anything, she needs him to hold her and tell her everything is going
to be okay.
He reaches out to her, but hesitates, because his Peter
tingle is going nuts. During that lull, she’s hit with a black shield. Now, I’m
good whichever way we want to slice this; original Cap in a symbiote is cool,
but so is Falcon Cap. Either way, Captain America in a symbiote hits “MJ” with
his shield, which is also covered in symbiote goo. She falls, fast enough
Spider-Man can’t try to shoot a web to save her, and impacts the ground. But
the sound isn’t right. He’s been doing this long enough he’s heard people
splat. This was almost like a stone dropping. The poisons are coated in a
crystalline shell; when they’re unattached, they are spindly and skeletal
(around human height and size or larger), but once they absorb a humanoid, they
take on that person’s proportions (so a Rocket Raccoon Poison would be tiny,
but a Hulk Poison would be huge).
Cap explains that it wasn’t really MJ at all, but one of the
Poisons. “They do to the symbiotes what the symbiotes do to us, only it’s
parasitic, invasive, and permanent. You touch a poison, and you become one of
them- forever.”
“And what happens to the host?” Peter asks, his life sort of
flashing before his eyes.
“They convert the host body, keeping any metahuman abilities
it might have. Anything else is eaten up, used as fuel for the conversion
process.”
“And the person’s just… gone?” Peter asks.
“You see flickers of them, but-”
“Was that really MJ?”
“No- or probably not. They’re telepathic. They can
read what you want, what you need, and convince you that’s what they’re
giving you. It’s convincing, because we all see it, whatever they’re
projecting. It’s fooled everything we’ve thrown at it, magic, other telepaths.”
“I sensed it,” Peter says.
“Not enough you didn’t try to make out with it,” Venom says.
“But if he can hone that, it could be a game changer,” Cap
says.
“Wait,” Venom puts up his clawed hand. “How do we know
whether or not you are just a different poison, rescuing us from the
first, because you wanted his meal?”
Cap smiles. “You don’t. But that caution will serve you
well, here.” Cap leads them back to his safehouse. This world proves to have
oddball versions of lots of Marvel’s existing characters, but also the Fox and
Netflix and TV characters, you can also pull in alternate reality, What If
characters, so if you wanted to have Haley Atwell do a live-action Captain
Carter/Britain… you could. Characters could possibly be played by different
actors to ease the budget, but I am all for us having a ridiculous cast,
nigh unto an Avengers movie, and I feel like the box office of No Way Home
justifies it. In the time Eddie was gone, Carnage’s babies have spread like a
plague to most of the Earth’s metahumans. Most of the actors could probably be
paid peanuts compared to their usual salary, because they’re doing voice gigs
(they’ll be under symbiotes without their faces exposed, completely CG) and can
bang out their role in an afternoon, with maybe a handful of them actually
being face to face (likely the more main characters… it would likely be a fun
excuse to get Hugh Jackman into a movie with Deadpool, if only for a few
minutes).
Most of these would be expendable if the actor either
doesn’t want to play ball, or wants too much (expendable in the we could do
without, or kill them quickly to up the stakes). Since we’re drawing from the
comic, the only two I think we need to have, hero-wise, are Dr. Strange
and Deadpool; Strange would have his face covered, giving us as close to the
design of the blue-faced strange costume as we’re likely to ever see. As far as
what we’re adding, the pair I view as necessary are Michelle Williams She-Venom
and Danom, Dr. Dan, both from the previous Venom movies. If we want we can
leave them here at the end of it… I’m not terribly invested in the side
characters from the Venom franchise, but it would be a good opportunity to tie
off those stories.
She runs up to Eddie and throws her arms around him, and
they have an emotional reunion. Danom follows her, and stands behind her,
eventually introducing himself to Spider-Man as “Danom,” before the symbiote
peels back and he calls himself “Dr. Dan,” and offers his hand for Spider-Man
to shake, but Peter doesn’t take it, and a beat later he retracts it and says,
“You’re right; I’ve really got to stop trying to touch people.”
“You’re trying to grope the kid now?” Eddie asks Dan.
“Man,” Peter says, “Spider-Man.”
“You’re trying to grope the man now?” Eddie asks again.
“Really not much better,” Peter mumbles.
Dan recognizes the name. “We had one of you. He did not
last long. Hon? That Spider-Kid still with the poisons.”
“Man,” Peter says feebly.
“Oh yeah. He’s creepy.”
“Hey,” Eddie interjects, “I think we all need to give
Spider-Boy a little respect and call him by his proper name.”
Peter rubs his temple, then says, “I think I should go talk
to Cap.”
But once Peter’s gone, the atmosphere changes, and Dan steps
to Eddie. “You know what I like about this? You can’t just throw your weight around
anymore.”
Eddie, who is much bigger, puffs out his chest, and pushes
it into Dan. “Really?”
One of Dan’s tendrils grabs Eddie from behind the head and
flings him across the room.
Looming over him, Dan demands, “Stop trying to bang my
fiancé in front of me.”
“In front of you? I would never- this isn’t your way of
not-so-subtly telling me about your kink, is it?”
“It does sound kinky,” Anne says.
“Don’t egg him on,” Dan complains.
“He does have a point, Eddie,” she agrees sternly. “It’s not
cool trying to bang me in front of him. At least have the decency to do it
behind his back.”
“That is not… damnit.” Dan, frustrated, stomps off.
She helps Eddie up with one hand, but holds him close. “Fun
as it is to wind-up Dan, he’s right. I’ve moved on. I love you enough I want
you to, too.”
“You love me?”
“The way you love a puppy who won’t stop shitting in your
underwear drawer; you know it’s too stupid to understand why it isn’t
housebroken enough to live indoors. And Eddie- I mean it. This needs to
stop. We’re fighting for our survival here. I don’t have time to coddle you.”
We linger just long enough to see how much it hurts Eddie,
before cutting away to Spider-Man, talking to Cap.
“We tried that,” Cap says. “The last you, in fact, our
you- he had the same idea. It didn’t work. What we found out, subsequently, is
that the symbiotes leave traces, antibodies, maybe they’re eggs. But there’s
enough of the symbiotes left that even if you try to fight the poisons without,
they can still take you over if they touch you- faster, it seemed, like the
symbiote will fight the corruption, but without that barrier it barely touched
Parker before…”
“Okay. So how long do they have to make contact?”
“It’s not instantaneous. You can get away with punching
them. But if you try to grapple… that’s how we lost Hulk.”
“Okay, then what we need is weapons. Where’s your reality’s
version of the Iron Man suit, Mjolnir,, the Infinity- wait, they have a Hulk?”
“We have a Hulk,” a Poison Loki says from the doorway. He
was using his illusions to be a character we wanted to be able to use but whose
actor said ‘Nah.’ An instant later, Poison Hulk smashes through the wall.
Cap tells everyone to
scatter and rendezvous at location 4. Cap fights Hulk long enough for everyone
to escape; an angry Hulk beats him until he expires. Poison Loki chastises.
“No! Hulk! Too much smashing!” Hulk calls him a “Puny God” and threatens to
strike him, and Loki flinches.
Venom and Spider-Man leave together, along with Anne and
Dan. They fight a Poison Sinister Six. Anne and Dan help at first, but they’re
obviously novices, so it takes the two of them to take out Poison Kraven,
leaving most of the fighting to Venom and Spider-Man.
Spider-Man is badly injured. He hallucinates Aunt Man, or
Happy, or maybe Tony in his armor, and we see his hand outstretched, before
cutting back to Venom beating Poison Doc Ock down with a piece of rebar. Venom
calls for Spider-Man, and the camera turns to show Poison Spider-Man, who says,
“Spider-Man’s not here anymore.” It comes down to Spider-Man vs. Venom, with
Spider-Man winning handily, holding a limp Brock up and calling for a poison to
convert him.
Reinforcements arrive, including Venompool. His bullets make
quick work of the free poisons, but the converted are still up for a fight,
until Antivenom arrives with Dr. Strange, the one from the Thunderbolts, with
the red symbol. The remaining poisons, including Spider-Man, think he’s a black
and red, and flee.
Venom asks Strange Venom to bring a Carnage here, but
Strange is reluctant. The conversation is interrupted by Venompool. He fights
with Strange, upset with their dwindling numbers, that their plan has been to
run and hide, run and hide, each time losing more people. “That’s how we lost
Cable. Domino. Firefist.” He snickers. “Okay, they didn’t all have great names,
but they didn’t deserve to die because some feckless, unemployed surgeon
confused himself for Captain America.”
“We recruited one of those, remember? It didn’t help.”
Venompool hits Strange. “I wasn’t done listing people I
blame you for getting killed.”
“You’ve lost a lot,” Strange says, levitating off the
ground, “so I’ll let you have that one.”
“Yukio. Negasonic. Vanessa. And now the kid’s gone, too. I
can’t speak for anybody else, but I’m done waiting for Handsome Gandalf to get
me killed.” He storms off.
The other Venoms are shocked, and one asks what they should
do. Strange tries to play it cool, but he’s just as hurt, because Wade’s been
his lieutenant from the beginning. “Wade does this every few people we lose.
He’s been fighting this fight longer than anyone but me; the losses have been
extra hard on him. But we need to meet up at location 4, and pick up any other
survivors.“
Anne and Dan have a tense moment hiding out in a largely
destroyed building; she feels like they abandoned Eddie. His reasoning is he’s
a doctor; he couldn’t just let someone die because Eddie was too preoccupied
putting a piece of rebar through someone’s head. This is the place, if we want
a face heel turn for Dan, and for Anne to end up with Eddie, for that to
happen; frankly, I prefer Dan for her, despite the format usually preferring
the screw-up ex instead (almost always romanticizing unhealthy behavior in the
name of a man reclaiming his “territory”).
They decide to stay at location 4, which turns out to be the
Baxter Building, a copy of the home of the Fantastic Four (they built satellite
buildings across the globe, so the Four had nearby operating bases to deal with
crises, that otherwise function as tech magnet schools). Strange tells Venom
they had to keep the location hints simple, so Wade could remember them; he was
unstable before the symbiote, but the alien had made him even more volatile.
Just then we cut to Venompool, on the streets. He’s got his
hands up, and is surrounded by poisons. “You know what they say? If you can’t
beat them, join em. You guys get dental? With teeth like these, I could really
use it.” One of the free Poison shambles towards him. The Poisons grab hold of
Deadpool; most hold him down, but one or two of them are actually trying to
sooth him. “Does it hurt? Should I have a safe word? I’ve always been fond of
sarsaparilla. As a word, and a drink, and like that, I’m thirsty. I’d even
choke down a YooHoo. Oh, who am I kidding, my safeword has always been
‘Goldilocks.’ I’d let that big, blond Asgardian hammer me til Sleipnir came-” as
the Poison touches Deadpool, he screams, and we cut to black, maintaining the
audio. “Kidding,” Deadpool says, “It tickles my taint.”
“No, you’re doing that,” one of the Poisons tells
him.
“Spoilers,” Deadpool says.
We cut back to the safe house, where Venom again asks that
Strange summon a Carnage. “You understand this isn’t like Magic: The Gathering,
I can’t just pull a Carnage out of my deck.”
“Or ass. I’m not particular about which side. And you pulled
all of us,” Eddie insists.
“No,” Strange replies, “I didn’t. Some of those here are
from this Earth. The rest received symbiotes from this dimension, despite
hailing from alternate ones. When the symbiotes began to lose, they called out,
across realities, for their champions. The symbiotes themselves summoned most
of you here.”
“So you can’t do it?”
“I didn’t say that. Most of my strength is reserved, for
keeping us and the Poisons inside the mirror dimension; sorcerers usually only
open one large enough to contain a fight- I captured the entire city. I’m not
sure the Poisons have even noticed yet- because there’s a hypnotic charm near
the boundaries- I learned that trick from Wanda. But I can try- though you
realize there’s an even chance that Carnage simply decides to try to kill all
of us, instead, right?”
“He wouldn’t be Carnage if he didn’t. I once heard Fury had
a doomsday plan for Latveria, if Dr. Doom ever became to- drop Hulk at one end
of the country and Punisher at the other. Carnage is similar, and if the
Poisons really are afraid of him, that could give him the advantage we need.”
“Peel back your symbiote.” Brock hesitates, and Strange
waves his hand, and the symbiote peels back, revealing Eddie’s chest. Strange
draws a symbol on him. “You’ll be the anchor. If Carnage gets off the chain, I
can banish him by banishing you.”
“Now when you say ‘banish..’”
“Portal with a sling ring. Or putting a hole through your
chest large enough to disrupt the symbol.”
“I was afraid you meant that.”
Strange brings a Carnage, who reacts badly to Venom. “You
ain’t my daddy. Look like him. Smell like him. Bet you even taste the part. But
you ain’t him.” There’s a pause, before he says, “But you’ll do.” Carnage
attacks all of them.
“Aw, mommy and daddy are fighting,” Poison Spider-Man taunts
as he arrives. “I bet it’s not over which of their little bastards they love
the most.” They cause a little damage, one of the Venoms falls, but Carnage is
a game-changer. He’s able to slice through the Poisons like a hot knife through
butter, and they’re actively afraid of him. Spider-Man manages to snag
Strange and return to home base.
That’s where we learn that their leader is Poison Dr. Doom,
and that Poison Deadpool earned his trust by telling them where to find
Strange. For the moment his magical defenses keep the Poisons at bay; because I
want something visually fun, the Poisons can approach, but once they get too
close, they get zapped by orange electricity and flung violently backwards.
It’s fatal to the unbonded ones, unpleasant to the big ones.
Finally, we cut back to Dan and Anne. She’s very worried
about Eddie. “And I’m worried about my patient.” He softens, and puts his arm
around her and kisses her head. He offers to let her rendezvous with the
others, if she wants; as soon as his patient can move he’ll catch up. He wishes
there were anything he could do to spare her from this horror- no one deserves
this- not even Brock. As he’s reassuring her, we see a Poison creeping up the
wall behind them, snapping its weird little mouth open as it prepares to lunge,
before being webbed in place.
“You two might want to, uh, worry more about the horrible
thing wanting to eat you both.” We see Dan’s patient. It’s Spider-Man, our
Spider-Man. He’s bandaged, and clearly worse for wear, but alive, and not a
Poison. Dan tells him he’s not well enough to move. “Yeah, well, it’s not safe
to stay here, either.” The three of them swing off, even as their hideout is
swarmed by unbound Poisons.
Back at the Baxter Building, the Venoms aren’t sure what to
do next. Tragedy keeps walloping them, again, and again. There’s a leadership
void, with most of them reluctant to follow Eddie, because, well, his
reputation as a screw-up precedes him. They realize Strange is missing, that he
was their target all along. They badly, desperately need a win, and it’s at
that moment that Poison Deadpool is thrown into the room, all webbed up.
Spider-Man saunters in, flanked by Dan and Anne. Deadpool
tries to speak, and Spider-Man fills his mouth with webbing; not just a single
shot of it, but a prolonged spray, lasting several seconds. Deadpool spits it
out.
“I’ve had dreams like that, only in the dreams I wasn’t
wearing a mask so I could swallow. Wait, is the ‘kid’ old enough that my dreams
like that aren’t going to get me sent to the dream hoosegow?”
Literally no one is paying attention to him, because they’re
all so happy to see Spider-Man and the two Venoms. Eventually, Deadpool
interrupts: “I truly hate to break up the love-fest- half the reason I did this
was hoping to be thrown a triumphant hero’s orgy on my return-”
“That is not a thing,” one of them says.
“Hercules swears it’s a thing. Anyway. Like I tried
telling these three, I surrendered. On purpose.”
“To the Poisons?” Anne asks.
“Both times. I got myself Poisoned, so I could come back
here and give you the skinny on them.”
“That’s a stupid plan,” Brock says.
“Your plan was to use Hannibal Lector in a symbiote, and
hope he killed more of theirs than ours? But my plan’s stupid.”
“Hey,” Spider-Man says, “it sounds like we’re on the same
side, and that everybody’s plan was stupid.”
Venom growls, but Deadpool laughs, before launching into
what he learned. “First, I know where they put their headquarters.” Because
it’s San Francisco, it would probably be cool to have it on Alcatraz, but
there’s plenty of other historical options. “Second, I know who’s pulling the
strings.” We show Poison Doom on his throne. “Third, I like being tied up, and
I can feel my mind ‘poisoning’ even as we speak, so that was, retroactively,
probably a smart call, and not just because it provides plausible deniability
about how much I enjoy being tied up.”
One of them who would have a reason to know, asks, if they
have their own Doom, why they would need Strange. “Because Victor Von Doom is a
jack of all trades, but a master of none. He’s a technologist almost as good as
Tony Stark. He’s a scientist second only to Reed Richards. And a sorcerer just
behind Strange. He is the world’s biggest second banana, which is why he’s such
a jerk. But they’ve got scores of magic-types, just no one of Strange’s
caliber. Or maybe it’s just that the barrier he erected prevents any of them
from opening a gate out.”
“So your plan really was stupid,” Anne says. “You traded
Strange for information that their plan required capturing Strange.”
“And, where and how to get him back out, plus, the location
of Doom’s teleporter that they’ve been using to bring in more poisons. They
don’t breed, at least not at the stage where they can take on a host. We break
in, get Strange, destroy Doom and his teleporter. Once they can’t replenish
their numbers, we can whittle them down.”
The Venoms leave the room to discuss the plan, leaving
Carnage to watch Deadpool. They spar, a bit, Deadpool goading Carnage in close
before revealing that he cut his way out of the webbing. He attacks Carnage and
webs him up.
We cut to the other room, where they’re discussing. Through
the doorway, we can see Deadpool putting Carnage over his shoulder like it’s a
sack of toys and he’s a horrible Santa, and jumping out the window. “My
Peter-Tingle, damnit, now May’s got me doing it- my Spider-Sense.” Peter says,
pointing at the fleeing Deadpool; they run after him.
Deadpool drags Carnage into Doom’s throne room. At first
Doom is congratulatory… until Carnage stirs. He blasts him with sonic waves
from his gauntlets, which disrupts Carnage’s symbiote. It’s also loud enough
Deadpool sneaks up to Doom and puts a sword through his chest. That gets the
other Poisons rushing the throne room.
We cut to the Venom strike team, led by Venom and
Spider-Man. They fight their way through a team of Poison Avengers; Anne and
Danom stay behind with the other Venoms to fight them, while Venom and
Spider-Man press on for Strange.
They fight their way to the holding cells, finding Strange
held captive by other magic users that take turns probing his defenses for
weaknesses. Occasionally he turns one of their attacks back on his attackers.
When he creates that opening Spider-Man and Venom strike. The element of
surprise is enough for them to create an opportunity, which Strange exploits to
sling-ring them all onto a snowy mountaintop- you all know the one.
We cut back to the throne room, where Deadpool abandons
Carnage to deal with the teleporter. Subtly, Doom is now missing, as Carnage
cuts through increasingly more Poisons. Deadpool finds the teleporter as Doom
tries to use it to escape… only to realize at the last moment that Deadpool has
rolled active grenades in it with him. It explodes.
Things look dire for our Venoms. The Poison Avengers are
winning, and free Poisons are gathering around the fight, lunging at Venoms at
every opportunity. That’s when Strange, Venom and Spider-Man arrive, and are
enough to turn the tide, chewing through the Poison Avengers.
We cut back to Carnage, who’s been overwhelmed. A veritable
army of poisons are holding him down, suffering casualties even as they choke
him under their sheer number. Deadpool arrives, shooting first the free
Poisons, and then helping free Carnage. They slice and dice their way towards
the others. Rocket Venom (or someone else with the right kind of experience)
reveals he set a bomb on their generators, one that will blow the entire
island. Strange teleports them away at the last moment.
Strange and Venom have a conversation. Venom thinks they’ve
won, but Strange realizes that the Poisons were coming from somewhere,
that they’ve beaten back the first wave, but there will likely be others… “This
is no longer their fight. I will send you home- all of you. Those who are from
this reality, may choose to stay, or I can send you to another reality as a
refuge. But all of us staying here, we’re too appetizing a target.”
Strange says he’s going to send the Venoms home, that those
who remain can handle sweeping up the remaining poisons. Dan and Anne decide to
stay, it’s their home, and they want to stay and help rebuild it, so they can
start the family they want. I think Strange tells Eddie that things got worse
when he arrived, in particular with the Poisons being able to track them,
because his suit is from the original line that sired all of the symbiotes
remaining on Earth, so they were connected. Eddie opts to go, and we’ll spin it
as a noble decision, not a pouty one, especially where Anne is concerned. “I
want you to be happy, Anne, deep down, I do. But there will always be a part of
me that’s sad that you can’t be happy with me, that I can’t be the one who
makes you happy. And I want to be that better me, you know? But if I stay I
don’t know that I can.”
“You’re already a better you,” she says, and kisses him.
“Look,” Dan says, “if you want, you can be the best man.”
It takes him a minute to understand what Dan means. “Really?
That would mean the world.”
Eddie hugs Dan. “We were talking,” Anne said. “And you go
through something like this, these people are closer to me than anyone I’ve
ever known. They’re friends, family.”
So they do an impromptu little ceremony. Dr. Strange
presides. Dan gets his hand a little too close to the book Strange is holding,
and it tries to bite him. “It’s not a Bible; you probably don’t want to touch
it.” Everybody forms either black or white formal wear out of their symbiotes;
most keep their faces covered for largely budgetary reasons. We do enough of
the ceremony to get to the speak now part, and Eddie raises his hand. Strange
and Anne share a look, with him gesturing to his sling ring, essentially
offering to teleport Eddie away, but she gives a subtle little head shake to
warn him off.
We let the moment linger. “I just wanted to say, it’s not an
objection, but I wanted to say that I love the hell out of both of you, and I’m
just so touched that you let me be a part of your love, and your life. Sorry,
probably not the right moment.”
Strange shrugs, and continues. “By the powers vested in me, by
the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth, by the Omnipotent Oshtur, by Agamotto’s light, by-”
Peter gives Strange the cut it gesture, and he pivots, “I now pronounce you,
husband and wife, and invite you to share your first wedded kiss.” It is a hell
of a kiss, because the symbiotes are like Viagra. “I said kiss, not
bliss; there are children present.”
“Man, damnit,” Peter mutters, “I’m a Man.”
“Sure you are, buddy,” Eddie says to him.
We cut to after. Venom tries to convince Anne and Dan to
come to the MCU. “It’s pretty much the same, only San Francisco didn’t get
destroyed. New York, a little, but it’s mostly fine, now. But there, I’m not a
signal flare for a band of interdimensional monsters to come and eat my loved
ones.”
“Someone’s got to pick up the pieces,” Dan tells him.
“And it might sound silly, but I want my kids to grow up in the
same San Francisco I did, not a facsimile.”
“No,” Eddie says, “I get it. If they were my kids, I’d want
the same thing. I’m just- I’m gonna miss you.”
“We’ll miss you, too. Spider-Man?”
Peter’s so jazzed to have someone call him
Spider-Man. “She called me Spider-Man!” he says under his breath.
“Take care of this big lug, okay?”
“Sure thing, miss, ma’am, uh…”
“It’s time,” Strange says. He sends Venom and Peter home.
Peter discovers he has 178 missed calls.
“Sounds rough, kid,” Eddie says, and slaps him on the back,
and turns to leave. “I probably still owe you one. Or maybe a couple, now. If
you need me, you know where to find me.
Credits.
Mid-Credits scene: We show the exterior of Xandar, along
with white text, “Xandar” followed shortly after by, “the Venomverse”. We cut
inside the Nova citadel, where a similar teleporter to the one Doom tried to
use sits. Doom teleports in, before he and the teleporter are caught in an
explosion. Doom, smoking but still moving, holding the wound in his chest,
slinks down the hall. In the central chamber sits a floating crystalline
throne, which Doom kneels before. “My operation was lost. The sorcerer
escaped.”
We pan across the throne room. We see Poison versions of the
Guardians of the Galaxy, the Shiar Imperial Guard, the Super Skrull, Warlock,
Nova, Silver Surfer, with two large things in shadow floating in space beyond
that could well be Poison Galactus and Poison Ego. Sitting in the throne is
Poison Thanos, who tells Doom, “There are other sorcerers, and our numbers
remain vast. And now we know there are countless other realities to conquer,
and we will Poison them all.” He gives the same, creepy little smile he gave at
the end of Avengers and we cut to black.
