#damian hellstrom

Hellstorm, Prince of Lies

Defenders Art by Javier Rodríguez 

Called together by Doctor Strange when Earth faces its greatest threats, the Defenders have always been Marvel’s most eclectic Super Hero team. Who will join him this time?

Thanks for the question! You might be surprised to hear that out of all the three major people to go by the name “Venom” (Eddie Brock, Mac Gargan, and Flash Thomspon), Eddie has the cleanest cannibalism record! Venom first ate brains in the 1996 issue Venom: The Hunger #1. Eddie was delirious after not sleeping for days and combined with the symbiote’s rising hunger, led the pair to eat a criminal’s brain, but Eddie came to his senses and vomited what he had just eaten into a dumpster right after.

This is the only incident in which the pair of Eddie and Venom had eaten or even bitten any humans (with the exception of biting the super villain Sandman). When Mac Gargan became Venom, his first brush with cannibalism was similar to Eddie’s as it was a “heat of the moment” situation where Mac devoured Steel Spider’s arm in Thunderbolts #115 (2007). Later, Mac would not resist the symbiote’s urges as Mac began to enjoy biting and even eating humans such as this panel from Siege: Spider-Man (2010).

Flash Thompson is a somewhat different story as from even his first outing as Agent Venom in The Amazing Spider-Man #654.1 (2011), Flash looses control, bites off, spits back out Flag Smasher’s arm, and replies that it doesn’t count as cannibalism. A similar situation would occur in Venom (Vol. 2) #9 (2011) where Flash looses control again, bites off, and spits out Hijacker’s head. In issue #24 (2012) Flash would make the full leap to cannibal as a demon in him causes him to devour a whole human.

“I ain’t in no mood for jivin”

Sal Buscema - Bob McLeod