Venom: Space Knight and the Reverse Spider-Sense
So. We all know how Venom is, by their very nature, supposed to represent the flip coin of Spider-Man, right? Spider-Man says "nobody dies" (or, more recently, "save as many as I can"), Venom is willing to play judge, jury, and executioner. But an interesting turn on this, I think, is the mechanic introduced in Venom: Space Knight, where Venom (Flash Thompson) begins to experience a kind of cosmic "cry for help". When others are in trouble, they speed to the rescue.
(Venom: Space Knight #1 and #2)
But, very similarly to Spider-Man's famed spider-sense, when they get the message, they don't necessarily know what exactly the impending danger is, only the desire to resolve it. It seems it's a little bit more clear than the spider-sense, since Flash describes it as literal words at times, but I imagine it's not always so clear-cut.
And while it's hinted at a couple times in the series that they also have a kind of sixth sense regarding their own well-being, this could just be passed off as the symbiote literally having eyes in the back of its... well, anywhere on its biomass, frankly. (Or it could be a continuity error.)
(Venom, Space Knight #1... I recognize those squiggly little lines!)
As we see from Peter's own words though, he almost considers it a drawback of his own abilities -- but if we're being totally fair, he'd probably go insane if his spider-sense went off for both himself and others. It's a lot different when you've got another person there to help manage the mental load.
(Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #44)
Of course, as Myntril explains in the below panels, this sort of... cosmic awareness isn't unique to Venom. It's apparently shared among all Agents of the Cosmos, but I still find it interesting just in a story-based manner.
Another interesting tidbit is that Agents seem to be connected to each other as well! I really wish that we could've gotten more detail on this, but alas, it was canceled and so things had to get wrapped up really quickly. The fact that they can reach out on a sort of psychic radio is pretty neat, though. It's almost like (heh) a web.
(4 above images from: Space Knight #2)
I suppose it makes sense that Klyntar would be connected to each other, at least on some baseline level - it is a Hive, after all - but this seems to be of a type even beyond what we saw during the 90s Planet of the Symbiote event (across all the Super Specials), especially given that Tarna says later on that Venom's fracturing symbiosis could be sensed.
(Venom: Space Knight #6)
I realize I'm getting a little off-track here, diving into additional details from Space Knight I'm sure will never be explored again, but still - it's fascinating to me! And now I desperately need Flash sitting down with Spider-Man trying to explain all this, because I think it would be hilarious for Peter to get mad about Venom having an ability he himself lacks. (Get over it, Pete!)














