The other Spider-mans

I now want Jessica to start using "Cor Blimy !" as her catchphrase and calling Captain America "Gov'ner"

"Cor blimey, Doctah Doom! Whatchu tryin' a' rule the world for? Rulin' the world's a bit of a sticky wicket, now, innit?"

Now I'm hoping for a silver age throwback story where Jess gets shot with a "British Ray"

didn't that happen to Beast Boy in Teen Titans?

Ok so there is a discussion about Toxin going on on the ASM2 thread and I had a theoretical story idea that I'm curious to see the reaction to. Summary of idea follows!

The basic idea is that Toxin is trucking along one day being his 90s Venom-Knockoff self and Eddie see's some guys beating the hell out of some poor fellow in the streets and intervenes. But for some reason Eddie loses control of the Toxin symbiote who has been mostly quiet and subservient to this point and the symbiote rather viciously mauls the attackers in a manner that even Eddie finds extreme. After finding a nice quiet rooftop the symbiote has calmed down slightly and explains what happened to his previous host (beaten to death "in the gutter" by Blackheart for those who do not know) and that Toxin had a flashback and went livid. Several hours later the mauling has caught the attention of either Agent Venom or the Avengers (depending on who is free) and they decide that Toxin has gone too far. So either Venom or one of the Avengers (one who isn't Wolverine or Spider-Man) goes down to deal with Toxin and finds Eddie Brock on a rooftop mulling over what the symbiote showed him. Much to the surprise of whoever showed up Toxin and Brock are not in he mood to fight and instead gives an explanation about what actually set him off. Said responder then decides to take Toxin to Dr Strange to have a chat about Blackheart.

Once there Dr Strange decides to run a few spells on Toxin and magically notes that there is a minor outgoing psychic connection to... somewhere. Strange follows the thread and learns that it goes straight into Mephisto's realm. He scryes the other end of the connection and much to the astonishment of all there is... some guy being held unconscious somewhere in the realm of Mephisto. Some guy that Toxin and Eddie recognize immediately as Patrick Mulligan! He is being held in some kind of evil crystal prison thing. As it turns out the Toxin symbiote was magically ripped from Patrick Mulligan and in its confusion and fear it believed that Blackheart had beat Patrick to death instead of into unconsciousness and dragging him to Mephisto's hell later. The symbiote is furious and demands of Eddie that they save Patrick and Eddie looks at the trapped Patrick Mulligan and feels like an innocent man was sentenced to hell so that he could be made into a monster. His Catholic guilt will not let that stand and so he agrees with the Symbiote that Patrick must be rescued.

Dr. Strange finds it curious that Blackheart didn't just beat Patrick to death and be done with it but Venom/whoever else is there and Toxin are rather adamant that some kind of rescue attempt should be mounted. So Strange gets ready and prepares. The plan being that they sneak into Mephisto's realm, find Patrick and see if Dr Strange can find a way to save him. Upon arrival they are stunned to find Blackheart waiting for them who immediately gets into a fight with Strange and drags it far away from Toxin and Venom/friend who recognize a tower a slight distance away as where Patrick is being held. They make their way as sneakily as possible to said tower and find the chamber where Pat is held. Unfortunately as soon as they arrive they are tied up by magic chains and Mephisto makes his grand entrance. He laughs at the heroes and mocks their attempts to sneak around his realm without his knowing. Eddie believing this all to be his fault offers Mephisto a deal. If Mephy lets the other heroes and Pat go Mephisto gets to keep his soul. Venom/Friend and the Toxin symbiote are horrified and beg Brock not to do it but Mephisto is delighted and accepts. He then magically rips Brock from the Toxin symbiote and offers the contract to sign. When Eddie signs the contract Mephisto starts laughing his ass off and Dr Strange reappears having successfully banished Blackheart for now while yelling "DON'T DO IT!" Mephisto teleports Pat, Venom/Friend, the Toxin symbiote and Dr. Strange back to the street where Pat was initially abducted and Patrick starts coming to.

After Pat wakes up and asks "Holy crap am I in hell!" Dr. Strange explains that because Mephisto abducted Pat completely against his will with no bargain being made he had no claim to Pat's soul and Dr. Strange could have easily knocked it back to earth without a problem but now Eddie Brock is trapped there for real and Strange has excruciatingly limited options for trying to save him. Everyone around is crushed at how outplayed they were. Patrick in particular is stunned and saddened at being the catalyst for the whole disaster and looks down at the Toxin symbiote which has been quietly sitting next to him since they returned. The symbiote is more crushed than even he is feeling like all the horror that has happened to Eddie and Patrick are all its fault. To the surprise of everyone Patrick kneels down and offers his hand to the Toxin symbiote. Patrick and the Symbiote merge again and Toxin I is reborn. Toxin tells strange and Venom/Friend that he is going to honor Brock's memory and sacrifice by truly doing all the good he can and one day saving his soul from Mephisto. The story ends as Toxin I swings away and declares "Time to get started."

So what do you guys think would that work as an Arc? Sorry it got so wordy.

edited 11th Dec '13 3:47:29 PM by Canid117

Could work. The main flaw I find in it is that, at least as he is now, Eddie is extremely anti-symbiote. He's been going around killing other symbiote characters because he's convinced that the symbiote is essentially pure, abject evil. He'd probably not be very willing to listen to anything the Toxin symbiote wanted him to do, at least not without a great deal of Character Development.

I was hoping the Catholic guilt would be what pushed him over the edge. After all if the symbiote wants to save a guy from hell and the devil would Eddie really want to stop that?

Catholic guilt is a powerful force, I mean it affects me and I was never Catholic.

Also its half the reason Daredevil does anything he does.

Hmm just read more Scarlet Spider. I have to say "No Belgians" might be my new favorite comic book moment.

I'm adding some stuff to the spider-man character pages for Eddie Brock and Patrick Mulligan (addition and expansion of the Lightning Bruiser trope for the latter and former respectively) but I have been thinking would Took a Level in Dumbass be an appropriate trope for Eddie Brock?

Initially he was able to use his powers effectively and was at least competently intelligent but for a good while now he has been rarely ascended from The Brute and usually just tries to rely on brute strength to overpower his opponent so he gets beaten much easier than he should.

Even though with his strength, speed, shapeshifting, cloaking and other tricks he should be much tougher and more intimidating than he is.