Marvel: What If . . . Marc Spector Was Host to Venom? (A Moon Knight & Venom Story)

Marc Spector and Venom engage in a battle of wills in the next adventure of an epic multiversal series reimagining iconic Marvel origin stories. Marc Spector is used to voices in his head. He’s used to waking up disoriented, unsure what his alters, Jake and Steven, might have been up to. He’s used to having an Egyptian god command him as Moon Knight, his avatar of justice and revenge. What he’s not used to: staring into the face of a literal out-of-body doppelgänger. Another Marc crash-landed from an alternate reality, begging for help? Yeah, that is a new one, even for him. But before he can really process anything beyond Khonshu’s incessant alarm bells, it becomes clear this Yet a sliver of hope remains: Finally free of Venom’s control, the <other< Jake and Steven regain consciousness to find themselves in a strange reality, without their Marc but with a strange bird-like <god <insisting that “they will do.” Desperate, lost, and running out of time, the pair make a deal: become Khonshu’s new avatar to track Venom’s path of destruction, save this universe, and just maybe figure out a way back to their own....

Auteur

Mike Chen is the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Brotherhood, Here and Now and Then, A Quantum Love Story, and other novels, as well as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine comics. He has covered geek culture for sites such as Nerdist and The Mary Sue, and in a different life, he's covered the NHL. A member of SFWA, Mike lives in the Bay Area with his wife, daughter, and many rescue animals.

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Chapter 1

Marc

Marc Spector looked behind him.

The buzzing, inconsistent lights and grimy brick walls of the dim sewer system made it hard to tell for sure, but somewhere farther down the tunnel, a silhouette stood.

Was that . . .

The lights blacked out for a second before coming back, but for a flash, Marc saw it clearly, as if the desert sun shone directly on it:

The imposing silhouette of a man, long cloak draped over thin limbs and staff in hand.

Plus a massive bird skull for a head.

Khonshu.

The Egyptian god of the moon wasn’t always the best—or most sincere—ally for Marc, but given that Marc had pledged to be the Moon Knight, avatar of Khonshu, well, they helped each other out of a lot of jams.

In this case, the bird skull turned his way, then Khonshu tapped his staff, causing an echo that Marc heard over his own pounding footsteps. Then the lamps flickered again and Khonshu disappeared, leaving only decaying infrastructure and skittering rats. Just the empty shadows of a sewer passage. A New York sewer passage, one that tracked right underneath Retrograde Sanitarium, where Marc had just led a daring, brutal escape: first breaking free from his cell, then recovering his things from storage and donning the Moon Knight suit, then liberating his friends from the clutches of Dr. Emmet and her oppressive guards and orderlies.

And now? Underground, on the way to freedom. Sanity versus insanity. New York versus ancient Egypt. One mind versus infinite possibilities.

Not that long ago, the love of Marc’s life told him that she needed to distance herself from him, from the life of violence that swarmed around him. He’d tried explaining to Marlene that the violence stemmed from the balance of everything in his head, of dealing with Steven Grant and Jake Lockley, of being pledged to serve Khonshu as the deity’s Fist. But the how and why didn’t matter to her.

She’d had enough. And as he dashed forward through the damp passageway, cape billowing behind him, he considered if maybe she was right.

Such was the life of Marc Spector. He never claimed it was an easy one.

“There they are!” a voice yelled, cutting through the thick air.

“No, no, no,” a woman’s voice said. Marc turned to see concerned lines framing the brown eyes and pursed lips of Gena Landers. Gena spun and shot a look behind Marc, her head now angled to catch shadows across her dark skin. “Frenchie, turn off the flashlight!”

“Non, Gena,” hissed Jean-Paul Duchamp, Marc’s longtime associate and sometimes helicopter pilot, known by most as Frenchie. “We are in a sewer. How else could we possibly see?”

“If we can’t see us, then they can’t see us,” Gena shot back. Frenchie cursed under his breath, a rapid-fire mix of French and English and possibly something else, and as he swung the flashlight, the beam crossed Marc’s body, causing a flicker of his reflection on the water to remind Marc of the single constant thing that summed up all of the certainty and uncertainty in his life:

Moon Knight.

White. Clear white, the kind that stood out against a dark night sky. Not camouflage, but a distinct and obvious look that sent a message to whoever saw it.

I’m coming for you.

White boots. A white, form-fitting carbonadium armored suit, complete with gauntlets. A white belt, where he stashed adamantium crescent darts—boomerang-like blades shaped like a crescent moon—and on the left side, his truncheon hung, an adaptable weapon that acted as nunchaku, bo staff, or grappling hook as needed.

Over all of that draped a cowl and cloak, centered by the unmistakable icon of a crescent moon across the chest. Under the cowl sat a white mask, blank except for the lines contoured to Marc’s face, but with two glowing white eyes, an intensity ready to pierce the darkness and lead the way through.

Move quickly, Marc, a voice roared in his head. Marc steadied himself, and the brilliance of his white eyes intensified as Khonshu’s voice spoke again, a deep-throated growl courtesy of an Egyptian god that only he heard—and sometimes, Marc even listened to him. Something has changed in this world. It’s out there. Elusive. I am not certain what it is, but you need to get to the surface now.

Marc whirled around to face his friends, the cape whipping out behind him. His fingers flexed and tightened their grip on the crescent darts, ready for whoever and whatever Dr. Emmet sent after them. But no, he wouldn’t need those now. Instead, he sheathed them—combat wasn’t the current solution.

They needed to escape.

“Gena’s right,” Marc said, and from afar, the voices shouted again, the light thump-thump-thump of rapid steps echoing off the sewer walls. “Look for my eyes. They’ll light the way. Follow me. We’re almost home.” Frenchie cut the flashlight right when Marc stepped forward, leaving only the glow from his mask’s eyes.

That was enough for his friends—and as he stepped, a whirl of images flew through his head, from Gena’s cozy Brooklyn diner to the endless city streets where he patrolled with a mask and cape. Just hours prior, Marc had promised that he’d get them back, all of them lamenting that they missed the constant din and occasional strange odors of the city.

Now he was going to make good on that promise.

He looked back at Gena and Frenchie and tapped the side of his mask; they both nodded, and he stepped forward, boots grinding into the path.

Other instincts soon kicked in, his senses opening up beyond the Moon Knight suit, experiences and skills coming all the way back from his days as a mercenary—or even as a soldier before that.

Behind them, footsteps and voices. Ahead, the faint rush of water followed by occasional drips. All around, the thick stench of sewer air, but also a draft. The lightest of airflow, and combined with the rumble overhead, Marc tracked the possibilities.

An escape.

“It’s not that far. There’s a way out. Just f…