LOTS wrong with this story, starting with the cover of #11. Knowing that Francisco Herrera is one of the worst artists in Marvel’s stable, editorial must have thought, “Hey! Let’s get a Mike Deodato cover!” so that people might overlook the horrible interior art. Then Deodato turns around and draws just a tongue. I mean, it’s a cool tongue but…
Anyway, Venom attacks Spider-Man. The Fantastic Four intervene and stick Venom back in the Baxter Building tube. Reed starts studying him and Venom tells him about the Venom clone, which is also being experimented on elsewhere. And there’s nanobots.
I honestly can’t tell whether Daniel Way is simply incoherent or if it’s the distracting art, but this story seems to just wind around and go nowhere. At the end, we see the clone is now trapped in the arctic and at this point I realized this whole thing was a flashback. It ends where issue #1 of this series started.
I actually do like the cover to #11, tho’.
I’m assuming this story was necessary to clarify to everyone that the symbiote from issues #1-10 was a clone and not Venom. I can’t tell if that was intended as a “punch line” designed to shock readers at the end of issue #13, or if Daniel Way had to write it when he realized that issues #1-10 didn’t make sense if they were about Venom in continuity.
And I kinda don’t care.