Senator Ward–a corrupt politician who has been lingering around this title since it was rebooted–ambushes Eddie Brock, who is at his wife’s gravesite, and manages to steal the symbiote.
Ward has a virus that makes him gross and needs the Symbiote to help stabilize his condition.
Brock goes on to attack Spider-Man without his symbiote.
It doesn’t go well for Eddie.
Senator Ward is the focus here, though. We learn about his long corrupt past and why Gwen Stacy’s uncle wants to kill him. They were all part of a past military strike team that got involved with Hydra, along with Ranger.
Ranger and Ward die in the end.
It’s nice to get all these threads resolved–we’ve waited years for it.
Issue #25 says it is a Maximum Security tie-in, but all it does is show Green Goblin back in New York, and then reference the Max Security and Revenge of the Green Goblin miniserieses. Hm.
I don’t think Arthur Stacy ever appears again after this.