Avengers Initiate #10: Maximus Gargan/Venom
Maximus Samuel Gargan (a.k.a. Venom, El Scorpion)
THREAT LEVEL: CHARLIE
Registration Status: Un-Registered
Monitoring and Containment Procedures:
I. MONITORING PROCEDURES
**1. Surveillance and Intelligence Gathering:
a. Electronic Surveillance: Monitor digital communications, social media, and other online platforms for any updates or public statements related to Venom. Track mentions and activities to gather intelligence on his current status and objectives.
b. Physical Surveillance: Conduct discreet surveillance of locations associated with Venom, including his residence and known areas of operation. Use advanced technology to avoid detection.
c. Informant Network: Utilize informants within the superhero community and criminal underworld to provide real-time updates on Venom’s activities, alliances, and potential threats.
**2. Behavioral Analysis:
a. Psychological Profiling: Regularly assess Venom’s psychological profile to understand his motivations, potential triggers, and any behavioral changes. Review past incidents and conflicts to identify patterns or shifts in his approach.
b. Power Usage Monitoring: Track instances of Venom using his symbiote abilities and analyze patterns to detect any deviations or potential escalation in his powers or intentions.
**3. Threat Assessment:
a. Risk Analysis: Continuously update the threat assessment based on Venom’s recent activities, known capabilities, and any current or potential threats he may pose or face.
b. Crisis Response Planning: Develop and maintain contingency plans for scenarios involving Venom. Prepare for high-stakes situations that may involve his unique symbiote abilities and combat skills.
**4. Engagement Protocols:
a. Diplomatic Channels: Where feasible, maintain communication channels with Venom through established or trusted intermediaries. Attempt to address issues diplomatically and explore potential avenues for cooperation. Gargan's distrust of authority may interfere with any diplomatic solutions so employ trusted allies such as Avengers Initiate #5: {Redacted}/Spider-Man, Avengers Initiate #7: Katherine Elizabeth Bishop/Hawkeye, and Avengers Initiate #3: Shang-Chi/The Iron Fist to de-escalate the situation.
b. Emergency Protocols: In high-risk situations involving Venom, deploy specialized response teams equipped to handle symbiote-based threats and advanced combat scenarios.
III. CONTAINMENT PROCEDURES
**1. Containment Infrastructure:
a. Specialized Facility: Design and maintain a secure containment facility specifically equipped to address symbiote-based threats. Incorporate containment protocols and technology capable of neutralizing or suppressing the symbiote’s abilities.
b. Containment Protocols: Implement measures to limit Venom’s access to external communications and symbiote-related resources. Use containment fields and technologies designed to mitigate the symbiote’s influence.
**2. Neutralization and Restraint:
a. Symbiote Neutralization: Employ technology and artifacts designed to dampen or neutralize symbiote abilities. Consider using specific materials or frequencies that can disrupt the symbiote’s cohesion. Sonic and flame-based weapons are recommended.
b. Physical Restraints: Use restraints capable of withstanding high levels of strength and combat skills. Ensure restraints do not provoke or escalate the symbiote’s aggressive tendencies.
**3. Staff and Personnel:
a. Qualified Personnel: Ensure all personnel involved in containment are trained in handling symbiote-based threats and advanced combatants. Provide specialized training on conflict de-escalation and tactical response.
b. Support Services: Offer psychological support and stress management resources for staff managing high-risk containment situations.
**4. Emergency Response:
a. Rapid Response Team: Maintain a specialized team trained to address breaches in containment or sudden escalations involving Venom. Equip the team with appropriate defensive and countermeasure technology.
b. Evacuation Procedures: Develop and rehearse evacuation plans for personnel and civilians in case of a containment breach. Ensure plans are regularly updated and tested for effectiveness.
**5. Legal and Ethical Considerations:
a. Rights and Oversight: Ensure all containment and monitoring procedures comply with legal and ethical standards. Respect Venom’s rights and regularly review procedures for compliance with human rights regulations.
b. Periodic Review: Conduct periodic reviews of containment and monitoring procedures to assess their effectiveness and adapt to any changes in Venom’s behavior or abilities.
III. WEAKNESSES OVERVIEW
**1. Physical Vulnerabilities:
a. Human Limitations: Although Venom possesses superhuman strength and agility, Maximus Gargan is still fundamentally human. Severe physical injuries can incapacitate him.
b. Separation from Symbiote: If the symbiote is forcibly removed from Gargan, he is left vulnerable and can suffer serious injury or even death.
**2. Psychological Factors:
a. Mental Instability: The symbiote has a complex relationship with Gargan, and both share emotional and psychological vulnerabilities. Stress, fear, or anger can lead to instability, impacting their effectiveness in combat.
b. Fear of Fire and Sound: Venom has a notable weakness to extreme sound and fire, which can disorient or incapacitate the symbiote, forcing it to separate from Gargan.
**3. Symbiote Limitations:
a. Dependence on Host: The symbiote relies on Gargan for survival and stability. If he is incapacitated or harmed, the symbiote is also at risk.
b. Vulnerability to Certain Chemicals: Specific substances can weaken or harm the symbiote, such as sound waves or certain types of acids and high-frequency vibrations.
**4. Interpersonal Relationships:
a. Conflict with Allies: Venom's aggressive nature can lead to conflicts with allies or former partners, making it difficult to maintain stable relationships and support networks.
b. Reputation Issues: Venom’s anti-hero status can lead to distrust among other heroes and potential isolation, impacting his effectiveness in collaborative situations.
IV. STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS
**1. Combat Tactics:
a. Use of Sound Weapons: Employ sound-based weapons or tactics to exploit Venom’s sensitivity to high-frequency sounds, disorienting the symbiote and forcing it to retreat.
b. Fire Attacks: Use fire or incendiary devices to target the symbiote’s weakness, creating a significant threat during combat.
**2. Psychological Manipulation:
a. Stress Induction: Engage in psychological tactics that heighten Gargan's emotional instability, which could weaken the symbiote's control and effectiveness.
b. Exploit Host Vulnerabilities: Target Gargan directly, knowing that harm to him affects the symbiote’s performance.
Physical Description
Special abilities
- Superhuman Strength: Before he came into contact with the costume, Gargan had conditioned himself to lift (press) 700 lb. Once they merged, the costume gave him enough strength to lift 11 tons, making him more powerful than Spider-Man. However, his full strength often fluctuates. Venom has demonstrated strength ranging from only slightly greater than Spider-Man's to being capable of trading blows with high-powered individuals such as Juggernaut. This is caused by the several mutations that the symbiote took with Gargan, gaining additional bulk and muscle mass over long periods of time with its host.
- Superhuman Durability: Venom's body is highly resistant to physical injury, capable of withstanding assault from high-caliber bullets as well as attacks from super powered individuals. When distributed at a typical thickness over Gargan's body, the symbiote is capable of absorbing bullets from small-arms weapons firing conventional ammunition. The symbiote is however particularly vulnerable to both sonic and heat-based attacks.
- Superhuman Stamina: Venom is also capable of surviving in harmful areas for long periods of time such as underwater or in toxic gases, the symbiote filtering breathable air to the host.
- Regenerative Healing Factor: Additionally, the symbiote is capable of healing injuries in the host at a faster rate than normal human healing allows. The symbiote is also capable of healing injuries and illnesses that current human medical care cannot. The symbiote has enabled its host to recover from injuries that should have been lethal, such as Mac Gargan being impaled by the Swordsman's Mystical Sword.
- Genetic Memory: The symbiote possesses some psychic ability, making it capable of obtaining information from its hosts and even other people and symbiotes simply by touch. The symbiote is capable of recalling information from previous hosts. This ability allowed Eddie Brock to know the secret identity of Spider-Man when the symbiote bonded with him. It can however, be forced to forget information if the symbiote is inflicted with heavy trauma.
- Offspring Detection: The symbiote is also capable of psychically detecting its offspring, however with effort this ability can be blocked.
- Telepathy: the symbiotes species communicate both psionically and biochemically with the host and each other. Their powers of the mind initially start out as weak without a host to bond to. After coming into contact with Knull, the symbiote displayed the ability to telepathically communicate with other symbiotes.
- Constituent-Matter Manipulation: While the symbiote did not use this ability frequently when bonded to Eddie Brock, it was capable of transforming parts of its host's body: it once morphed Venom's hands into scythe-like hooks and sword-like blades during a battle against Nova, and turned his arms into bat-like wings to let him glide. After being augmented by Knull, the symbiote developed the ability to manifest wings resembling those of the Grendel symbiote-dragon in order to fly. Venom could also project its biomass into a multi-layered shield to better withstand powerful attacks. When bonded to Mac Gargan, it once used this ability to grow a tail, emulating Gargan's appearance as the Scorpion.
- Digital Immersion: In a battle with its offspring Carnage, the Venom symbiote and its host displayed the ability to physically enter into the Internet on a “molecular level” and travel between hard-wired computers through Ethernet cables.
- Empathetic Empowerment: The Venom symbiote, like others of its kind, is capable of feeding off its host's negative emotions - chiefly rage, hatred, and bloodlust - in order to augment itself. However, doing so has a corrupting effect on the symbiote, causing it to become increasingly bloodthirsty, cruel, and feral.
- Symbiote Assimilation: In a similar manner to how the Hybrid symbiote was formed, Venom is capable of amalgamating with other symbiotes in order to bolster their shared power. It merged with its clone, increasing its strength by an unknown degree.
- Immunity to Spider-Man's Spider-Sense: Venom is capable of attacking Spider-Man without alerting him, making Venom a deadly foe.
- Poisonous Fangs: An ability developed by Eddie Brock upon bonding with the symbiote. Originally he commanded the symbiote to sprout a maniacal grin and tongue, differentiating him from Spider-Man. Later it was revealed that this set of fangs not only intimidates foes but can deliver a powerful, venomous bite (true to Brock's namesake). This bite was able to cripple the Sandman, eventually leaving the villain-turned-hero unable to reform himself properly and almost causing his death.
- Stretching and Deforming: Although it's widely known that the symbiote can stretch and deform itself, recently it was able to perform this ability while bonded with a human host. Venom can expand to any size as long as they have something to grow on such as a host or an object. Symbiotes can get inside of small areas such as electric wires and the insides of cars and completely disable them.
- Telepathy Resistance: As a result of Venom being a bond between two separate minds, it takes longer than conventional for a telepath to affect its mind. This defense is not absolute, however. Additionally, attempting to telepathically incapacitate Venom by targeting the host does not prevent the symbiote from fighting back.
- Hive Mind: After being purged of its bloodlust, the symbiote gained access to the symbiotes hive mind, enabling it to communicate with the symbiotes on their homeworld and access information about the species' past.
- Cosmos Communion: As a cleansed Klyntar, the Venom symbiote is able to hear the "voice" of the Cosmos telling it of people in need of assistance.
- Humanoid Form: Since being cleansed, the symbiote has developed the ability to take on a humanoid form independently of being bonded to its host, for a maximum duration of twelve Earth hours. After coming into contact with Knull, this ability was augmented to enable it to disguise itself as a human.
- Proximity Tracking: Gargan can track others by leaving pieces of itself on others, seeking them out wherever they may go.
- Self-Sustenance: The Venom Symbiote enables the host to survive anywhere in any hostile environment. Be it in the cold reaches of space, or fatally gaseous areas with relative ease. Gargan could even impart this a hazardous element filtration system to others.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Born to Carmilla Gargan and heir to the Gargan Cartel on September 8th, 1998, Maximus Gargan inherited not only his family's criminal enterprise, but also a genetic mutation that has been passed down since his grandfather. This mutation gives Gargan unusually hardened skin which allows him to survive blades and some gunfire but not constant gunfire. Gargan was trained and abused by his mother who had hoped that this abuse would mold him into the cold, unfeeling leader that the Gargan Cartel would need. The only semblance of mercy Gargan was shown was from the few times he was visited by his father, James Evans. Carmilla, however, saw this as a sign of weakness and had James executed in front of Gargan. After the death of his father, Gargan ran away from home and lived on the streets of New York City. Gargan then attempted to sabotage the Gargan Cartel's gun running operations. This led him into direct contact with Avengers Initiate #5: {Redacted}/Spider-Man in 2014 who was also trying to disassemble the Gargan Cartel's operations. After aiding Spider-Man in detaining his mother Carmilla, Gargan joined Spider-Man and his allies in arresting Ryker's Island Prisoner #5067: Wilson Grant Fisk and destroying his operations. Gargan even found a home with the Morales family who treated him as if he was always a member of their family. Gargan continued to help Spider-Man in his crime fighting career which pit him against a number of superhuman threats. In 2015, the revelation that Spider-Man had accidentally released a number of superhuman criminals onto the streets of New York caused a falling out between Gargan and his friend. This falling out resulted in Gargan returning to living on the streets where he was soon found by a symbiotic extraterrestrial organism known as the Venom Symbiote. Fueled by its own hatred of Spider-Man, the symbiote bonded with Gargan and amplified his malice towards his former friend. Now as the newly bonded Venom, Gargan dealt out his own brand of harsher vigilante justice and sought revenge on Spider-Man. Spider-Man and Gargan fought many times, but they never truly reconciled until 2018 after the death of Gargan's adoptive mother, Rio Morales. Gargan helped return Rio Morales' killer, Cleatus Cassidy, back into police custody. Gargan then helped Spider-Man and group of other heroes save New York from being destroyed by Containment Site-B Inmate #363: Dr. Otto Gunther Octavious/Dr. Octopus. Since then Gargan has continued his activities as a New York based vigilante, but reports say that he has recently become more interested in protecting and caring for the homeless population of New York.
S.H.I.E.L.D. Operative #2174: Mercedes Knight
Age
26
Date of Birth
September 8th
Birthplace
New York City, New York
Children
Sex
Male
Eyes
Brown
Hair
Black
Height
6'5" with Symbiote, 6'1" without Symbiote
Weight
245 lbs. with Symbiote, 220 lbs. without Symbiote
Related Reports
- Kree
- Abysal
- Coatati
- Skrull
- Elvish
- Draconic
- Xandarian
- Spartaxian
