The alien symbiote that was once Spiderman's costume but was rejected by him had bonded with Eddie Brock, a disgrunteled ex-reporter whose career came to a crashing end when a breakthrough story he did about a serial murderer named the Sin Eater that revealed the killers "true" identity was proven false when Spiderman brought in the real killer. Brock had planned to commit suicide, but prayed for forgiveness before he did. But at a church, the symbiote found him and bonded with him to create Venom, a homicidal monster who posessed all the same abilities and even more strength than Spiderman, and whose sole purpose was to kill the wallcrawler. David Michelline has written some of the finest Spiderman stories ever, and has created the ultamite villian. Everytime Venom would break loose, Spidy felt his life was in severe danger, and there was a big sense of dread. Since Venom was simply more powerful than Spiderman and Spidy could not hope to beat him in a straight fight, he'd have to use his brain to beat Venom. One of the greatest single issue Spiderman stories is issue300, reprinted in this book, shows one of the toughtest fights ever and the orgin of Venom. It is a shame years later Venom's character would get watered down, but all the Venom stories written by Michelline(300, 315-317, 332-333, 344-347, and 359-363) are all terrific, and no Spiderman fan should be without reading those. Plus, this book has great art by Todd McFarlane. And if you like this book, get the other Michelline/McFarlane issues(298-328) for some of the best Spiderman ever.