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FEATURE: What if Captain America Bonded with the Venom Symbiote?

Our 7 Days of Venom rolls along with a What If. Perhaps, one of the greatest What If’s in the entire Marvel Comics canon: what if Captain America bonded with the Venom symbiote?

It’s interesting that the topic has only been touched on a few times. In Marvel’s Age of Apocalypse arc, a Venom-Cap appeared in the background of a panel. And in last year’s Venomverse, Captain America was bonded with *a* symbiote, but not the Venom symbiote. Then earlier this year, Funko released a Venom-Cap POP! Vinyl figurine in a What If fashion.

When you boil it right down, Venom-Cap is one of those ideas people like to talk about but never really explore. But Chief Story Baker that I am, I’m more than happy to dive into it.

First off, Venom-Cap would be a being of competing personalities even more so than Spider-Man and Venom were.

Steve Rogers is a man of integrity. As Dr. Erskine pointed out, Steve’s greatest superpower is that he is a good man. The super-soldier serum only heightened that goodness. And so, the Steve Rogers we know and love would fight any invasive force tooth and nail before he let it destroy who he is.

Venom for its part is a monstrous being of will. The Venom symbiote is traditionally portrayed as evil or antagonistic; while versions such as Agent Venom have sought to tone this down and portray the symbiote as a malicious force for good, overall, Venom is known for its chaos and rage. This is directly in conflict with who Steve Rogers is.

So picture if you will Captain America bonding with Venom. First off, Steve would fight it tooth and nail. He would do EVERYTHING to get it out of his body. And he would ultimately fail. From here we would see a Steve Rogers in crisis, which would be an absolutely amazing character study. Would Steve choose to accept the symbiote’s power? Would the symbiote choose to accept Steve’s goodness and use its powers wholly for good? Would Venom-Cap have a Jekyll and Hyde relationship or a Tony and Jarvis one? Such questions would be paramount for any Venom-Cap story to unearth the answers to.

Which leads to one final question: should a Venom-Cap story ever be told? I would say yes; but I’ll also readily admit that I *love* What If stories. One of the first comics purchases I ever made was the hardback edition of Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe, if that gives you an idea of how much I love em.

For me, What If stories in comics are one of those things that drive us to think outside the box. Two of DC’s greatest comics, Superman: Red Son and Batman: The Killing Joke, are What If comics. Marvel has had their fair share of What If’s also. But Venom-Cap is one so uniquely tailored to drama that it would stand out from the pack. When they were off making Captain America a Nazi because of who knows why, what they should have been doing was bonding Cap with Venom. It’s a similar What If in evil, but now you give Steve Rogers his AGENCY. And likewise, you give the symbiote the agency to make a choice about whether or not it wants to be a hero or a villain. Imagine getting inside Steve’s head during this time of crisis!

Boy HOWDY, what an opportunity for you storytellers out there.

Thank you for reading! Be sure to check out our latest podcast episode, where we discuss all of the Spider-Man movies in anticipation of Venom. You can tune in below. We’re also on all of your favorite podcast platforms, such as iTunes and Spotify.

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