Venom: Separation Anxiety #3
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeVenom: Separation Anxiety #3 (2024) is the narrative midpoint of Venom co-creator David Michelinie's third consecutive return to the Eddie Brock era, a sustained late-career creative homecoming unmatched in the character's publishing history. The issue is structurally notable for assembling an unusually creator-coherent cast: both Venom and the antagonist Ghost are Michelinie co-creations, making this one of the few Venom issues where virtually the entire principal cast traces its conceptual lineage to the same writer. Set firmly in Eddie Brock's earliest antihero period, it extends Michelinie's 2024 project of filling in the 'Lethal Protector' era with new continuity rather than revisiting or retconning established events. While the issue introduces several minor supporting characters in their first appearances, its broader significance lies in its place within a deliberate, creator-driven reclamation of the character's foundational voice.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
The 2024 Venom: Separation Anxiety miniseries was conceived by David Michelinie — Venom's co-creator alongside Todd McFarlane — as his third consecutive retro-set Eddie Brock project at Marvel, following two back-to-back Venom: Lethal Protector limited series. Michelinie has described the central mechanic of the Purple Man arc as a deliberate solution to a creative problem: wanting to avoid the familiar 'Eddie separated from the symbiote' plot device, he invented an antagonist who drains the symbiote piece by piece on physical contact, inverting the separation trope into an escalating, incremental threat. The issue was edited by Thomas Groneman, drawn by Gerardo Sandoval with inking assists from Victor Nava, colored by Romulo Fajardo Jr., and lettered by Clayton Cowles and Travis Lanham, with series cover art by Paulo Siqueira.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published July 24, 2024 by Marvel Comics; issue #3 of a five-part miniseries titled 'The King in Purple.'
- Written by David Michelinie (Venom and Ghost co-creator), with art by Gerardo Sandoval, inks by Victor Nava, colors by Romulo Fajardo Jr., and cover art by Paulo Siqueira.
- Minor first appearances in this issue include Danny B. (dies in same issue), Jonas Hale Harrington, Smitty, and Mr. Gomez, per the Marvel Database.
- The Psycho-Prism serves as the MacGuffin: Sunturion (Arthur Dearborn), working for Roxxon's Jonas Hale, delivers it to Roxxon — only for Purple Man, Ghost (hired by Kingpin), and Venom to converge on it simultaneously.
- Kingpin (Wilson Fisk) enters the story in this issue, having hired Ghost to acquire the Psycho-Prism, dramatically expanding the antagonist roster at the series' midpoint.
- Joy Mercado, a Daily Bugle supporting character, assists Eddie Brock in tracking Purple Man, reinforcing the issue's early-continuity, street-level journalistic framing.
- Ghost — an antagonist in this issue — is also a David Michelinie co-creation (first appeared in Iron Man #219, 1987), making #3 a rare issue where Michelinie writes both protagonist and antagonist from his own creative catalog.
- The five-issue run was subsequently collected in the trade paperback Venom: Separation Anxiety: The King in Purple (ISBN 9781302958381), collecting issues #1–5.
Cast · 7 characters
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Reprints
Reprinted in Venom: Separation Anxiety - The King in Purple #[nn] (2024), Venom: Trennungsängste #[nn] (2025)
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