Scott's Take: What If… Marc Spector Was A Host To Venom? by Mike Chen

 

What If… Marc Spector Was A Host To Venom? by Mike Chen is the third What If… book. It is way different than What If… Loki Was Worthy? A Loki And Valkyrie Story (did not review) and What if… Wanda Maximoff And Peter Parker were Siblings? A Scarlet Witch And Spider-Man Story, but still worth reading.

 

In this tale, a Moon Knight from somewhere in the multiverse and is the host of Venom arrives and attacks the Moon Knight of the Earth that this tale is primarily told on. The Venom hosting Moon Knight takes over the body of the Moon Knight of that Earth and forces the consciousness of Steven, Jake, Knoshu to flee to the previous Venom hosting body. The Moon Knight of the Earth that was attacked, is now controlled by Venom, while the previous hosting Moon Knight attempts to free him. It is a complicated setup.

 

While this is going on, America aka The Watcher, from the previous books continues to watch the events unfold in this book. Also, the big bad villain of the previous 2 books and caused those events, is finally revealed here.

 

This results in a read where more than five narrators are in the book and switching back and forth. This is a more complicated read than most in the series to date. Moon Knight and Venom are represented heavily through here. One can tell that the author is a big fan of Moon Knight. I feel like Venom gets a bit of a short stick, but is still important. What Venom wants is hard to explain without ruining the novel.

 

What If… Marc Spector Was A Host To Venom?  is a fairly dark action packed read that has some scenes ripped straight from some comics I have read that were recreated here. This is a lot of allusions to previous Moon Knight stories and some to Venom. Having characters having conversations in their head while talking to people outside of their head at the same time is a difficult thing to balance and the author does a good job. One really needs to focus during the read since there is so much going on.

 

One plot point for this read was not handled well and made some plot holes. Severe Spinal Degradation is referenced for one of the characters, but has no impact on the physical capabilities of the character. The Spinal Degradation is supposed to be bad enough to cause the loss of height for one character, but has not slowed them down prior to this read or in this novel. Clearly, this should affect the character far more than simply causing a loss in height, and yet, there is no explanation of why it has not done other typical things.

 

The ending could have been handled better. It is a set up for book 4 as nothing is fully finished here. The reveal of the big bad was also a little lame in my opinion because I do like the character they are using. This character is heavily exposed right now in numerous games and other venues for a movie coming out next in the Avengers series.

 

I also found America’s parts pointless so far. She spends most of the novel saying she needs to do something to stop the big bad, but does nothing until the end of the third novel. She says she is now going to act, but one must wait for book 4 for her to do anything.

 

While I enjoyed it, I don’t think this book would be a good place for non Moon Knight fans to start since it is very complicated.

 

There will be a fourth book in this series that will bring in the X-Men. Some details are revealed here at the end of this book, but as those are spoilers, I am not going to reveal that limited information here. While we do not yet know what the What If… question will be, or the identity of the author, the book is scheduled to come out in the fall of 2025.

 

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/49EBFs4

 

 

My hardback reading copy came by way of the Audelia Branch of the Dallas Public Library System.

 

Scott A. Tipple ©2025