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Ghede Nibo, often just the Symbiote, was an amoral, extraterrestrial symbiote entity which bonded with the Reality Z-25 31-H heroine Kate Five. Ghede temporarily corrupted Kate into a murderous villain, bent only on helping Ghede spawn more symbiote creatures, before they were nearly killed in Angel Falls and resumed their partnership on a more equal footing where Ghede would no longer overwhelm or manipulate Kate's mental faculties and conscience.
Description
Physical appearance
Like others of its symbiotic species, Ghede had no stable physical form, appearing as a blob of goo able to reshape itself as needed. In his case, his substance was black and his eyes were pupil-less and white. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1)
Personality
The Symbiote was manipulative, tapping into Kate Five's darker subconscious in an attempt to make her go along with its evil plans. A symbiote-melded Nexus Girl described him as “cruel”. He enjoyed inflicting harm on other creatures, but seemed mostly motivated by wanting to spawn more symbiotes. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1)
Powers & abilities
As a symbiote, Ghede could possess human beings in seconds if he made contact with their skin, though this process could be rejected by a strong enough will, as it involved an element of mind-control as a telepathic link established itself between host and symbiote. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1) Ghede was capable of surviving away from a host for significant amounts of time, and moving on his own power, although he preferred having a host. (COMIC: Symbiote Surprise)
Biography
Meeting Kate
Before possessing Kate Five, the symbiote had been using a blond-haired, muscular man as a host. The two wound up in Cardiff and began causing mayhem. When Section P dispatched Kate Five to stop them, Kate punched the hybrid hulk, with her enhanced strength succeeding in dissociating the alien from the man. However, the alien then jumped to her and possessed her instead, entering her mind and strengthening her darker impulses to induce a blissful, malicious state. The possessed Kate reported that she'd dealt with the situation and everything was fine.
She then returned to Section P's HQ, where she sized up her fellow team-members as potential host for further symbiotes. She honed in on Taki, whom she followed into the showers. There, Kate revealed her monstrous hybrid form and attacker her friend. Although Taki was able to briefly injure her, Kate and the symbiote's powers combined allowed the possessed Kate to overpower Taki and assault her, planting the seed of a new alien within her. Growing within moments, the new, blue-coloured creature attempted to bond with Taki's body, but she managed to throw it off and it hid down the shower drain.
Nexus Girl then arrived on the scene, attempting to figure out what was happening between Kate and Taki, only to be taken by surprise by the new symbiote and bond with it. Kate and the black symbiote were unable to persuade the symbiotic hybrid of Nexus Girl and the blue alien to listen to them, however, with the bonded Nexi instead electing to protect Taki, whom they saw as their mother. Blasted into the next room, the symbiote-bonded Kate killed veteran Section P member Aqua Marine as she made her escape. After her disappearance, Nexus Girl and her new symbiote bond-partner pledged to remain loyal to Nexi's friends and to help them track down Kate Five and separate her from the villainous symbiote. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1)
Against the Odds
Still possessed, Kate travelled to America, stowing away on a cargo ship. During this time, Kate tested the full extent of the powers she and the Symbiote possessed in combination. In her loneliness, she also began to think back to her past, notably giving more thought to her twin sister than she had in ages. However, the Symbiote tried to discourage her from such lines of thought, which he deemed “weak”. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 2)
They eventually travelled to New York once again, intent on taking out the Odds. At the Fortress of Evening, Armstrong Fatbuckle let her in and she quickly despatched him before heading to the roof, where the rest of the Odds were partying. She suggested a drinking game, using a bottle of wine which she'd secretly drugged. Due to Centennia being the best poker player, she was the last Odd standing, and eventually realised Kate was not in her normal state of mind. The two fought, with Kate nearly choking the life out of the partially-drugged Centennia until Armstrong Fatbuckle's disembodied arm intervened, providing enough of a distraction for Centennia to land a punch on Kate and send her careening into the bell of the Fortress's belltower. The vibrations forced the Symbiote to let go of her body, and it fled while Kate herself lost consciousness.
After she came to, once more herself, the Odds reassured her that they didn't blame her for the things she'd done under the symbiote's influence, and Kate and Centennia finally shared a kiss. Since Kate had previously been using the symbiote as an outfit, the Blue Knight even went clothes-shopping for her, buying her clothes to wear on her way back to the U.K.. However, after saying her goodbyes to the Odds and leaving the Fortress, Kate was immediately ambushed by the symbiote, which forcibly bonded with her once again. (COMIC: Symbiote Surprise)
In Angel Falls
The Symbiote drew Kate to the city of Angel Falls, where she arrived six months after her initial possession. On her first day in the city, she atypically used her powers for “good”, interrupting and killing a man assaulting a woman in an alley. The following night, Kate found herself drawn to the Bleeding Rose, a night club in the Old Harbor District, as a hunting ground for a new victim. Before she could try to kill anyone, however, she was pulled aside by Marcus, the owner, and a vampire. He informed her that he keeps a strict no-killing policy in the club and doesn't want “her parasite” causing trouble. He was surprised and disturbed when Kate's reply was voiced in terms of “we”, not having realised that there existed a mind-meld between her and the Symbiote. He cryptically informed her that the Symbiote was slowly killing her before drawing a glowing, red, magical seal in the air, intended to banish Kate out of the club. Revealing her symbiotic powers in full, Kate was able to block the beam of magical energy. However, Marcus, moving impossibly fast, dodged her retaliatory blow and mads her vanish with a touch and a “Begone”, teleporting her to the boardwalk. Marcus then phoned City Hall, telling them to inform the Guardians of Kate's location.
PhyreFrost transmitted the information to a patrolling Ms. Blitzen, Angel Falls's Atlantean-born protector, who had been informed of Kate's presence in Angel Falls by Sir James Carey. Locating her, Blitzen tackled Kate from the air. A fight began; during the initial, bare-handed wrestling phase, Kate had the upper hand, but she was caught by surprise when Blitzen used her magnetic powers to electrify a metal pipe and hit her with it. This weakened Kate, who began to fight more desperately, drawing on all of her bio-energy and progressively exhausting her super-strength, until finally, Blitzen concentrated and created a huge pulse of electricity that burned the better part of the Symbiote off of her body. Briefly in her own mind again, Kate tried to appeal to Blitzen to explain that her actions weren't her own and she's good again, but Blitzen refused to believe her and shocked Kate again, weakening her already-staggered will and allowing the remnant of the Symbiote to regain control over her. Dodging another blast of electricity, the possessed Kate managed to fatally stab Blitzen through the stomach, and mockingly kissed her as she died. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 2)
Behind the scenes
The authorial notes on Page 1 of COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1 included a statement that “the Symbiote is a copyright of Marvel Comics”, and James Bridger did not contradict comments on Page 3 which referred to the unnamed blond predecessor of Kate Five as host to Ghede as “Eddie Brock”. This positioned Kate Five as partially an avowed fan-comic of the Marvel universe, and identified Kate's symbiote as the Marvel character Venom.
This aspect was increasingly blurred over the comic's subsequent history, with Bridger later explicitly stating that Kate's symbiote companion was not Venom, though he may be Venom's “cousin”. Notably, the Cosmic Beholder story COMIC: Blast From The Past implied that Spider-Man himself existed in the Cosmic Beholder/Kate Five universe, making it unsurprising that some version of Eddie Brock and Venom might exist there.