Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1 (comic story)
Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1 was a twenty-three-pages-long comic story, the first chapter of the original Kate Five vs Symbiote arc of the webcomic Kate Five, written and drawn by James Bridger, alias Cyberkitten01. Like the rest of the series, it was heavily NSFW.
Contents
Plot
On a solo mission for Section P, British superheroine Kate Five is directed to the location of an unfolding situation surrounding a man who is apparently bonded with, and controlling, an inky black substance that reshapes itself and can hit with enormous strength. Disobeing the advice coming from her earpiece, she engages the villain, and punches him so hard that the black creature splits off from its host. However, while the host falls to the ground, the creature flies through the air towards Kate and makes contact with her skin, seeping into her body like a liquid. It also takes root within her mind, feeding on her darker impulses and instilling a sense of villainous euphoria in her. Not letting on about her transformation, Kate calls her overseers again, claiming that the battle is won and asking for a containment crew and medical support to come clean up the scene.
Guided by the symbiotic creature's desire to find more powerful hosts whom it can infect with its spawn, Kate returns to the Section P headquarters. After considering Aqua Marine, Captain Rhys and Nexus Girl, they settle on Kate's best friend Taki, alias Battle Angel. Acting the part of Kate, the symbiotic Kate-symbiote hybrid follows Taki to the showers where she's heading after a workout. There, she lets the symbiote coating her hulk out into a monstrous force that augments her physical strength, and attacks Taki. Taki fights back, actually managing to hurt the symbiote, but is overwhelmed when it expands further into a tide of black goo. The symbiote successfully impregnates Taki with the seed of a new symbiote, a blue-coloured one which soon begins to seep out of her pores and attempts to take Taki over as the black one did Kate. However, Taki's will is strong enough to reject the bond, and the frightened blue symbiote, separating from her, flees down the shower-drain.
Before they can resume fighting, a third woman arrives: Nexus Girl. Kate briefly tries to retract her symbiote and act as though nothing is wrong, but this proves as futile as it is short-lived when the blue symbiote rises out of the drain grating again and takes her over. However, much to Kate and her symbiote's frustration, the fusion of Nexus Girl and the newborn symbiote refuses to obey its “father”, instead protecting its “mother” Taki. After Taki gets a punch in, Nexus Girl uses a beam of force from her hand to send the symbiotic Kate careening back and crashing through the wall. She end sup in the men's showers, at the feet of an unsuspecting Aqua Marine, whom she attacks and mauls to death.
It is not long before Aqua Marine's body is found and Sir Carey, the leader of Section P, asks Taki and Nexus Girl for a full report. The symbiotic Nexus Girl makes a statement to the assembled team, explaining that she is both the symbiote and still the same old Nexus Girl, still their friend. She pledges to help them track down the black symbiote and free Kate Five from its control.
Worldbuilding
Universes
- This story takes place entirely in Reality Z-25 31-H.
Other
- Section P, based in Cardiff, is “the powers section of the British Ministry of Defence”.
- Captain Rhys served as a soldier in Iraq.
- Battle Angel claims that she's “been a slave before” and swore never to be again. She indicates that Kate never thought to ask her about her past before.
Behind the scenes
Background
The first page's authorial notes 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.
Read online
Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1 is available online on DeviantArt.
