Venom co-creator David Michelinie and artist Gerardo Sandoval, who teamed up for a series of backup stories in last year’s Death of the Venomverse (see “‘Summer of Symbiotes’”), are reuniting for a five-issue retro Venom limited series. Venom: Separation Anxiety once again look back at Venom’s early days and brings in a new antagonist, Purple Man, who tortures Eddie Brock with his mind control powers as he tries to steal the symbiote piece by piece. The first issue will be published on May 15, 2024, with cover art by Paolo Siquiera.

“With ‘Separation Anxiety’ as the required theme, the problem became how to do something that's already been done—have Eddie Brock separated from his symbiote ‘other,’” Michelinie said in a statement accompanying the announcement. “So I thought, what if there was a deeply creepy villain with a decidedly bloodthirsty agenda who was able to take bits of Eddie's symbiote away every time the two touched, with that enemy slowly growing stronger as Venom slowly grew weaker? And that was the nugget that became 'The King In Purple.’"