'Marvel: What If . . . Marc Spector Was Host to Venom?' Reveals First Look at Book Cover

In the latest title from the What If...? adult novel series, Marvel: What If...Marc Spector Was Host to Venom? A Moon Knight & Venom Story reveals a glimpse into the minds of two of Marvel's more shadowy Super Heroes.

Penned by best-selling author Mike Chen, Marc Spector and Venom engage in a battle of wills...but who will prevail? Pre-Order the next adventure in an epic multiversal series reimagining iconic Marvel origin stories, arriving October 22, 2024.

Marvel: What If . . . Marc Spector Was Host to Venom? (A Moon Knight & Venom Story)
ISBN: 978-0593726860
By Mike Chen
On Sale: October 22, 2024

So many worlds, so little time. Infinite possibilities, creating infinite realities. Long have I watched Marc Spector cheat death in the name of the Egyptian god Khonshu. But…what if Moon Knight was subsumed  by a Venom from another universe? 

Marc Spector is used to voices in his head. He’s used to waking up disoriented, unsure what his alters, Jake and Steven, might have been up to. He’s used to having an Egyptian god command him as Moon Knight, his avatar of justice and revenge. What he’s not used to: staring into the face of a literal, out-of-body doppelganger.

Another Marc, crash-landed from an alternate reality, begging for help? Yeah, that is a new one, even for him.

But before he can really process anything beyond Khonshu’s incessant alarm bells, it becomes clear this other Marc didn’t travel solo. Some kind of alien—a symbiote named Venom—casts off its current host and begins to merge with Marc, forcing Khonshu away from his chosen champion and claiming Moon Knight for its own. The formerly stark white suit that struck fear into the hearts of criminals now looms as a jet-black shadow over friends and foes alike. Marc’s lethal prowess fueled by Venom’s penchant for violence carves a trail of chaos as they comb through the vigilante’s torturous past.

Yet a sliver of hope remains: Finally free of Venom’s control, the other Jake and Steven re-gain consciousness to find themselves in a strange reality, without their Marc, but with a strange bird-like god insisting that “they will do.” Desperate, lost, and running out of time, the pair make a deal: become Khonshu’s new avatar to track Venom’s path of destruction, save this universe, and just maybe figure out a way back to their own.

Mike Chen is the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Brotherhood, Here and Now and Then, A Quantum Love Story, and other novels, as well as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine comics. He has covered geek culture for sites such as Nerdist and The Mary Sue, and in a different life, he's covered the NHL. A member of SFWA, Mike lives in the Bay Area with his wife, daughter, and many rescue animals.

Chen shares, "When the Random House Worlds team first asked me if I wanted to write Moon Knight, I was all in. And when they said 'What if he's a host to Venom?' my mind exploded and I cursed in excitement on the phone. Of course, then I started to think about HOW you could actually write a story like this. Because you've got Marc, Steven, and Jake in one head already, plus Khonshu's running commentary—and then you add in Venom's chaos to that! Well, I think I found a way to pull this off while telling a compelling psychological thriller AND bringing a sharp lens to the unique relationships and absurd humor involved with all of these characters. By the way, if you want some character starting points, I was heavily inspired by the 2016 Moon Knight run (Lemire/Smallwood) and the 2018 Venom run (Cates)—and of course, Madeleine Roux's excellent Loki novel that starts off our series!"

Look out for other titles in the What If...? adult novel series including What If…Wanda Maximoff and Peter Parker Were Siblings? A Scarlet Witch & Spider-Man Story and What If...Loki Was Worthy? A Loki & Valkyrie Story.

What If...Marc Spector Was Host to Venom? A Moon Knight & Venom Story will be available from Penguin Random House on October 22, 2024. Available wherever books are sold!