Venom Fact — November 5, 2026

Today's Fact

Las Vegas, a portal to Hell, and a solution nobody sane would propose: stack a symbiote and a Spirit of Vengeance on top of a Hulk.

VENOM ONCE MERGED WITH RED HULK AND GHOST RIDER INTO ONE FLAMING HERO — “WE AM SMASH FOR VENGEANCE!”

The Featured Fact

In the Circle of Four storyline, Blackheart tried to expand Hell into Las Vegas, and the four anti-heroes on scene — Flash Thompson’s Agent Venom, the Red Hulk, X-23 and Ghost Rider Alejandra Jones — died, bargained with Mephisto, and came back marked. Their counterattack, in Venom Vol. 2 #13.4-14 (2012), was not teamwork in the usual sense. It was a merger.

Flash handed the Venom symbiote over to the Red Hulk, and the Spirit of Vengeance was passed into the same enormous body. The result was a single composite fighter — gamma muscle wrapped in living symbiote, burning with hellfire — who announced the arrangement in the only grammar available: “We Am Smash for Vengeance!”

The fusion worked because each layer covered another’s weakness, and it ended the moment the job did. The composite turned Blackheart’s own demonic mirror against him, conjuring the demon’s angelic antithesis, and once the portal closed the pieces went home: the Spirit returned to Alejandra and the symbiote crawled back to Flash, who parlayed the day into a place on the Secret Avengers.

Why It's Obscure

A one-issue fusion built from three separate franchises’ powers — so excessive that later retellings still have to convince readers it is canon.

2012

The crossover — Venom Vol. 2 #13 through #14, including the decimal-point chapters #13.1-13.4, is the complete Circle of Four, published across February–March 2012.

Blackheart

The occasion — Mephisto’s son opened the Hell portal over Las Vegas; the four responders were deliberately modelled on the short-lived “new Fantastic Four” of Spider-Man, Wolverine, Ghost Rider and Hulk.

The stack

How it layered — Ross supplied the body, Flash supplied the symbiote, and the Spirit of Vengeance supplied the fire: three power sets, one host, no safety testing.

The receipt

What remained — Hellstrom noticed all four heroes carried demonic markings afterwards, a souvenir of the Mephisto bargain that outlasted the fusion itself.

Gallery

The Circle of Four’s own finale cover gathers the whole merged-team ingredients — Agent Venom, Red Hulk and the flaming Ghost Rider in one frame.

Venom issue 14 Circle of Four cover showing Agent Venom, Red Hulk, Ghost Rider and X-23, comic art — **The ingredients** The Venom #14 cover assembles Flash’s Venom, the Red Hulk and a flaming Ghost Rider around Blackheart’s scheme — the three powers that would shortly occupy a single body.

Agent Venom Flash Thompson in black symbiote suit with spider emblem, comic art — **The donor** Flash Thompson in the Agent Venom suit — the government-issue symbiote host who volunteered his other half to a Hulk mid-battle.

Agent Venom aiming weapons in comic art — **Flash, armed** Agent Venom in action during the Flash era: the symbiote worn as equipment by a soldier, which is precisely why it could be handed over like equipment when the plan demanded it.

Sources

Every fact on this page was checked against at least two independent sources before publication.

Bullpen Bulletins

Marvel Once Merged Hulk, Venom & Ghost Rider — CBR Account of the Circle of Four fusion in Venom #13.4-14, the quoted battle cry, and the powers returning to their owners.
What Venom Looks Like Fused With Red Hulk & Ghost Rider — Screen Rant Summary of the merged hero shooting fiery webs, defeating Blackheart with his antithesis, and separating after the battle.
Venom #14 Review — Spider-Man Crawl Space Contemporary review confirming Red Hulk merged with the Spirit of Vengeance and the symbiote for the Circle of Four finale.