You know what I just found? The category page on the Marvel wiki for all of Spider-Man's story arcs.
The possibilities for names for these story arcs has just exploded!
But anyway, with that said and done, please enjoy this latest arc: Infested!
Meanwhile, Venom has arrived back in the mainland, returning to his old stomping ground in Musufatu, jumping from host to host as he continues to learn about the people around him and what and who they cherish.
He learns about hero society, all of its goods and all its bads. He learns about the people that live in hero society, both its good men and its ill. He learns about their existence, their reasons to keep existing, and their loves and passions and what they desire to protect and cherish.
And then, one day, the living Symbiote, left with feelings of confusion over his actions and the world around him and whether or not he was right to do what he did in the past, would come across a roaming hero, Ryukyu, and her intern/sidekick, Nejire (who is still sporting a limp in her leg and walking about in a brace), on a regular patrol around the city.
And in a flash, he chooses Nejire as his newest host and bonds to her.
Meanwhile, reports start to come in around Tokyo of sightings of members of the League of Villains. They've resurfaced, and are beginning to wage a war against the people of Japan… only they don't seem to have an objective to their attacks. They're just… lashing out. Going wild. Doing whatever they want.
Adriana is quick to intervene, and she, working with the Peni A.I., travels to Tokyo, alongside Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, and Twice, to help combat the League of Villains once more. During this time, Spider-Man and Spider-Woman, that being Jessica Drew, would work together to face both the main members of the League of Villains and their Nomu minions, and slowly begin to learn that Toga, through unknown means, has taken control of the League away from Shigaraki.
During this time, Peter and Jessica would continue to bond with each other, the two coming to terms with the similarities between them due to Jessica being Peter's clone, as well as the differences between them and how they are beginning to grow apart in terms of personality and methods of thought.
However, Peter soon begins to suspect that something might be wrong with Jessica, as she comments that her head is seemingly getting foggy from time to time, and when asked for her opinion on Adriana, she has nothing but good things and praise to say about her, and seems to be struggling to even be able to say anything remotely bad about her, even when Peter asks her to make something up. Jessica says that it simply feels nice to be in Adriana's presence, and Peter can't help but agree, though he begins to suspect that something else is going on with Adriana.
But Peter doesn't have time to worry about that, as he is suddenly attacked by Miu, Shriek, who is being supported by Spinner and gunning for revenge alongside her fellow who seeks to avenge the deceased Stain. Shriek and Spinner through everything they've got into attacking the two spiders, with Miu in particular using her quirk to blast at Spider-Man with concentrated projections of energy, all the while the rest of the villains continue to run amuck in the city.
And when Spider-Man tries to ask her, through the fighting, just what the hell is going on, Shriek, still lost in her need for vengeance, merely says that this is only part one of the plan, something that will shake Spider-Man and hero society to the core, and bring them and the dead the justice that they deserve. However, it is through a little more prodding that Shriek admits that she doesn't actually know what the plan is.
Then, Spider-Man and Spider-Woman are pulled away from the fight by a familiar face. Yu, Paper Doll, who uses her quirk to pull them into the wall and mix with the graffiti, travelling all the way to the other side of the block.
Meanwhile, on their way to Tokyo to provide support for S.I.L.K. and the other pro heroes there, Nejire secretly talks with Venom, the Symbiote that is bonded with her, the curious girl bombarding the living quirk with questions and answering them as best as it can, leading to Nejire learning about One for All's past, its connection to All for One, and what Venom truly wanted when he initiated the War of the Symbiotes.
But then, Venom begins to ask Nejire questions, still lost in confusion about hero society and what it even wants anymore, and Nejire, who is actually quite intelligent under her ditzy exterior due to her inquisitive nature, is able to impart a lot of knowledge onto Venom, and the conversation eventually turns to why Nejire chose to become a hero.
It turns out that Nejire is actually more aware of the downsides of hero society than she lets on, and knows that the world isn't as perfect as she might want it to be. Maybe Venom is right. Maybe hero society isn't worth fighting for.
Then why did Nejire become a hero?
She points to the civilians, the innocents. Because of them. To protect them, to let them have a choice in their future.
And here is where we get Nejire's backstory, where it is revealed that a lot of her early life was one born out of circumstances, and with a lack of choices on her part. Her mother and father hadn't been… the best parents. None of the people around her had been the best friends either. They had pulled her around all her life, forcing her from one place to another, one decision to the next was railroaded for her. She was to live a life decided by the people around her, and if she ever tried to go against the wishes of those around her, well, peer pressure's a hell of a thing, isn't it? So is social exclusion. So is being beaten by your parents.
Until one day, she was given a knife.
Until one day, she was forced into almost making the worst decision in her life.
It's left ambiguous about what was really going to happen that day, but what is known that instead of going through with that decision, she had been stopped by her mentor, her idol, and now, her friend. Ryukyu. She wasn't like the other heroes, you see. She could tell that Nejire didn't want to make that decision, what could've been a terrible mistake. She stopped her, and brought the people responsible to justice.
And then, for the first time in her life, Nejire was finally given the chance to choose what she wanted for her life… and she realised that there were other people out there, other people like her, who didn't have a choice in their lives as well, and wished to help them find a chance to do so.
And so, ironically, she found that, despite being given a chance to choose what to do with her life, she had no choice at all.
She wanted to become a hero, someone who could reach out to those enslaved, those deprived of any agency in their lives, and give them the freedom that they deserved.
And that was why, underneath it all, she actually hated Venom. Not because he was a quirk, but because he took the freedom away from other, he enslaved them, he refused to give them a choice in their destiny…
And Venom would be left wondering over the concept of choice, and realising how badly it had hurt those around it.
Meanwhile, Paper Doll deposits Peter and Jessica back onto the streets, away from Shriek and Spinner. There, Paper Doll reveals that after turning herself in to the police, confessing her part in Shriek and Toga's crimes, she was in the process of being transported from Naruhata to Tokyo by the authorities, only for her ride to be intercepted by a group of villains who had aligned themselves with the League of Villains and freed her, assuming that she is like them and wants to do whatever the hell she wants as well, and had sent her on her way into the city as they freed all sorts of other villains to go run wild across the city. However, Yu wanted nothing to do with them, and went off to go help as many people as she could, directing fleeing civilians to shelters and helping the pro heroes in the area coordinate with each other against the villains. Spider-Man begins to thank her for this, but Spider-Woman shoots it down immediately. Yu, Paper Doll, helped in the deaths of multiple innocent people back in the day, and whether she feels guilty for it or not is irrelevant. She doesn't deserve his thanks or forgiveness.
What Paper Doll does offer them, though, is a location. The League of Villains have been gathering the bodies of the people that they've killed at a warehouse near the outskirts of Tokyo. The pro heroes have been trying to break through to there, but the Nomu that the League has is forming a blockade around the area. High-Ends, is what the League are calling them. High-End Nomu. Nothing short of All Might was going to get through them, and All Might was currently on the other side of the damn country responding to another crisis, no doubt one that the League of Villains orchestrated to keep him out of the way.
All Might was unavailable to help them, but Spider-Man… well, he was the next best thing.
Suddenly, the three of them are attacked by the villain known as Moonfish, who attempts to try and eat their flesh through his many sharpened teeth. However, he is stopped by a pair of unexpected faces, Sandman and Tinkerer, who were also some of the other villains who were freed by the League to rampage, and decided to help out the other heroes as well. Marko smothers the cannibalistic villain in sand whilst Phin shocks him with a jury-rigged taser rifle, allowing the others to escape as they battle Moonfish.
Meanwhile, Shriek, in anger, orders a portal from Kurogiri and, alongside Spinner, slips back into the League's temporary headquarters at the port, and spots the Nomu piling up more bodies in the warehouse with Toga sitting atop them, directing them one way or another, and using her newfound strength from Peter's blood to toss them around if they fail in their tasks. Miu is put off by this, but reports to Toga that the spiders got away. Toga isn't worried about it, though, seeing it as a nonfactor to the overall plan, but is annoyed when she hears that it had been Miu's old bandmate, Yu, who had allowed them to escape from her and Spinner, and she orders Miu to deal with her old friend, telling Mustard to go alongside her.
Eventually, Miu gets the courage to ask Toga what the actual plan is, but Toga simply tells her that it's a secret for now. Originally, that had been enough to satisfy Miu, but now, she's not so sure…
Meanwhile, Peter and Jessica, accompanied by Yu, continue to make their way through Tokyo's deserted streets, guided by the Peni A.I. and fighting through every Nomu that gets in their way.
But suddenly, they are contested by Shriek and Spinner once more, now accompanied by Mustard, who begins covering the area in gas with his quirk. Peter and Jessica move to take out both Spinner and Mustard, whilst Yu begins to battle Miu, the latter of whom is furious that her former bandmate was siding with those who murdered their friend. Yu, however, quickly fires back that what Miu is doing is something that Kazuho would never want from them, and that all this death was just spitting on her grave. Miu is angered even further, and in a fit of blinding rage, goes to plant the final blow into Yu-
Only to be stopped by a hero airdropping out from a S.I.L.K. aircraft flying above in the sky, and blowing Miu, Spinner, and Mustard away.
Koichi Haimawari, the Skycrawler, who had requested to return from America to his homeland of Japan after learning about Kazuho's death.
Peter tries to talk to Koichi, but Koichi would be act frosty to him due to what happened to Kazuho and his supposed involvement in it. Peter would try to talk to him again, to try and explain things to him, but Jessica would stop him, reminding him that Koichi didn't want to talk to him, at least not yet. For now, they just had to give him space.
At the same time, Shriek, Spinner, and Mustard retreat down the alleyways, and whilst Mustard goes off to gather more bodies for whatever Toga's plan is, Miu and Spinner take some time out to sit down and catch their breaths. At this time, Miu has been rattled by Yu's words and Koichi's arrival, and both Spinner and herself are beginning to privately express doubts as to their purpose in the League of Villains, and even their own motivations.
Elsewhere, Toga has learnt about Miu's failure to take down Spider-Man and his allies, and decides to take him down herself.
Elsewhere, Peter, Jessica, Koichi, and Yu find their way to the main meeting centre for the heroes, with Adriana leading the meeting alongside Ryukyu, Mirko, and Endeavor. At first, Endeavor is annoyed to see the spiders, particularly Peter for all the chaos that he invites, on top of the Kazuho fiasco and his tendency to joke in the middle of fights (which he and a lot of other heroes assume to mean that he isn't taking hero work seriously), at the meeting, but is positively angered at the sight of the self-confessed villain that was Paper Doll. However, Peter quickly vouches for her, saying that she might be their only way of getting through the Nomu blockade around the port. Adriana simply asks if Paper Doll is committed to helping them out, and when she says yes, the head of S.I.L.K. simply waves it off and tells them to get ready. They've got a plan.
Originally, they'd been hoping to hot drop multiple heroes over the port like they had done Koichi, and launch a full invasion of Tokyo's ports. However, they didn't have enough heroes to fully commit to the assault without risking starving the rest of the city of defenders, and also giving the League the chance to use Kurogiri to warp across the city and spread chaos unopposed. Plus, Koichi had been intercepted by Nomu on the way down and had barely slipped through the net, and the plane that he had been dropped out of had been forced down and evacuated when the Nomu tore through it and crashed it into part of the city. There was no guarantee that the other heroes would be as lucky.
But Adriana wasn't willing to wait for anymore pro heroes or any of her S.I.L.K. forces to muster, as that would allow the villains to kill more people as the heroes waited. They were going to move, and they were going to move now.
And that is when Adriana reveals her plan.
If the rest of the pro heroes can stage a successful distraction and pull a majority of the League of Villains onto them, then the spiders, Skycrawler, and Paper Doll can sneak into the ports and take out their leadership, finding out why they need all the bodies and take them down from the inside. At first, a majority of the pros are angered at this strategy, disliking the idea of being treated as cannon fodder, but Adriana ignores them and makes something clear to the spiders: if they fail, then Adriana will have to resort to extreme measures, and Spider-Man worries as to what that means.
Meanwhile, Nejire sits at the back, still bonded to a hidden Venom and quietly conversing with him. Venom expresses delight at Spider-Man's presence and wishes to bond with him once more, but when Nejire asks if he is going to give Peter a choice in the matter, Venom goes quiet. He probably wouldn't, in all honesty.
Soon enough, the plan would be carried out, and Adriana and Endeavor would begin their diversionary attack on the line of Nomu around Tokyo's ports, doing their best to keep the monsters occupied as Paper Doll snuck Spider-Man and Spider-Woman through the lines and into the occupied Tokyo downtown, avoiding patrolling Nomu and released villains, making their way towards the port.
At the front, Endeavor faces off against Moonfish whilst Adriana took on Muscular. However, even when they were joined by Sandman and Tinkerer, the pro heroes found themselves losing ground to the Nomu. Worse yet, Dabi ends up joining in the battle, personally taking on Endeavor and taking sadistic glee out of it, taunting the man as if he knew him personally...
Meanwhile, Peter's group would continue to make their way through the abandoned streets of Tokyo's downtown, eventually coming upon the warehouse that the League were using as their headquarters, and coming across the mass of bodies stored inside. There, Spider-Man spots and is sickened by the sight of the rotting corpses of the Sinister Six, including the headless Green Goblin, gathered there by Kurogiri for an unknown purpose.
However, they are suddenly snuck up upon by a wounded civilian, who reveals herself to be a disguised Toga, still wielding the powers of Spider-Man, and attacks them, eventually getting Kurogiri into the mix and teleporting them all away into a killing field filled with Nomu, led by Shriek and Spinner. Toga continues to attack Spider-Man, seeking to kill him and become him, whilst Spinner takes on Spider-Woman and Shriek attacks Paper Doll and Skycrawler.
Elsewhere, at the front, Endeavor successfully takes out Moonfish whilst Adriana deals with Muscular and Mustard, but they are still being overwhelmed by Nomu, and Endeavor is almost about to lose to Dabi, feeling his own flames being overwhelmed by the unhinged villain's fire.
But then, suddenly, a loud voice announces itself, and All Might comes surging out from the sky, punting every Nomu away and knocking Dabi out of the fight. Following him is the Spider-Gang, excluding Ben Reilly, Ochako, Keemia, and Izuky, though most of the pro heroes there are hostile to them, seeing them as reckless illegals and vigilantes, but the crisis at hand right now is too important to focus on that, and the heroes, alongside Sandman and Tinkerer, surge forward into the fray...
And Venom senses what is about to go down and severs his bond with Nejire, slinking off into the city and leaving her behind... with a newly healed leg.
With Peter, he and the rest of his group continues to battle against Toga and her forces, the Nomu and her threatening to overwhelm him as Spinner and Shriek continue to battle against Jessica, Koichi, and Yu, the latter two trying to get through to Miu and get her to see reason, only for her to be too lost to her own anger and grief at how the woman she loved is now dead, and-
And she lands an accidental, yet fatal shot on Yu, wounding her and leaving her on the brink of death.
Koichi ends up abandoning the fight to try and heal Yu, as does Peter and Jessica, and Miu is left simply frozen in shock, unable to process what is happening, having not meant to shoot her friend...
And as Yu slowly begins to die, the maddening anger that had controlled her for so long slips away, and she finally realises what she has done.
But then, Kurogiri warps in, telling Toga that the heroes have breached their frontline, and that their secret weapon is now ready. With a grin, Toga warps away with Kurogiri, taking the catatonic Shriek and wounded Spinner with her, and leaving the Nomu to their fate when All Might and the other heroes arrive to destroy them, before rushing over to the warehouse that the League are stationed in.
Meanwhile, the last remnants of the League, that being Toga, Kurogiri, the recently recovered Dabi, Spinner, and Shriek, the former two having now decided to sever their ties with the League.
Spinner makes it clear that he signed up to avenge Stain, not commit wanton murder, and this? This wasn't what he signed up for. He was done. When the heroes arrive, he was going to turn himself in, and he suggests that the rest of them should do so as well. Dabi responds by threatening to burn alive, and almost does so, but is stopped by Toga, who simply tells them that the last stage of their plan is about to commence.
And that is when Kurogiri hands her the container holding the red Symbiote inside, and Toga breaks it, allowing fragments of the crimson sludge inside to leak out onto the dozens of corpses underneath her, including the recently deceased bodies of the Nomu that Kurogiri was able to recover, and the rotting bodies of the Sinister Six.
And, as the conversion process begins, Toga finally reveals her plan...
She has been gathering these bodies, and healing the red Symbiote, to build up an army. An army filled with the same need to see the beauty in others like she can, the same need to see blood like she does, the blood that she craves...
And when they go off, and spread, turning so many others like herself, spilling their blood and dancing in it, they will be able to fulfil their truest desire, the ultimate goal of the League of Villains:
They were going to do whatever the hell they want.
At this point, Shriek, Miu, has finally realised the madness that she joined into. Toga, the League, all of them. They didn't care about justice for the dead, or anything like that. They were just mad sadists and murderers. All they cared about was the lawless freedom to do whatever they wanted, kill whoever they wanted, all without purpose apart from the self-satisfaction of doing so...
And Miu wanted no part of that.
So she decides to try and make things right... and the first way to do so is to try and murder Toga with a blast to the head.
But she is stopped by a fist, which rips her hand off and punches a whole in her chest. The Green Goblin's corpse has risen up, covered in red sludge and forming a new head, becoming a monstrous demon, a Red Goblin...
And the Red Goblin tosses the dying Miu aside and promptly murders Spinner, all the while Dabi is laughing in the background at the sight, and Toga simply jumps down and leans over Miu, watching with a smile as she is covered in a black and red fragment of the crimson Symbiote.
And as Miu dies and is covered by the Symbiote fragment, becoming an undead monster that will call itself the Demogoblin, Toga smiles, and pours the remaining mass of crimson Symbiote onto herself, like a baptism, being born anew, in a purer, more honest form...
Then, the heroes reach the warehouse, and All Might breaches the door-
Only to be run through by a bladed tendril and tossed aside, smashing into a building.
From out of the warehouse, now catching fire, out comes an army of undead abominations, all of them smothered in monstrously deformed Symbiotes. Some of the heroes try to use sound attacks on the Symbiote zombies, but it has no effect on them. The red Symbiote is immune to loud noises.
At the front of the pack, there is the laughing, grinning Dabi, and the undead, snarling Demogoblin. Above them on a jagged, crimson glider is the Red Goblin, who Spider-Man recognises and feels terror at the sight of. Behind them, the dead forms of the Sinister Six march, covered head to toe in Symbiote gore.
And at the front of the crowd, is a mad, grinning Toga, covered in the last of the red Symbiote, announcing that now, it's going to see all the pretty blood inside of them, now, it's going to complete her life's purpose, and have the freedom to be whoever she wanted, and do whatever she wanted...
And what she wanted now, was to see the blood in all of them.
It's time for hell to reign down on this soon-to-be blood-soaked world.
It's time for madness, mayhem...
And as Toga allows herself to be completely consumed by the red Symbiote's personality, it decides on its name.
It's time for absolute Carnage.
Do you guys remember the level from Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions where you were fighting against Carnage, and almost all the enemies were undead zombies that had been brought back to life by the Symbiote? Same thing applies here.