Launching this March is a new Venom ongoing series by Rick Remender and Tony Moore. The announcement of a new project by the creators of Fear Agent and lunacy-laden run on Punisher gave us quite the thrill back in December, but we reserved a full commitment to the book pending the identity of Venom's new host, whose name has been a secret until now. In what iFanboy has characterized as an accident on the part of editor Stephen Wacker, we know what longtime Marvel Comics character will inhabit the alien symbiote in the new series, and it's not necessarily who we expected.

Continue only if you wish to know the identity of the new Venom. Otherwise, wait until the official reveal in Amazing Spider-Man #654.1 and then Venom #1, on sale in March.

The new Venom is Flash Thompson, solid bro to Peter Parker, love interest of Betty Brant, and patriotic war hero. We knew from previous announcements that the new Venom would be a government operative, but most people's money was on John Jameson, son of Spider-Man enemy J. Jonah Jameson and renowned astronaut/soldier/assorted-military-connections-as-plot-necessitates/werewolf. But Flash works just as well, if not better. The guy lost his legs in Iraq and was inspired by Spider-Man not to get too gloomy about it. Unfortunately for Flash, the Venom symbiote has a way of playing off of its host's temper - and he's got one.

"Given the difficulty controlling the nefarious symbiote, our protagonist's mettle is well tested," Remender said in December. "Our focus isn't the suit; it's the man inside the suit and the sacrifice he makes by wearing it. To me, the character is a hero going in, what will the suit do to him, and will he comes out a hero, remains to be seen."

[Via iFanboy]