Bren Waters

Origin

After separating from Eddie Brock and laying low, Toxin is forced out of hiding during Knull’s invasion and bonds with Bren Waters, the son of a Guardsman.

Creation

Bren debuts in King in Black: Planet of the Symbiotes #3 in a short story by Steve Orlando and Gerardo Sandoval. He bonded with Toxin before the beginning of the story. According to Toxin, Knull had no use for him.

Major Story Arcs

King in Black

After Toxin bonded with Bren, he thought of them as best friends, while Bren sarcastically referred to him as his “malignant passenger.” Bren definitely seemed to enjoy the new power that Toxin afforded him and used it to become a superhero. While everyone else was battling Knull’s symbiote army, Toxin and Bren took on a seemingly supercharged Brood, however, according to the Brood, he was a human who was experimented on by Alchemax.

Alchemax’s involvement also means the Guardsman. A Guardsman got involved and fought Toxin for a chance to recover the Brood hybrid test subject, who just happened to be Bren’s father, although neither Bren nor his father knew it at the time.

Extreme Carnage

Bren was channel surfing with Toxin, when they uncovered a news story about a terrorist attack at Alchemax. It was actually a fight between Flash Thompson and Phage working on orders from Carnage. Bren is worried about his father, who works at Alchemax, so he suits up and heads there.

By the time he gets there, the fight is over, but he sees his father being wheeled out on a stretcher. His dad is still talking though and assures Bren everything is fine. Toxin, however, is not talking. He had been dragged into the symbiote hive-mind by Carnage, who was fighting him for control.

Thankfully, Toxin was able to defeat him and reconnect with Bren. After giving Carnage the boot, they can only sense one other symbiote, the newly created Silence, bonded to Andi. Those two were regrouping with Flash, who was assembling a team against Carnage, which Toxin accepted an invitation to.

With intel from Flash’s friend Hank, who got a job with the Krane campaign, they learned the campaign planned to upstage the President’s commemoration of those who died during Knull’s invasion. Carnage intended to assassinate Sen. Krane, who was working for the Friends of Humanity. Bren and his new friends showed up to the demonstration to fight off The Life Foundation Five, until the Guardsman could take them into custody. Because Agony and Carnage got away, Flash and Andi reluctantly agree to let Bren stay in the loop despite his youth.

State of Grace

Bren, with the help of Toxin, tracked down Dylan Brock, who was currently bonded to Venom. Dylan was trying to recruit symbiotes awaiting his father’s return, but Bren needed his help when he found out employees at Alchemax were being tortured for information about the corporation by an eco-terrorist organization called, NoName. Bren believed they should be spared, and Dylan reluctantly agreed.

Unfortunately, NoName got to Bren and used anti-symbiote weaponry to separate him from Toxin. He was to be the next relative of an Alchemax employee to be publicly poisoned by Alcehmax’s own chemicals. Bren was chained up in a pool, which was slowly filled with water poisoned with the same chemicals Alchemax added to a local water supply causing dozens of deaths. Venom, Sleeper, and Toxin tracked the location, and without thinking, Toxin jumped in to save Bren. Unfortunately, the chemicals caused harm to both host and symbiote.

After they were rescued by Venom, Sleeper said they needed to be cured by Anti-Venom, so they searched out Flash Thompson.