Venom: Who is the Maker?

They say that the best villains actually consider themselves the hero of their own story. And that's certainly the case for the Maker, who's been giving everyone's favorite Symbiote trouble in the pages of VENOM lately.

If you're unfamiliar with the evil genius from another reality, he's actually the Reed Richards from the Ultimate Universe! As such he was literally the hero of his own comic, ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR!

Part of the second wave of ongoing series', this title came to readers from the minds of Ultimate architects Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar, plus artist Adam Kubert.

In the first arc of the Maker's origin, we met a new take on Reed Richards at a young age. Bullied for being super-intelligent, he had an upstanding friend in Ben Grimm who looked out for him. His mom tried to relate to her son, but his dad didn't appreciate his gifts until a representative from the Director of the Mainland Technology Development told the Richards' that they would pay the family to allow Reed to attend a school for genius children at the Baxter Building.

While there, Reed met Susan Storm and her little brother Johnny while he also continued developing technology that would access the N-Zone. Years later, the project found Reed, Sue, Johnny, Victor van Damme, and even Ben together in Nevada to test their opening to the N-Zone. It was a test which changed them all, beginning a new take on the Fantastic Four and Doctor Doom!

Reed played hero, using his intelligence as well as his stretching abilities, but the team eventually fell apart at the end of ULTIMATUM which also saw Reed and Sue break up. Though it seemed like he died during ULTIMATE ENEMY, it was revealed in ULTIMATE MYSTERY that Reed was still alive. And then in ULTIMATE DOOM, Sue discovered that he'd been obsessively looking for alternate realities.

Reed actually set up shop in the Negative Zone and created alien-like beings that he used to steal more equipment and resources. A whole army of heroes and S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiers attacked and destroyed his new base, but Reed survived se seen in ULTIMATE FALLOUT #4.

Richards became a major force in ULTIMATE COMICS: ULTIMATES wherein we learned that he'd actually traveled to a far-flung future where he spent a thousand years, but did not age physically. Now going by name "the Maker", he even expanded his own head to fit his larger brain!

The Maker made his way to Earth-616 in CATACLYSM: THE ULTIMATES' LAST STAND when the Galactus of that reality threatened the Ultimate one. Shortly after, the Maker began working with the Cabal to figure out a way to stop separate realities from destroying one another. That all came to a head in SECRET WARS when the Ultimate Universe destroyed the 616!

Ultimate Reed managed to escape in a life raft ship, as did his 616 counterpart. The two Reeds actually worked together on Battleworld to break God Doom's control and get reality back to something akin to normal. When Maker attempted to betray Reed, Molecule Man turned him into pizzas...but he still managed to make his way to the newly formed Earth Prime.

Since then he's been causing trouble for the likes of the NEW AVENGERS and VENOM!

Read VENOM #11 at your local comic shop right now!