-The issue opens with Spider-Man and co. recovering after a Red Goblin beat-down. Anti-Venom (Flash Thompson) comes to their aid and uses his man-made symbiote to heal everyone but Spidey with. Doing this drains his symbiote and you can see it visibly fading from his body. HINT HINT
-During the battle, Red Goblin reveals that all the little needles he has been shooting contain a kind of poison that will go through the nervous system and into the brain, killing the victim slowly and extremely painfully. He also tells Spidey that he's off to go kill his family and goes after Mary Jane first.
-Normie Osborne, Red Goblin's grandson, who got infected with the Carnage symbiote, goes to kill Aunt May. She is saved by Doctor Octopus (No more "superior name" although it's still him in a cloned Peter Parker body) and when Spidey comes in, Ock says he still has Peter's memories and couldn't bear to let anything happen to May, so Spidey says they're square and lets him go off to do whatever. (JJJ is also there in a remote-controlled Spider Slayer robot, but basically does nothing)
-A subplot here is that Norman is trying take over Alchemax (who bought Oscorp) from his son's ex-wife but this kind of fails due to all the shit going on. This is also when Normie starts getting turned back to a good kid again...maybe.
-J. Jonah Jameson is the smartest man in the world, because he figures out that Eddie Brock is Venom and calls him. He asks Venom to help. Venom goes to save Mary Jane and beats up the Red Goblin, who escapes after Spidey arrives.
-Brock tells Spidey he's too weak to go on but offers his symbiote to help. So we're back to black costume-symbiote Spider-Man for the first time in decades! Peter seems to accept this way, way too easily after all that's happened with that thing, but it is a changed alien I guess. The artist draws him kind of weird- the eyes are sort of popping off his face and it looks fucked up.
-Red Goblin reveals that the little needles he's been shooting people with are toxic and can kill people slowly and painfully whenever he wants. He's gonna go ahead and do that now, but then nothing happens. BECAUSE FLASH. Anti-Venom got the needles out of everybody. He uses the last of his symbiote to protect Spidey and suffers a fatal wound, then dies. :'(
-After more fighting, Spider-Man is defeated, but he gambles on telling the Red Goblin that it's not Norman Osbourne who won...but Carnage. Specifically Cletus Cassidy, the former human host, who I thought was dead, but apparently is part of the symbiote now.
Norman is full of himself and can't accept this.
-Both ditch their symbiotes and fight again. Spidey wins and the Carnage symbiote comes back. He uses an explosion to stop it and it shocks Norman so bad he turns into a babbling idiot.
-Flash has a funeral, words are said, etc etc. There's nothing saying he's coming back, but I get the feeling the whole "healing" thing with Anti-Venom means he'll pop back up later on in some form.
-We see Norman in jail and Spider-Man goes to see him. He had previously found out that Spider-Man was Peter Parker (again, since everyone who knew previously lost that after One More Day) but now calls him "Norman Osborne." Apparently his mind is now that of Cletus Cassidy and Norman is "gone." I kind of doubt this will stick, but OK.
-Harry decides to change his last name back to "Osborne" to do right by it and we get a hint that the symbiote is not completely gone from his son.
-In an "after credits" scene, Doc Ock has gone out to Cali to go accept a position at Horizon University, where Peter's old science colleagues are, including Anna, who he had a relationship with when he was Superior Spider-Man.
