Codex

Codex's History

Conceived by She-Venom, Dylan Brock was born as a human-symbiote hybrid. Dylan was originally a kind and gentle child, but everything changed for the worst when he abruptly fell under the sway of the dark god Knull. Tearing off a piece of his mother's symbiote, Dylan used his powers to grow it into his own symbiote and adopted the alias Codex.

Taking Our Lady of Saints Church as his base of operations, Codex forced his symbiote to spawn a horde of countless offspring, honing his powers until he became able to control them even without bonding to them; becoming the nexus of their hive-mind in a manner similar to Knull himself. In response, President Eugene Thompson created a unit of symbiote-augmented supersoldiers led by Tyrannosaurus, whose numbers included Dylan's own mother, reformed serial killer Cletus Kasady, reporter and superhero Peter Parker, the psychotic mercenary Wade Wilson, and angsty teenager Andi Benton.

In the war that followed, Codex killed both President Thompson and Tyrannosaurus, along with numerous other heroes and villains - including the Tinkerer and the Green Goblin; converting many of them -- including the Avengers and X-Men -- into his symbiote enforcers.

His opposition all-but crushed, Codex's horde swept across the planet and established a totalitarian regime where everyone was bonded to symbiotes connected to his hive-mind. Codex's regime was undermined by the remnants of Tyrannosaurus' Sym-Soldiers, the last remnants of humanity. When Virus - an armored supervillain from Earth-616 - was arrested by the Avengers for possessing anti-symbiote weaponry, he was brought before Codex. Codex ordered Virus to be unmasked, and was bemused at not recognizing his civilian identity - Mac Gargan. Interrogating Gargan, Codex was enraged to learn of Eddie Brock's involvement and bonded Gargan to a symbiote to convert him into one of his soldiers, the Scorpion.

Shocked to discover the existence of his counterpart from Earth-616, Codex ordered Doctor Octopus to construct a replica of the interdimensional portal using schematics contained in the Virus Armor. Viewing data on the Earth-616 Symbiote Hive, Codex surmised that the other world's version of the dark god who commanded him had been freed from his prison. Before Codex could formulate plans, the Resistance attacked and Codex engaged Eddie Brock in combat, mocking his "father"'s unwillingness to fight back and declaring himself a god. However, Venom was able to restrain Codex and touched his hand to Earth-616 Dylan's, causing them both to have a vision of what their lives could have been like had their family remained whole. Earth-616 Dylan severed Knull's hold over Codex, restoring his humanity and killing the symbiotes under his command, but the psychic backlash caused Codex to fall into a coma.