A horde of goblins brought Eddie Brock to an underground cavern. Before a stone throne, Brock witnesses Morbius, the Living Vampire, teleported before them. Thinking that Brock summoned him, Morbius is about to attack. However, Eddie's symbiote has recovered from the goblin's sonic attack, allowing him to turn into Venom again. The pair blows until Venom knocks Morbius into the wall, causing it to crack open enough for sunlight to shine. Sensitive to sunlight, Morbius recoils in pain. Likewise, the goblins are scared off by the sunlight. This momentary pause leads both Venom and Morbius to realize that neither is working for the goblins. Learning that he is in San Francisco, Morbius asks Venom to fill him in and learns about the goblin invasion that began on Halloween. Morbius then details how he was teleported away from New York City by some powerful force.

They return to the throne room, where they see a demonic face painted on the wall in luminescent paint. Noticing that the demons seem highly disorganized, the pair deduce that their bringing Morbius here was an attempt to find a leader to guide them. However, instead of gaining an ally, Morbius is about to leave Venom to deal with this. That's when they are ambushed by the goblins once more. When Venom begins to web up the goblins, they unleash another collective sonic blast. Thankfully, Morbius pushes Venom out of the way. However, the sonic blast strikes the subway tunnel wall, causing the concrete to shatter. This causes water to flood into the tunnel, sweeping everyone away. Morbius strikes his head as he is pulled by the current, but Venom saves him. He quickly pulls a containment lever that closes off the flooded part of the tunnel. Finding another fissure in the subway tunnel, the pair decides to follow it up to the surface. Smashing their way through the concrete, they find themselves inside Alcatraz Prison. While in the city, Charles Palentine uses his position to convince the people of San Francisco that the goblin invasion is a biblical plague. He manages to capitalize on the people's paranoia. He gets the police on his side. He then uses his growing power base to oust the current mayor of San Francisco and take control of the city. He then calls on the people of San Francisco to help him burn down the city to purge it of the goblin hordes. This causes people to riot in the streets as those against Palentine clash with his supporters.
Meanwhile, back in the tunnels, the goblins have gathered in their underground throne room. Suddenly, Demogoblin teleports to the chair before them and demands to know who summons him. When the creatures don't reply, Demogoblin becomes furious, prompting the goblins to lunge at him. At that moment, at Alcatraz, Eddie Brock finds a prison cell with a goblin face painted on one of the bricks. Discovering that it can be removed, Eddie finds a cubby where a diary owned by a man named Charles Palene has been hidden.

The first entry in the diary dates back to the year 1961.[Continuity 1] At seventeen years old, Charles Palene set off an alarm when trying to break into a bakery. Fleeing the police, he happened upon the Library of Rhan. Peaking in one of the windows, he found some cultists performing some ritual where they are about to sacrifice a young woman. When a goblin sneaked behind him, Charles recoiled and smashed through the window, interrupting the ceremony. The leader of the ceremony decided that Charles would now become part of their ceremony. As he struggled to free himself, Charles grabbed the strange necklace the leader was wearing.

---