Last time, Pamela Isley had just witnessed the transformation of some dude into BANE. Dr. Woodrue, the man responsible for the transformation, just caught Isley snooping in his lab.
Propelled along by Woodrue’s superior strength (2024 note: Physical, upper body strength, not strength of will or ability to perform double the Emotional Labor of a man), Pamela was hustled back out into the main hall. Woodrue marched her towards the door that gave access to her own tent lab, a lab he ALWAYS called a “tent lab” because A) It WAS in a tent, and B) It reminded her of her inferior lab, which could be set up in any suburban backyard for kids to have a sleepover. For like 2 hours at least, guaranteed they’re sleeping in the house.
Woodrue hissed out an explanation as they walked: “Our original sponsor had no stomach for military applications. So he cut the funding for our work—”
“Our work?” Pamela broke in.
Woodrue smiled. “Without your research I could never have come this far.” He thought for a moment, then he offered, “Join me. The two of us, entwined, side by side, a sort of superhero and sidekick with matching codpieces, if you can imagine such a thing…” They had reached the door of her workshop, er, tentshop, and Woodrue shoved her through it. Through the flap. Tents have flaps, not doors.
“Join you?” Pamela said bitterly. “I’ve spent my life trying to protect plants from extinction, and now you corrupt my research into some maniacal scheme for world domination!” She gave a derisive snort. “I mean, okay, I WAS making deadly poisons and defense mechanisms for plants, which, let’s be real, would be operating on humans, not other plants or bugs or critters. Did I make a plant that created a field of semi-buried punji sticks around its base? Sure. Did I genetically engineer a plant that would rip a man’s testicles off with a super fast vine? Absolutely. But TO THINK you are suggesting I join in with you, someone making a weapon that would kill people, is just outrageous! When I get through with you, you won’t be able to get a job teaching high school chemistry, a job you’ll probably leave to sell more drugs because, TBH, we DID just see you’re really good at making drugs.”
“Well, I can respect your opinion,” Woodrue said nonchalantly, then pushed Pamela chalantly backward into the interconnected lab tables. They collapsed under her weight (let’s say they were very flimsy, okay? Only meant to hold a single sheet of paper apiece), and she fell to the floor, buried in an avalanche of plants and poisonous insects as they slid off the table onto her.
“I’m not good at rejection,” Woodrue said. First as a quip, but then he added some stuff about how he was doing a lot of self-exploration and, despite this minor setback of murdering a colleague, felt he was on a good path. “Don’t use humor to deflect, own your feelings,” he said as he grasped hold of a shelf of specimen jars and yanked hard. The whole unit fell on top of Pamela, being completely unanchored due to it being in a tent, and anchoring things to a tent’s wall is like…well, anchoring a heavy shelf to a tent wall is the analogy you’d use to explain something done really poorly and stupidly.
Strange, bubbling liquids splashed from beakers. A dozen kinds of poisonous insects swarmed across her body, biting and nipping and ripping at her flesh until they remembered she was supposed to be a plant woman, not a bug woman, so they kind of just went away.
Coldly, clinically, Woodrue pulled over another shelf. Then he did another one less coldly. Then a fourth because by now he was having a pretty good time. He’d always kind of wanted to trash a lab in a fit like a baseball player knocking things around in the dugout, and if there’s one thing we can say about Woodrue, it’s that he was a little rape-y for the tone of the rest of this movie. But if there are TWO things, the second thing would be that he recognizes and opportunity when he sees one. Which does kind of feed into the first thing…let’s not get into that.
Poisonous plant extracts from foxglove and jimson weed and penistuber plant and beaver bush and a dozen IVIES spilled over her.
Pamela whimpered in pain, struggling to get up. A man could only imagine the pain she was in as it was comparable to childbirth, and nothing is tougher than a woman who has given birth, as I’ve been reminded several times, although I still haven’t seen this play out between a woman and, say, a man who had his whole arm ripped off while working on a washing machine’s agitator.
Another heavy shelf crashed down on her head, the last one, which Woodrue decided was one too many, a bad habit of his, and Pamela’s movements ceased abruptly.
Woodrue smiled and leaned down to watch the life drain from Pamela’s eyes. He’d seen this very thing before, but never on a beautiful woman.
Woodrue headed back into the prison hallway to start the bidding on Venom, his exquisite erection preceding him by one and a half paces.