Xenophage

: "For Rampage, the orange symbiote sometimes also called Phage, see Phage (comics)."The Xenophage (also known as the Phage) is a giant, sentient intelligent alien monster, a comic book supervillain of the Marvel Universe, and an enemy of Venom. Its first full appearance was in issue four of "Venom the Hunted".

The Xenophage have metamorphic abilities; like the symbiotes, they can change their shape, size, and texture. The Xenophage that stalked Venom was able to convincingly disguise itself as a China cabinet, complete with dishes and glass. Moreover, it was able to hide the entire mass of an incapacitated Scream within its bulk. Besides their huge size and superior strength, Xenophages also have the ability to breathe a certain kind of fiery chemical which causes symbiotes to become paralyzed, as well as "enhancing the flavor".

Xenophage's main diet consists of alien symbiotes, though it will eat other things (such as human children) when on the brink of starvation. The first Xenophage to appear ate several unnamed symbiotes and their hosts left over from the "Planet of the Symbiotes" storyline. Because it would typically eat the brains of its victims, the authorities attributed this spree of killings to Venom, and thus concentrated their efforts in bringing him to justice. In the final confrontation of the "Venom: The Hunted" miniseries, the Xenophage severely injured Scream and attempted to eat a group of skateboarders, before being slain by Venom when he tricked it into eating a white phosphorus grenade. More of the same species would appear on Earth attempting to locate their specialized foodstuffs.

This highly specialized diet has led some to speculate that these monsters were actually engineered by some other alien species (such as the Spider-robots of Bob and The Suit's species from the 2003 Venom series) to keep the symbiote population under control. Venom and Scream have fought Xenophages on numerous occasions. Wolverine has fought a Xenophage as well, after one ate Scream and Jubilee; Venom and Wolverine had to literally rip the Xenophage open in order to save their allies.