Kei Kawade finds out that he’s been sleep-drawing monsters… and has somehow summoned a Fin Fang Foom from another dimension! Normally that wouldn’t be such a big deal except for the tiny detail that this particular Foom has been infected by the Venomverse. Get ready for AND LO, THERE CAME A POISON PART 2!

Does a Foom by any other name smell as sweet? Well, not when it’s punching them. Kei and his comrades in scaly arms must fight for their dimension in MONSTERS UNLEASHED #8! On November 22nd Cullen Bunn and Andrea Broccardo pit Foom vs Foom — well, technically everybody vs Foom — in a battle royale that will change the game for Kid Kaiju and his monsters forever.

Luckily, Cullen Bunn stopped by to help us understand what’s going on in the world of MONSTERS UNLEASHED.

Marvel.com: Catch us up on what’s been going on in the AND LO, THERE CAME A POISON story arc!

Cullen Bunn: There are a few moving parts in this story.

Right in the forefront, we see that Kid Kaiju is seemingly “sleep-drawing” and has opened up some sort of connection to… something else… a strange monster from another world. Kei is really just now learning to use his abilities, and they still frighten him. If you think about it, he has abilities that could be world-threatening if they ever got out of control! That’s a lot of pressure for an 11-year-old, and the weight on his shoulders is starting to wear on him. He’s not sure if he can control the vast powers at his command.

And then we have Kei’s Monsters, who are going through some sort of crisis of faith themselves. Some of them are starting to wonder where they came from. Are they simply figments of Kei’s imagination or did they have lives before they were summoned by the artist?

All this comes to a head when Kei inadvertently summons Fin Fang Foom — only it’s not the Fin Fang Foom we know.

Marvel.com: Could you explain the nature of Kei Kawade’s powers of summoning? Is the new inter-dimensional component new to his roster?

Cullen Bunn: Kid Kaiju has this vast catalog of monsters in his head. He just kind of knows every monster in the Marvel Universe. If he draws that monster, the creature is summoned to him. The monster doesn’t have to obey Kei. He can’t control them. But he does have a kind of natural monster empathy that helps him out. Early on, he discovered that he could also draw monsters from his imagination, creating them (it seems) from scratch. With these monsters, he can shape their abilities through his drawings. He can even go so far as to combine the five monsters into one super-monster to face mega-threats.

The inter-dimensional thing, though, is new to him. Up until this point, he’s only really been aware of the monsters of this dimension! Now that this new avenue has been opened, though, maybe he can start summoning creatures from other realms. Which might be a good thing or a bad thing…

In the case of this story arc, it’s bad.

Marvel.com: How does the Venomverse fit into these events?

Cullen Bunn: When Kei starts “sleep-drawing” he somehow connects with Poison Fin Fang Foom, a version of the space dragon who has been infected by the Poisons we met in my series VENOMVERSE! Kei tries to send this terrifying monster away, but when he does so, he sees a vision of dozens of Poisons. The Poisons are, arguably, monsters in their own right. But this time it seems that Kei’s powers are turning against him, almost as if some outside force is influencing him.

Marvel.com: What has Kid Kaiju been learning about his powers and does he have some control yet?

Cullen Bunn: While he has some control, Kei still doesn’t fully understand his powers, and that terrifies him. If he doesn’t get a handle on them, he could be a threat to the entire world. In this story, he’s discovering that he’s connected to his monsters in a way he never expected, and it will impact how he works as a hero going forward. He’s a kid, so we can anticipate that his powers will only continue to grow. What happens when Kid Kaiju becomes King Kaiju? We won’t find out in this arc, but — man! — that’s a story I want to tell!

Marvel.com: Are the Poison Foom’s powers different from that of our own?

Cullen Bunn: In theory, Posion Foom has all the powers of the Fin Fang Foom of our universe, but his powers have been enhanced by an alien symbiote, then further expanded by his transformation into a Poison. We haven’t fully explored what a Poison is capable of, but they are the “perfect hosts” for these alien symbiotes, and they are much more powerful than Foom (or a Foom symbiote) would be alone.

Marvel.com: How does this arc fit into the theme of Legacy?

Cullen Bunn: I think the notion of a kid learning about amazing powers at his command, dealing with the fears of losing control and becoming something awful, and learning what it means to be a hero all ties into the idea of Legacy. Many of Marvel’s best stories of old dealt with those very ideas.

Marvel.com: What does the legacy of Marvel mean to you, as a writer and a fan?

Cullen Bunn: It means honoring the comics that have come before, honoring the undeniable footprint the heroes of the Marvel Universe have left, not just in the comic world but in the real world. It also means adding some new ideas to the mix and bringing some new characters to life for the readers of future generations. One of the things I always wanted to do with MONSTERS UNLEASHED was to tell a story that could be enjoyed by longtime readers as well as new readers. I’ve had many comic fans tell me that they’ve gotten their kids reading comics with Monsters Unleashed, and that thrills me to no end.

Scramble over to a comics store near you to grab Cullen Bunn and Andrea Broccardo’s MONSTERS UNLEASHED #8 — out November 22nd!