When you think of Venom, you usually think of the symbiote's main squeeze — Eddie Brock.
But another character from Venom lore is making waves in movies now. Let's peel back the untold
truth of She-Venom, from her dark origins in comic books to her life on the silver screen.
Anne Weying debuted in 1993's "The Amazing Spider-Man" #375.
A lawyer once married to Eddie Brock, Anne is approached by Spider-Man to help track
down her ex-husband, who's kidnapped Peter Parker's seemingly-resurrected parents.
With Anne's help, Spider-Man manages to trace Venom to an old haunt of Eddie's,
the Thrill World amusement park. Anne secretly tags along and tries to appeal to Venom's sense
of reason, but she's interrupted when Eddie is attacked by Silver Sable's Wild Pack.
While Venom and Spider-Man fight the Pack together,
Anne helps Peter's parents (who turn out to be robots built by the fiendish Chameleon)
escape. She then returns to rescue Eddie from being killed.
Things take a dire turn when a damaged Ferris wheel almost falls on Anne,
but Venom, with Spider-Man's help, manages to rescue her in time. She proceeds to point
out that Spider-Man wouldn't have tried to rescue her if he were a bad person,
which finally convinces Venom to stop terrorizing his longtime foe ... for a while, anyway.
Anne Weying next appears in the 1995 miniseries "Venom: Sinner Takes All." In this story,
she gets shot by a new version of the villainous Sin-Eater. Anne ends up hospitalized,
but is soon whisked away by Venom when the Sin-Eater tracks her down to finish the job.
The trip to Venom's underground hideout reopens Anne's stitched-up wounds,
which leads Eddie to try healing her by sharing his symbiote.
When that isn't enough, Eddie tells the alien suit to separate from him for the time being,
so it can bond with Anne completely. Thus, She-Venom is born.
As She-Venom, Anne manages to save Eddie from two criminals who find his lair.
She does this by violently killing them, however, prompting a horrified Eddie to
blackmail the alien into releasing Anne and merging with him again.
By that point, Anne is fully healed, but she is horrified by her actions as She-Venom, especially
once Eddie reveals that the symbiote can't actually force a person to act against their will.
Disgusted by both the symbiote and what it's revealed about herself, Anne shuns Eddie for
making the alien suit bond with her in their first place. Despite this, in the series' final issue,
Anne briefly becomes She-Venom once again to rescue Eddie from a sticky situation.
Despite her mixed feelings toward her ex-husband and his symbiote "friend,"
Anne Weying isn't interested in getting Eddie Brock arrested.
Unfortunately, she still ends up being forced to cooperate with the police
when they attempt to capture her ex in 1996's "Venom: Along Came A Spider."
Anne gives Eddie a subtle heads-up when he tries to call her, leading Eddie's symbiote
to travel through her phone receiver and temporarily turn Anne into She-Venom once again.
This time, however, the symbiote remains partially attached to Eddie,
leading to a euphoric experience in which Eddie and Anne experience each other's memories.
Venom rescues Anne from police headquarters,
but she is eventually arrested for acting as his accomplice.
Eddie's symbiote travels to Anne by telephone once more, this time bonding with her fully.
She-Venom proceeds to go to Thrill World, in the hopes of meeting Eddie,
but she finds it's become a hideout for crime boss L.D. 50 and his associates. A showdown
between She-Venom, Ben Reilly's Spider-Man, the police, and L.D. 50's gang breaks out,
during which Anne gives Eddie the symbiote to heal him from injuries ... but not before
getting her fair share of punches and kicks (not to mention green slobber) in as She-Venom.
After L.D. 50's defeat, Eddie admits he still loves Anne, who states she'd only consider letting
him back into her life if he put his hatred for Spider-Man and reliance on symbiotes behind him.
Since her debut, Anne Weying has always made it clear that she cares about Eddie,
even if they're on the outs. The details of how and when they broke up, however,
seem to vary from comic to comic. 1997's "Uncanny Origins" #7 suggests that Eddie's
narcissism is what ended their marriage, and that they broke up before Eddie was
fired from the Daily Globe newspaper for mistaking an imposter for the Sin-Eater.
It also makes minor changes to how Venom was reformed, having him and Spider-Man
save Anne from a falling wall in the city, rather than a Ferris wheel at a theme park.
2008's "Venom: Dark Origin" suggests things happened even more differently. It depicts
Anne and Eddie as still being married when his inaccurate story about the Sin-Eater
was published. It also implies that it was Eddie's obsession with success that drove
a wedge between him and Anne, eventually leading to their divorce. Eddie's constant
blaming of Spider-Man for his problems, including his firing, didn't help either.
Anne Weying has always liked being She-Venom a little too much,
and that terrifies her. By the time her story reaches 1999's "Amazing Spider-Man" #19,
Anne has become afraid to even leave her home, in case the symbiote appears and tries to bond
with her once more. A poorly-timed visit from Eddie Brock, who wants to get back together
with her so he can regain some sense of normalcy, makes things even worse. Anne's panic flares to
further heights when she sees Spider-Man swing by her apartment window in his black costume.
Yet what truly ends up being the last straw for Anne is seeing Eddie transform into Venom
to pursue the wall-crawler. This makes Anne realize that the symbiote isn't with Spider-Man,
despite his all-black look — it's right in front of her. After Venom leaves, Anne,
mortified by the whole experience, leaps from her apartment to her death. When Venom returns and
sees what's happened, he swears revenge, thinking Anne's earlier glimpse of Spider-Man is to blame.
Though Anne Weying has passed away, her legacy lives on in a son with
Eddie Brock's DNA that the symbiote impregnated her with during one of her stints as She-Venom.
"You serious?"
Believing she won't be able to raise the child due to her growing paranoia over the symbiote,
Anne forces herself to leave her apartment and give the baby to her father-in-law,
Carl Brock, in 2019's "Venom" #12.
Though Anne vows she'll return for her son, she dies before she can make good on her promise,
leading Carl to raise him as his own.
Neither Anne nor Carl tells Eddie about the boy. Eddie doesn't manage to meet him until
he arrives wounded (and mind-controlled by the Venom symbiote) at his father's home. Dylan
and Eddie are initially completely ignorant of their true connection,
nor are they aware that Anne unknowingly transferred the piece of the Venom
symbiote still in her genes to Dylan, granting him unique powers. Eventually,
however, they learn the truth, and Eddie begins taking care of his long lost son.
Anne Weying and Eddie Brock are two very different people. Yet for some reason, the Venom symbiote
seems to like merging with Anne almost as much as it likes bonding with Eddie Brock.
An answer, of sorts, to this confounding riddle is finally given in 2020's "Venom:
The End," which asserts that Anne Weying is one of the universe's most
suitable beings for bonding with the symbiote, outside of Eddie Brock.
Not only that, her compatibility's right on par with that of Tel-Kar,
a warrior from the Kree Empire who served as the Venom symbiote's first host, long before the alien
suit ever met Anne Weying or Eddie Brock. Unlike Tel-Kar, however, who had to rely on scientific
enhancement to bond with the symbiote, Anne's high compatibility level is completely natural.
It's never exactly explained why Anne meshes so well with the symbiote, although it might be
because, as "Venom: Sinner Takes All" shows, she can be just as bloodthirsty as Eddie when pushed.
In one alternate reality, Anne Weying becomes She-Venom under very different circumstances.
As detailed in 2020's "Venom" issues #27 and #28, this Anne is the one who bonds with
Venom in a dark cathedral, rather than Eddie Brock, who is already dead in this universe.
What's more, She-Venom eventually transforms into Agent Venom, the identity Spider-Man's longtime
friend and ex-bully Flash Thompson assumes in the main Marvel Universe. Not long after Anne becomes
Agent Venom, her suit produces several other symbiotes. This is possibly to prepare for this
Earth's conquest by Codex, a corrupted version of Anne's son, Dylan, and his symbiote armada.
This version of Anne meets the main Marvel Universe versions of Eddie and Dylan Brock
when they're accidentally teleported into her universe. The three team up with Anne's
underground group of symbiote resistance soldiers to defeat Codex and free the Earth.
Anne Weying also makes an appearance in Marvel Comics' Earth-311 continuity,
in which all of the Marvel superheroes are active in the year 1602. She shows
up in the second issue of "1602 Witch Hunter Angela" as the bride-to-be of one Edwin Brocc.
Unfortunately, this version of Weying isn't marrying Brocc for his personality,
but because Brocc has used the Enchantress' magical elixir to hypnotize her. Luckily,
Witch Hunter Angela and Serah Anchorton save Weying from marrying Brocc,
who soon loses his head to Angela's sword when he tries fighting her and
Serah as a red, four-legged creature that, unsurprisingly, looks kind of like Venom.
It's hard to say to what extent "Venom: Dark Origin" is canon to the Marvel Universe,
as it doesn't always 100% square with past events. If the parts that don't
contradict anything are in continuity, though, then Anne Weying and Eddie Brock
both went to a very famous college in Marvel lore: Empire State University.
Though it only exists in the comics, unlike the very real SUNY Empire State College in Saratoga
Springs, New York, with which it's sometimes confused, ESU counts many famed Marvel characters
among its alumni and faculty. Luminaries including Norman Osborn, the Human Torch,
Curt Connors, and Emma Frost have all walked its hallowed halls at one point or another.
The character most associated with Empire State University, however, is Peter Parker,
aka Spider-Man. Though Anne Weying is never shown meeting Peter at ESU, she does meet Eddie there
in "Venom: Dark Origin." She starts a relationship with him some time after
Eddie takes credit for stopping a gang who attacked them both on the street. Who really
rescued Anne Weying and Eddie Brock, you might ask? Why, none other than Spider-Man, of course.
Venom has appeared in all kinds of Spider-Man adaptations over the years,
including multiple cartoons and three live-action movies.
Yet somehow, She-Venom, who has a strong connection to Eddie Brock and his symbiote,
hadn't appeared in any Spider-Man movies or television series until 2018's "Venom."
Admittedly, she came somewhat close in 2012's "The Amazing Spider-Man," as
Anne Weying is said to be Curt Connors' lawyer, but she's never shown.
Thankfully, the live-action "Venom" movie corrects that oversight with style.
"I just bit that guy's head off."
Overall, Anne Weying isn't changed too much in her on-screen debut:
She practices law and has a romantic history with Eddie.
Unlike the comics, however, the two break up before they have the chance to marry,
as Eddie's snooping as a journalist unintentionally torpedoes Anne's legal career.
When the Venom symbiote possesses Eddie, Anne becomes one of his staunchest allies, even
becoming She-Venom to save Eddie's life. The two share a kiss while Anne is She-Venom, though they
don't fully rekindle their relationship, as she has moved on and is dating Dr. Dan Lewis instead.
Anne and Eddie's paths cross again in "Venom: Let There Be Carnage," however,
as any Venom fan might have guessed they would. These two can't escape each other that easily.
"Oh, that's bullsh-t!"
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