Since he made his debut in 1988, Venom has become one of Spider-Man’s deadliest and
most well-known foes.
So well-known, in fact, that you’re probably already familiar with most of the facts about
his origin.
From the alien costume that Spidey picked up in Secret Wars to his defeat by a church
bell and even his appearance in the classic Maximum Carnage video game, you might think
you know it all.
Dig a little deeper, though, and you might find a few facts that you didn’t know about
Venom.
Venom: A David Goyer Film
While Tom Hardy will be taking on the role of Venom in the character's first major solo
film, it's hardly the first time someone has tried to bring Venom to the big screen for
his own movie.
There were plans for a spinoff series after Eddie Brock made his appearance as one of
the villains in 2007's Spider-Man 3, but ten years earlier, New Line Cinema was making
a serious effort to make Venom: The Motion Picture happen.
While it never happened, it boasted a screenplay by David S. Goyer, and was rumored to have
Dolph Lundgren in talks to star.
Not a bad choice when you consider how often artists of the '90s drew Eddie Brock to look
like an even more jacked version of Ivan Drago.
Goyer would eventually break through into superhero films as the writer of 1998's Blade
and its sequels, and would go on to provide the scripts for Batman Begins, Man of Steel
and Dawn of Justice.
What could have been.
Truth in Journalism
If big-budget superhero movies aren't your thing, you don't need to wait to see an interesting
live-action take on Venom thanks to Joe Lynch's Truth in Journalism.
Released as a fan film in 2013, the documentary-style movie follows disgraced photojournalist "Eddie
B." as he makes his way through the streets of New York, finding — and occasionally
manufacturing — salacious news stories.
Needless to say, it turns out that Eddie's hiding an even bigger secret.
Spoiler warning: it’s a weird symbiote monster from space who eats people.
Even though most viewers know exactly who “Eddie B.” is from the first frame, the
big reveal of Venom at the end is well-done and tense, with Ryan Kwanten, of True Blood
fame, doing a great job of playing Brock as an amoral opportunist, If you've never seen
it, it's well worth 20 minutes of your time — and like all Marvel movies, make sure
to stick around after the credits.
Venom vs. No. 7
In the 1990s, Venom was easily one of Marvel's single most popular characters, for a pretty
obvious reason.
He was basically Frank Castle plus Peter Parker, with a mouth full of teeth so long and sharp
that even Wolverine thought it was a bit much.
He was so popular, in fact, that from 1993 to 1998, there was a new issue of Venom on
the stands every single month without missing a beat.
Those issues just never managed to get past number 6.
Rather than being a single comic that ran from #1 to #60, Venom's ongoing adventures
were broken out into a staggering 17 different series that ran back to back to back to back
to back to — well, you get the idea.
It started in February of '93 with Venom: Lethal Protector, and ran through Separation
Anxiety, Sinner Takes All, License to Kill, and a dozen other books, before finally wrapping
up with the appropriately named Venom: The Finale in January of 1998.
As for why they didn't just keep Lethal Protector going, well, that's simple.
Everyone knows that a #1 issue is more valuable for collectors, right?
And what's better than one #1?
Seventeen #1s!
Wait, what do you mean that's not how supply and demand works?
The thin line between love and hate
It was bad enough when Peter Parker discovered that his black costume was a living creature
hell-bent on controlling his body, but it got even worse when the symbiote joined up
with Eddie Brock, whose hatred of Parker only amplified the alien’s resentment after being
rejected.
It doesn't take a lot of analysis to see the subtext in that relationship: the rejection,
the jealousy, the new partner picked up on the rebound — for all intents and purposes,
the symbiote is reacting like a scorned lover.
It isn’t just subtext, it’s the whole point of one of the greatest Venom stories
of all time.
In Amazing Spider-Man #317, Eddie Brock challenges Peter to a one-on-one fight to the death.
Alone and completely outmatched in terms of strength, Peter makes the desperate move of...
stripping off his costume and seducing the Venom suit with the proportionate sexiness
of a spider.
If the subtext had been difficult to see before, then the sight of Peter Parker standing on
a beach in tiny underpants offering up his body put an exclamation point on the whole
thing.
It actually worked, too, but the symbiote's relationship with Eddie turned out to be too
deep to drop all at once, leaving him passed out on the beach in his underpants covered
in a viscous ooze.
And who hasn’t been there after a bad breakup?
Superman smackdown
While he's come pretty close on several occasions, Venom has never been able to truly defeat
Spider-Man once and for all.
He did, however, beat the living heck out of Superman, so he's got that going for him.
It happened in a follow-up to the world-colliding DC vs. Marvel crossover.
To his credit, Superman manages to hold his own, but you'd think that a guy who can shoot
heat lasers out of his eyes and make a sonic boom by clapping his hands would probably
have a pretty easy time fighting someone whose major weaknesses are loud noises and fire.
And yet, once Venom flies into a rage, he not only goes toe-to-toe with the Last Son
of Krypton, he also beats up Superman and Spider-Man at the same time.
The only reason the good guys are able to pull off the win is the intervention of a
third character, Access, an obscure goofball who's jointly owned by Marvel and DC... and
apparently has the deus ex machina powers of both companies rolled into one.
An extra sting in the tail
If you're familiar with Mac Gargan, it's probably from his original villainous identity: the
Scorpion.
Introduced in 1964, Gargan was a crooked private eye hired by J. Jonah Jameson to dig up dirt
on everyone's favorite web-slinger.
When that didn't work out, JJJ decided that it would probably a good idea to do some mad
science on him and give him a robotic scorpion tail instead.
This was not, in fact, a good idea.
In 2005, however, Gargan decided to go in a bit of a different direction.
When Eddie Brock found Jesus, he decided to give up the symbiote and auction it off to
the highest bidder.
Gargan wound up with it, became the new Venom, and not only did he fight Spider-Man in this
identity, he actually replaced him by joining up with Norman Osborn’s government-approved
team of Dark Avengers.
As for Eddie, the combination of another villain's healing powers and a chance encounter with
an old symbiote caused a reaction that gave him his powers back — and more.
It turned him into a sort of color-inverted version of Venom who had the ability to cure
others of symbiote-related afflictions, and he against fought crime as — wait for it
— Anti-Venom.
Viva Venom variety
Eddie Brock and Mac Gargan are the most well-known Venoms, but they’re not the only characters
to take on the identity.
In recent years, it’s bounced around the Marvel Universe so much that it seems like
everyone’s had a shot — even Groot.
Here’s a quick rundown: Flash Thompson, who first appeared back in the ‘60s as the
high school bully who constantly picked on "Puny Parker" before eventually becoming his
friend, lost his legs while serving in the army in Iraq.
In 2011, his heroic ideals and history of valor in service made him the military's ideal
candidate for a program designed to create a new kind of super-soldier: Agent Venom.
He was bonded to the symbiote for 48 hours at a time to keep him from losing control,
and served as a member of both the Secret Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy before
losing the symbiote back to Eddie Brock and becoming, wait for it again, Agent Anti-Venom.
If that wasn’t weird enough, Thompson’s time serving alongside the Guardians also
involved a mishap that saw not just Groot being taken over, but Rocket, too.
And if you’ve ever been startled by a raccoon by your trash cans, just imagine how bad it
would be if he had a laser gun and was also bonded with a super-powered alien.
It doesn’t end there, though.
Over the years, the symbiote has briefly bonded with Deadpool, Wolverine, Captain Marvel,
a villain named Lee Price, Drax the Destroyer, Doctor Octopus when he was living in Peter
Parker’s body, another version of Wolverine, and a kid who became Venom because he wanted
girls to write fan-fiction about him.
No, really.
And that’s just in the regular Marvel continuity.
If you expand it out to What If stories and alternate universes, Venom’s been, well,
pretty much everyone from the Punisher to Galactus, the devourer of worlds.
But believe it or not, that’s not the weirdest one.
Beware the V-Rex
If you go into it looking to find out what happened to your favorite superheroes, Mark
Millar and Steve McNiven's Old Man Logan is a pretty huge bummer.
Focused on an older Wolverine and a blinded Hawkeye driving across a devastated America
that's been carved up by supervillains, it devotes a lot of pages to revealing how the
heroes of the Marvel Universe died…or worse.
If you like Venom, though, buckle up.
As Wolverine and Hawkeye drive Spider-Man’s old car through a chunk of the midwest that’s
been taken over by the dinosaurs of the Savage Land, they accidentally get on the wrong side
of a Tyrannosaurus Rex that's bonded with the Venom symbiote to create Earth's perfect
killing machine.
Maybe next time, drive a car without its own arch-enemy.
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