Venom first sank his teeth into fans' brains decades ago in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man
comics, giving the antihero a long time to build up a cast of kooky side characters.
Not surprisingly, a handful of those familiar names made their way into 2018's Venom, the
symbiote's first solo big screen outing.
Here are some of the characters in Venom who have way more meaning than you realized.
Major spoilers ahead.
Anne Weying
In Venom, Michelle Williams plays Anne Weying, Eddie Brock's fiancee - who dumps him after
he snuck information about The Life Foundation out of her personal files and then accosted
the foundation's CEO, Carlton Drake, in an interview.
The move gets both of them fired, and Weying breaks off their engagement.
She later gets catapulted back into his life when Venom takes over her body so that she
can carry him back to Eddie.
For a few minutes, audiences were treated to a giant, head-eating female Venom.
That bizarre version of Venom comes straight out of the comic book miniseries Sinner Takes
All.
In that arc, Venom bonds with Anne to save her life after Anne gets shot.
Later in the series, they pull the same trick to get out of a hostage situation, saving
the day by way of perfectly planned bodyswapping.
Carlton Drake
2018's Venom saw Rhiz Amed channeling the prototypical bad guy in his character, Carlton
Drake.
He's an amoral scumbag who eventually gets a symbiote of his very own.
He and Venom punch each other a lot, and then one of them explodes.
In the comics, however, there's a bit more to this guy's story.
Like many of Venom's adversaries, Carlton Drake was originally a Spider-Man villain.
He and his nefarious Life Foundation first showed up in The Amazing Spider-Man #298,
and it only took him a few issues to throw an army of mutated monsters at Spidey.
His big clash with Venom came in Venom: Lethal Protector, which also served as one of the
storylines Sony's Venom film was based on.
In that series, Drake concocts a plan to steal five pieces of Venom and nurture them into
his own symbiote super soldiers.
He succeeds, creating Scream, Phage, Lasher, Agony, and Riot.
Eventually, Spider-Man and Venom put a stop to this particular plan, sending Drake back
into hiding to concoct bigger, more devious schemes which culminate in Drake turning himself
into a giant spider in the Arachnis Project story arc.
Roland Treece
He didn't have a lot going on in the movie, but Scott Haze delivered a pretty good henchman
as Roland Treece.
Sure, he got his head eaten in the end, but it's the journey that counts.
Unfortunately, in this case, that journey should have been a whole lot bigger.
In his comics incarnation, Treece isn't a low-level thug who goes out to crummy apartments
to retrieve his boss's lost aliens - he's an ultra-rich businessman who sits on the
board of directors for The Life Foundation.
Granted, he's still less of a threat to Venom than Drake, but it's Treece's master plan
to demolish part of the city that sends Spidey and Venom running back to San Francisco for
the final showdown in Lethal Protector.
And that's all fine.
The Venom movie didn't need multiple masterminds for its crazy schemes, and there were already
enough bad guys to go around.
At least the movie didn't try to shoehorn in Venomsaurus Rex.
Wait, who are we kidding?
Venomsaurus Rex would have been the best addition to this movie.
Scream
In the first act of the movie, we're introduced to some tanks of goo in the Life Foundation
labs.
Those are the symbiotes that Drake is trying to merge with human hosts - a project that
goes disastrously wrong.
If you paid close attention, you may have noticed that one of the symbiotes was distinctly
yellow, which matches another distinctly yellow symbiote in the comics: Scream.
In Venom: Lethal Protector, Donna Diego was the human host for Scream, one of the five
symbiotes created by Drake.
She eventually obtained a measure of self awareness, and gained enough control over
her symbiote to start hunting the other ones.
Fans on the internet speculated that the EMT who bonds with a symbiote was, in fact, Donna
Diego.
Although we now know that that lady was just a brief host for the Riot symbiote, her inclusion
- and the fact that she got more screentime than the other hosts - could be another nod
to Donna Diego.
Maybe.
Cletus Kasady
Before the reviews were even in, Venom was already setting up a sequel in its Spiderless
Spiderverse.
In the mid-credits scene, we see Woody Harrelson make an appearance as a red-haired psychopath
in a prison cell who goes by the name Cletus Kasady.
Comics fans should instantly recognize the name as the inmate who played host to Venom's
son, Carnage.
"Kasady is gone.
There is only Carnage!"
He may be Venom's son, but Carnage is stronger and and a whole lot crazier than dear old
dad.
If a Venom sequel gets off the ground, a Woody Harrelson-played Carnage could be just the
ticket to take things to the next level.