Venom (character)

• 1. Introduction

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  Venom, the alien symbiote of Marvel Comics, began as a $220 purchase. In 1982, a Marvel reader from Norridge, Illinois, named Randy Schueller received a letter from Jim Shooter, the company's editor-in-chief. The letter said Marvel liked his idea for a new Spider-Man costume, and the company went on to buy it from him.

  The creature that grew out of that idea is sentient, with an amorphous, liquid-like body. It survives by bonding with a host, usually a human, and it grants that host enhanced powers. Its formal title is the Symbiote, but it usually calls itself Venom.

  How does a replacement costume turn into one of Spider-Man's greatest nightmares? Why would a creature that began by hating one man end up helping him? And how many different hosts can a single symbiote outlast?

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• 2. The Black Costume

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  John Byrne says on his website that he first imagined a costume of self-healing biological material while he was drawing Iron Fist. He wanted to explain why that hero's outfit was torn in one issue and repaired by the next. Byrne did not use the idea there. Roger Stern later asked whether he could borrow it for an alien costume on Spider-Man. Stern plotted the issue in which that costume first appeared, then left the title.

  Jim Shooter had his own contribution. He came up with the notion of putting Spider-Man in a black-and-white costume, possibly influenced by the planned look of the new Julia Carpenter version of Spider-Woman. Artists Mike Zeck and Rick Leonardi then designed the black suit itself.

  Writer Tom DeFalco and artist Ron Frenz gave the costume a life of its own. During their run on The Amazing Spider-Man, they established that it was a sentient alien being. They also made it vulnerable to fire and to high sonic energy.

  The costume debuted in The Amazing Spider-Man #252, dated May 1984, in a story called Homecoming. That story takes place after Spider-Man returns from the miniseries Secret Wars. The origin itself appears in Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #8, from December 1984. There, Shooter and Zeck show the heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe transported to a planet called Battleworld by a being called the Beyonder.

  On Battleworld, Spider-Man's costume is ruined in battles with the villains. Thor and the Hulk send him to a room at the heroes' base, where a machine can read his thoughts and instantly fabricate any clothing. He picks a machine he believes is the right one. A black sphere appears, spreads over his body, and dissolves his tattered costume, leaving a new black and white one. To his surprise, the suit can mimic street clothes. It also supplies a stronger and seemingly inexhaustible stock of webbing.

  Under DeFalco and Frenz, the suit's darker side comes out. It wraps around Peter Parker while he sleeps and goes out at night to fight crime, leaving him inexplicably exhausted each morning. Reed Richards examines it and discovers that it is alive. Parker realizes it is trying to bond to his body permanently, so he rejects it, and the Fantastic Four contain it.

  The symbiote escapes and bonds to Parker again. This time he repels it with sound waves from a cathedral's church bell. By then the creature has grown emotionally attached to him. It willingly leaves his unconscious body and moves him to safety before disappearing. Parker's separation from it is recorded in The Amazing Spider-Man #258, dated November 1984. He rejoins it briefly five months later in Web of Spider-Man #1.

  Writer David Michelinie, who followed DeFalco on the title, already had a use in mind for a creature like that.

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• 3. The Spider-Sense Problem

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  When David Michelinie began writing Spider-Man stories, he decided that the hero's most unusual ability was his spider sense. In Michelinie's view, it gave Spider-Man a level of invulnerability equal to or better than much stronger Marvel heroes. Villains such as the Green Goblin and Mysterio had disabled it, but only temporarily and only by chemical means.

  Michelinie was fascinated by a different possibility, a villain who could evade the spider sense permanently. He wanted to explore what that would do to Spider-Man as a hero and to Peter Parker's personal life. His first candidates evaded the sense through cybernetic means, and Marvel's editors rejected them. Then he proposed that the symbiote could do the job. Having absorbed Spider-Man's genetic material while he was its host, it had mutated, and it would let any human host slip past the spider sense. The editors approved, and he was told to refine the character.

  The villain's look came from more than one hand. Ron Frenz recalls that Michelinie's original plot described a large, muscular figure whose version of the alien costume included a mouth. Artist Todd McFarlane, speaking with Tom DeFalco, agrees that Michelinie came up with the idea and with the description of "a big guy in the black costume." McFarlane says he devised the monstrous features.

  The first hints were small. Web of Spider-Man #18, from September 1986, by Michelinie and artist Marc Silvestri, shows someone shoving Parker in front of a subway train with no spider-sense warning. Only the attacker's hand is visible. In Web of Spider-Man #24, from March 1987, with artist Del Barras, a black arm reaches through a high window and grabs Parker as he climbs out to change into Spider-Man. Again the spider sense stays silent.

  Michelinie then took over writing The Amazing Spider-Man, and McFarlane joined him as artist with issue 298 in March 1988. In that issue Venom appears only in shadow. The last page of issue 299, dated April 1988, finally shows him. Mary Jane Watson, Parker's wife, enters the apartment, switches on a lamp, and sees the white spider and eye shapes of Spider-Man's costume in a dark corner. Michelinie's script has her start to scold the figure gently, assuming it is Peter. Then a white smile forms beneath the eyes, which the script calls a scary smile.

  The stranger steps from the shadows. The script describes a huge, bulky body, massively muscled like Arnold Schwarzenegger on a good day. His grin stretches until it almost connects behind his head, a totally inhuman gesture. Then he speaks: "Hi, honey... I'm home!"

  Readers learned his name and his grudge a month later, in issue 300.

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• 4. Eddie Brock's Grudge

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  The Amazing Spider-Man #300, from May 1988, is Venom's first full-issue appearance. In it, the villain tells Spider-Man that he is Eddie Brock, a reporter for the Daily Globe. Brock had worked on the Sin-Eater case, and his career collapsed when the man he announced as the Sin-Eater turned out to be a compulsive confessor. Michelinie built this backstory on Peter David's 1985 Sin Eater storyline in The Spectacular Spider-Man.

  Brock was reduced to writing lurid stories for tabloids, and he blamed Spider-Man for his fall. He took up bodybuilding to reduce stress, but it failed, and he sank into a suicidal depression. He sought solace at the church where Spider-Man had repelled the symbiote. Sensing his hatred of Spider-Man, the symbiote bonded with him. Brock took the name Venom as a nod to the sensationalistic material he had been forced to traffic in. As the symbiote gained intelligence and moved to other hosts, the name came to describe the creature as well as the men it wore.

  As Venom, Brock fought Spider-Man many times and won several of those fights. He repeatedly tried to kill Parker, in costume and out of it. After Venom confronted Mary Jane, Parker had to abandon the black costume, which the symbiote had been mimicking. Venom escaped from the supervillain prison known as the Vault to torment Spider-Man and his family.

  Styx's plague virus finally left the symbiote comatose, and Brock was placed in Ryker's Island Prison. When the symbiote recovered and came to free him, it left a spawn behind. That spawn bonded with Brock's cellmate, the psychotic serial killer Cletus Kasady, who became Carnage. Venom and Spider-Man then fought on a deserted island, where Spider-Man faked his own death and stranded Venom. Soon afterward he brought Venom back to New York City to stop Carnage's killing spree. After Venom was jailed again, he was used to create five new symbiotes, each paired with a human host.

  A new direction arrived from February to July 1993, when the six-issue series Venom: Lethal Protector ran. It marked a significant change, as Venom became an antihero vigilante. He and the symbiote sometimes shared a wish to protect innocent people, even if that meant working beside the hated Spider-Man. That was most true when Venom fought Carnage, whom he believed to be his own spawn.

  The truce had limits. When Spider-Man helped Venom save Brock's ex-wife, Anne Weying, the two formed a temporary peace. It fell apart after Weying's suicide. U.S. Senator Steward Ward then stole the symbiote for a time, hoping to understand his own alien infection by studying it. When it returned to Brock, the balance had flipped, and the symbiote now dominated its host. Eventually it grew tired of a diseased host, and Brock rejected its growing bloodlust, so the two went their separate ways.

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• 5. A Parade of Hosts

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  Don Fortunato, a prominent Mafia capo, paid $100 million for the symbiote at a supervillain auction, buying it from a sickly Brock. His son Angelo, created by Mark Millar and Terry Dodson for Marvel Knights Spider-Man #7, was frail and shy and was often bullied and humiliated by his father. Brock warned Angelo about the symbiote, but Angelo replied that he had nothing to lose. After bonding with it, he discovered Spider-Man's secret identity and tried to kill him to prove his worth. Spider-Man defeated him. As Angelo tried to escape, the symbiote abandoned him for his cowardice in mid-leap between buildings, and he fell to his death. Spider-Man ran out of webs trying to save him.

  Mac Gargan, the villain formerly known as Scorpion, was approached by the symbiote, which offered him new abilities as the second Venom. He was the main incarnation of Venom from 2005 to 2009. As part of Norman Osborn's Sinister Twelve, he fought Spider-Man and lost, even with the extra power. Spider-Man suggested the reason was that Gargan did not hate him as much as Brock did. The government fitted Gargan with electrical implants to keep the symbiote in check. As Venom he kept little of his own personality, and the symbiote drove him to cannibalism.

  Gargan later wore a Scorpion battle armor over the symbiote while it healed, and Spider-Man dubbed the result "Ven-orpion." After the Siege of Asgard, Gargan and most of the Dark Avengers were taken into custody. While he was held on the Raft, Venom was forcefully removed from him.

  On the 9th of December 2010, Marvel announced a new "black ops" Venom working for the government. On the 28th of January 2011, the host was revealed to be Flash Thompson. His birth as the new Venom appears in The Amazing Spider-Man #654, from February 2011. Thompson was hired as a special agent under Project Rebirth, and he could wear the suit for only 48 hours before risking a permanent bond. He carried a "Multi-Gun" that could change into any type of gun. The government also fitted him with a kill switch, which he rejected. As Agent Venom he went on to join the Secret Avengers, the Thunderbolts, and the Guardians of the Galaxy, and the Klyntar appointed him a Space Knight. His tenure ran from 2011 to 2016.

  Lee Price, a discharged Army Ranger, took the symbiote in Venom volume 3, which ran for six issues from November 2016 to April 2017. The weakened symbiote pleaded with him to become a hero like Thompson. Price ignored it and overpowered it, intending to use it for personal gain. He lost it when Brock and Spider-Man took him down. Later, in prison, he was killed by Cletus Kasady. Brock regained the symbiote at the end of that series, and the title returned to volume 1 with issue #150.

  Tel-Kar first appeared in Venom: First Host #1. During the Kree-Skrull War, the Kree wanted to copy the Skrulls' shape-shifting. They obtained the newborn Venom, outcast from the other symbiotes, on Gorr's planet, where Knull had created the symbiotes. Tel-Kar's body was biologically altered so he could control the symbiote's mind completely, even erasing its memories, and he was sent to infiltrate the Skrull army. He blew his cover to save some Kree refugees, and Ronan the Accuser betrayed him, handing him to the Skrulls as a war criminal.

  Years later Tel-Kar traveled to Earth after hearing of Flash Thompson and his black symbiote suit. He tried to reclaim the symbiote, and the clash ended when the Venom offspring called Sleeper bonded to him and lobotomized him as punishment for what he had done to Venom and Eddie. Sleeper, now wearing Tel-Kar's body, said farewell to Eddie and went off to explore the universe.

  During the War of the Realms, Malekith captured the symbiote after it was separated from Eddie. He enhanced it with dark magic and bonded it to his acolytes, turning them into the Spider-Elves.

  In the 2018 "Go Down Swinging" storyline, Norman Osborn bonds to the Carnage symbiote and calls himself Red Goblin. Spider-Man bonds to the Venom symbiote again to stop him, forgiving both Eddie and Venom for past conflicts. The battle ends with both symbiotes detaching from their hosts, after Osborn mortally injures Flash Thompson. Venom returned to Brock in 2017, and Brock's biological son Dylan Brock became the next host in 2021. In All-New Venom in 2025, Dylan's foster mother Mary Jane Watson succeeds the Brocks as Venom's new host.

  The symbiote has also spawned children: Scream, Lasher, Phage, Agony, Riot, Mania, Sleeper, and Carnage. Carnage became Venom's archenemy after bonding with the serial killer Cletus Kasady.

  Some hosts held it only briefly. In The Amazing Spider-Man #375, Anne Weying first appears as Brock's ex-wife and a successful lawyer. When Sin-Eater shoots her, Venom temporarily bonds with her to save her life, and she becomes She-Venom. She lashes out against the men who hurt her, and Brock grows afraid for her and of her, so he compels the symbiote back.

  In Planet of the Symbiotes, the symbiote takes the form of Scarlet Spider Ben Reilly's hooded top, mistaking him for Spider-Man. It fails to bond because of his strong will. Otto Octavius, as the Superior Spider-Man, bonded to it and called himself the Superior Venom, solving crime far more brutally until he realized the symbiote was messing with his head. With help from Peter's consciousness and Flash Thompson, he separated himself from it.

  While Thompson served with the Guardians of the Galaxy, Groot accidentally bonded to the symbiote and attacked the others. It then moved to Rocket Raccoon and then to Drax, who defeated the whole team under its control. The symbiote took the ship to a planet formed from symbiotes called Klyntar, later revealed to be Knull's cage, where it was purified and bonded to Thompson again.

  The list also includes Carol Danvers, who briefly bonded to it during the Siege before gathering her powers and detaching. Thunderbolt Ross, as Red Hulk, bonded to it briefly during the Circle of Four storyline. Quentin Beck, as Mysterio, took a severed piece of it and used it to escape from the Kingpin's interrogation. And the wizard Kulan Gath became "Kulan Venom" in the 2008 Spider-Man and Red Sonja miniseries.

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• 6. Anatomy of a Symbiote

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  The 1995 storyline Planet of the Symbiotes gives the creature a family history. It was born in the 998th generation of an extraterrestrial race of symbiotes that lived by possessing other life-forms. Those parasites gave their victims enhanced physical abilities but fatally drained their adrenaline. After the Venom symbiote separated from its first host, its own kind judged it insane, because it wanted to commit to a host rather than use one up. It was imprisoned on Battleworld so it could not pollute the species' gene pool.

  Venom needs a living host to survive, yet it can fend for itself without one. It can shapeshift, forming spikes or growing larger, and once it has a host it can mimic the appearance of other humanoids. It can also hide by changing its coloration or turning invisible. A small "dimensional aperture" lets its hosts carry items without adding mass to the costume. It communicates with its host telepathically, and it may be technopathic, since it summoned a flying device to escape the Baxter Building.

  Its time with Spider-Man left a permanent mark. Every later host receives Spider-Man's powers and cannot be detected by his spider sense. His fighting style partly depends on that sense, so he was somewhat hampered when he fought Eddie Brock. The symbiote also remembers its time with him, and it can produce webbing from its own biomass, similar to his.

  Venom is also far stronger. Its hosts gain a vastly larger size and musculature. The symbiote shows very sharp, non-human teeth and commonly extends a long, prehensile tongue. It is physically much bigger than Spider-Man and has more brute strength. It also shows some immunity to the supernatural powers of others, including Ghost Rider's Penance Stare.

  Some incarnations can duplicate themselves. In the 2005-2006 miniseries Spider-Man: Reign, Venom recreates his symbiote to combat his loneliness. Fire and sonic waves cause it great pain and exhaustion if the exposure is long enough. Venom can sense and track all of its offspring except Carnage, who learned to block this shortly after bonding with Cletus Kasady and first confronting Venom and Brock. When Venom came into contact with Knull, it formed giant web-like dragon wings.

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• 7. Other Universes, Other Venoms

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  In the Marvel Comics 2 series, Norman Osborn took some of Venom's genetic material and used it to make a human and symbiote hybrid. Mayday Parker allows the symbiote to live with her. It names itself April Parker and befriends Mayday's friends, especially Gene Thompson, the son of Flash Thompson. Later April grows jealous of Mayday and confronts her, accidentally killing her in battle. Overcome with guilt, April sacrifices herself to resurrect Spider-Girl. Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz created April Parker, who first appeared in Amazing Spider-Girl #20, from July 2008.

  Two Venoms appear in the Marvel 2099 imprint. Kron Stone is the older half-brother of Spider-Man 2099, Miguel O'Hara. As a child, he was abused by an android housekeeper that mistook him for a dog, and he grew into a bully who enjoyed other people's pain. After he ordered the killing of Jake Gallows' family, Gallows fatally wounded him with a knife. Before he could die, Stone bonded with a Venom that had mutated over the years and gained acidic blood and saliva. He then set out to torment Miguel, whom he never knew was his half-brother, by hurting those close to him.

  A new Venom 2099, Alea Bell, was introduced in a one-shot published in 2019. As a child, her left arm was badly burned in a crash that also killed her mother. Her father Theo raised her, and classmates bullied her over her scars. Alchemax scientist Dr. Russell selected her for an experimental treatment, and her arm was restored. The supposed panacea was a piece of Venom, and Alchemax planned to turn her into a supersoldier. Empathizing with the symbiote's pain, she agreed to its request to be made whole in exchange for getting her normal life back.

  In the Spider-Gwen reality, Elsa Brock created the symbiote from radioactive spider isotopes developed by S.I.L.K. leader Cindy Moon. The goal was to cure the Lizard formula at Matt Murdock's request and to give Spider-Woman a way to deal with losing her powers. Gwen first gave in to the symbiote's bloodlust. After she discovered that Rhino had brutally beaten her father in prison, she learned to control it.

  The Ultimate Marvel version was created by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Mark Bagley and introduced in Ultimate Spider-Man #33. Bagley designed it as more of a monster than a supervillain, describing it as a "huge cancerous/tumorous creature." In this universe the symbiote is not extraterrestrial. It is the second stage of a genetically created suit, designed by Peter's father Richard Parker and Eddie Brock Sr. as a cure for severe disease. The suit is tailored to one person's DNA, in this case Richard's. An incompatible host is constantly damaged by it, and it must feed on organic flesh to function. When it takes a host, it envelops him, temporarily blinding him, and hardens into a purple casing like a pupa.

  In that universe, Eddie Brock Jr. is Peter Parker's childhood friend and a writer for the Daily Globe. A second version, Conrad Marcus, was introduced in Ultimate Spider-Man Volume 2 #16.1. Marcus, an employee at Oscorp and later at the Roxxon Corporation, willingly becomes the symbiote's host and is a larger Venom than Brock's version. This Venom kills reporter Betty Brant, and he later hunts Jefferson Davis because he believes Davis is the new Spider-Man, Miles Morales. A battle at a hospital accidentally kills both Rio Morales and Marcus.

  An alternate version appears in Ultimate Spider-Man from 2024. It is a picotech stealth suit created by Howard Stark, with webbing built in. It can shapeshift its appearance and compact into a small orb.

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• 8. Venom on Screen

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  Comics journalist and historian Mike Conroy summed up Venom's path this way: "What started out as a replacement costume for Spider-Man turned into one of the Marvel web-slinger's greatest nightmares." Empire rated Venom 33rd on its list of the 50 Greatest Comic Book Characters, and IGN ranked him 22nd among the 100 Greatest Comic Villains of All Time. He was initially regarded as one of Spider-Man's three archenemies, alongside Norman Osborn and Doctor Octopus. The Eddie Brock version is the most recognizable Spider-Man antagonist not introduced during the original Lee and Ditko run, and many regard him as a dark reflection of the hero.

  In television, Spider-Man: The Animated Series featured Christopher Daniel Barnes as Spider-Man and Hank Azaria as Eddie Brock's Venom. In the three-part episode "The Alien Costume," the symbiote arrives on Earth through a meteorite sample called Promethium X, collected by John Jameson. Venom later joins Spider-Man and Iron Man against Carnage, Dormammu, and Baron Mordo. He and Brock sacrifice themselves to ensure the villains' defeat.

  The Spectacular Spider-Man cast Josh Keaton as Spider-Man and Benjamin Diskin as Brock. In Ultimate Spider-Man from 2012, Doctor Octopus creates the symbiote using a sample of Spider-Man's blood. A surviving piece later bonds with Flash Thompson, who shows unusual control over it and becomes Agent Venom. In Spider-Man from 2017, Eddie Brock renames the symbiote Venom in the episode "Dead Man's Party," and the series finale ends with a fragment bonding to Max Modell.

  Venom's path to a standalone film was long. A film written by David S. Goyer and produced by New Line Cinema was planned first, with Venom as an antihero and Carnage as the antagonist. By 2007, the rights had moved to Sony Pictures. Josh Trank was in talks to direct a Venom film in March 2012. In December 2013, Sony announced a spin-off called Venom: Carnage, to be directed by Alex Kurtzman. Another spin-off effort followed the third Spider-Man film, with Jacob Aaron Estes writing and later Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. These projects were cancelled.

  Venom appears in Spider-Man 3 from 2007, with Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker and Topher Grace as Eddie Brock. After Spider-Man rejects the symbiote, it bonds with Brock and allies with Flint Marko. Spider-Man kills it with one of the New Goblin's pumpkin bombs.

  In March 2016, Sony moved ahead with a standalone film and hired Dante Harper to write the script. In May 2017, Tom Hardy was announced as Eddie Brock and Venom, with Ruben Fleischer directing. Fleischer described taking inspiration from the works of David Cronenberg and John Carpenter. Filming began on the 23rd of October 2017. Venom was released in the United States on the 5th of October 2018 with a PG-13 rating, and Carlton Drake, as Riot, served as the primary antagonist.

  Venom: Let There Be Carnage followed in the United States on the 1st of October 2021. Its post-credits scene sends Eddie and Venom into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where they watch J. Jonah Jameson expose Peter Parker's identity. In the mid-credits scene of Spider-Man: No Way Home, a spell from Doctor Strange sends them back to their own dimension, leaving a piece of the symbiote behind. Hardy also appeared in Venom: The Last Dance in 2024.

  The character is also a fixture in video games. He is a boss in the Sega Mega-CD version of The Amazing Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin. In Spider-Man 2 from 2023, Tony Todd voices Venom as a playable character and final boss. Steve Blum voices him in Marvel Rivals.

  In February 2026, an animated Venom film was announced, to be directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein.

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