Venom explained: who or what is a 'Symbiote', and what does it mean for the Spider-Verse?

After watching the trailer for Tom Hardy's new movie, in which he transforms into a oil-black, oozing, snaggle-toothed humanoid with an impossibly long tongue, you may be left with many questions. Chiefly: “What - or who - on earth is Venom?" As is the case with many supervillain origin stories, the answer is complicated.

In the Marvel comic books the character of Venom is a Symbiote, a sentient amorphous extraterrestrial, who exists in a liquid-ish form and requires a host to bond with for its survival.  The Symbiote first appeared in May 1984 in The Amazing Spider-Man #252 as a living alien costume.  

Through their bond, a single entity is created and the Symbiote bestows enhanced powers such as superhuman strength, speed, agility and endurance, upon the host. The Symbiote is also able to alter their hosts personalities by influencing their darkest desires and wants, and amplify their physical and emotional traits and personality.  

Venom developed from the minds of many, beginning with Marvel Comics reader Randy Schueller who won a competition to design a new costume for Spider-Man in the early 1980s; he was paid $220.  

However, it was co-creators Todd MacFarlane (who also created the equally visceral horror-fantasy series Spawn) and David Micheline who came up with the slurpy, terrifying Venom we recognise today, with its first official appearance in May 1988 in The Amazing Spider-Man #300.

Venom’s first host was Spider-Man, aka Peter Parker, who eventually separated from the Symbiote. Venom went on to have other hosts, the most notable being disgraced news reporter Eddie Brock who went on to become of of Spider-Man’s archenemies.

Other memorable hosts include Mac Gargan, a Spider-Man villain formerly known as Scorpion, Flash Thompson, a war veteran and former bully of Peter Parker from high school, Lee Price, a discharged Army Ranger, and Tel-Kar, an alien Kree soldier.  

More often than not, the alien has ended up back with Eddie Brock, the TV journalist played by Tom Hardy in Venom. The creature eventually spawned Carnage, an even more violent and disturbing symbiote born after the Venom symbiote gave birth before springing Brock from prison and bonding with the blood of his psychotic serial killer cellmate Cletus Kasady. Carnage is an adversary to both Spider-Man and Venom and gleefully enjoys spilling blood; Spider-Man and Venom teamed up in order to take it down.

Venom is a very popular character and stands out in the Spider-Man comics and Marvel Comics for its extremely violent nature, making him an excellent foil to the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. The visual of Venom as a "dark Spider-Man", twisted into something horrific and terrifying with its long tongue, sharp teeth and shapeshifting body is a striking image. Peter Parker is well aware of Venom being his mirror image, a being that can augment his own powers yet prey on his worst impulses and manipulate his emotions and personality, and is rightfully scared of it. It is the trope of temptation, of Pandora’s Box, that makes Venom so appealing.

After the Amazing Spider-Man franchise fizzed out in 2014 Kevin Feige, Marvel Studios’ ringmaster, and Amy Pascal, the head of Sony Pictures at the time,struck an unprecedented deal in 2015. Spider-Man would be shared by the two studios, rebooting the character yet again and existing within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (aka, the MCU).

Marvel would be able to use Spider-Man in the MCU for five films, which have been revealed to have been Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Avengers: Infinity War, the upcoming untitled Avengers 4, and upcoming Spider-Man: Far From Home.  

Any Spider-Man films would be financed, marketed and distributed by Sony while Marvel Studios will produce and serve as the "creative lead". Sony would reap the box office profits while Disney will keep the money made from the sales of Spider-Man merchandise.

While Marvel Studios (and by extension Disney, who owns the studio) and Sony are currently playing nice over the web-slinger, Sony still owns Spider-Man and things could go belly up once the five picture deal struck in 2015 expires with the untitled Avengers 4 film.  Also complicating matters is that Sony hasn’t given up their ambition to gain a foothold in superhero films, which they intend to do through the Spider-Man characters they still retain.

Sony’s plan is to create what Sony is calling their ‘Marvel Universe,’ even though Marvel Studios has no input or involvement in those films at this time. Venom, starring Hardy, Michelle Williams and Riz Ahmed, is to be the first of these ‘Marvel Universe’ films, with plans made for films based on Spider-Man characters.  Other potential ‘Marvel Universe’ films included Silver and Black, to be directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, the vampire Moebius, starring Jared Leto, Kraven the Hunter and superheroine Silk.    

Venom has been through many ups and downs on its way to the big screen.  There had been various fits and starts throughout 1997-2002, and a Venom spin-off film was planned for The Amazing Spider-Man franchise. The character was revived again by Sony in 2016 and originally envisioned as a standalone film launching its own franchise and unrelated to Sony and Marvel’s Spider-Man films; obviously plans changed. In May 2017 Sony announced Hardy would star as Eddie Brock/Venom with Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) directing.

The biggest hurdle facing Venom is enticing audiences to invest in a universe based on Spider-Man characters without Spider-Man in it. Many people believe it makes no sense, which is understandable but there can be upsides to not being beholden to the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.  

One could make lemons out of lemonade and be more creative, take further liberties, ramp up the horror, and explore tones that would have been off limits before. However, Sony doesn’t appear to have taken that approach. Fleischer has come out saying “we only ever talked about [Venom] as being PG-13” illustrating how Sony is trying to appeal to the largest audience possible, in the process possibly truncating the violence that is a crucial aspect of Venom’s character and that gave him a fanbase in the first place.

Venom is in the unenviable position of not only having to be a decent film starring a fan favorite Spider-Man character, but to launch a potential cinematic universe of Spider-Man adjacent films for Sony - so no pressure.  

Unfortunately there is a possibility that history, a la The Amazing Spider-Man franchise, will repeat itself. Silver and Black was taken off Sony’s release schedule in June 2018, and early reviews for Venom are not good at all.  In spite of the popularity of Venom and its long and difficult journey to the screen, it doesn’t appear as though Sony’s bet is going to pay off.