Venom: Who Is The Lethal Protector? A Brief History

Venom: Who Is The Lethal Protector? A Brief History

With Marvel’s anticipated anti-hero Venom hitting theatres soon, and ComiConverse gives you a brief history of the Lethal Protectors. We discuss his unique origin and his journey into the Hollywood hills. 

The idea for the Venom character came from avid Marvel Comics reader Randy Schueller, who wanted to produce a darker costume for Spider-Man.  His lucky break came in 1982, as Marvel’s editor-in-chief Jim Shooter expressed interested in the reader's idea and ended up purchasing it from him for $220. Jim Shooter (Marvel Comics) added upon the thought, insisting that Spider-Man costume change to black-and-white. The alien nature of the costume, allowed Peter Parker to gain enhanced strength and speed during the Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars saga.

It did not morph into the Symbiote until, Amazing Spider-Man #252 (May 1984) in part of a story called "Homecoming!" taking place after Spider-Man's return from the events of the Secret miniseries Wars. The full first appearance of Venom is in The Amazing Spider-Man #300 (May 1988), after the Symbiote bonds with Eddie Brock.

Eddie Brock is a journalist who exposes a serial killer, only for the real killer to be caught by Spider-Man - thus leaving him accusing the wrong man of crimes he’d never commit. Ashamed and suicidal in a church he bonds with an alien Symbiote, after being rejected by Peter Parker prior. These moments in life are leaving him with a hatred for Spider-Man and uses his newly formed powers to defeat his arch enemy.

Brock would be fleshed out further down the line, with Peter David’s 1985 “Sin Eater” storyline in The Spectacular Spider-Man as the basis for his origin. Venom’s first proper appearance was first shown in the vast Web of Spider-Man #18 as the Symbiote pushes the red spandex hero in-front of ongoing trains. Marking a severe fuel, which has stayed in comic print for over 20 years. Over the years, Venom has become a more intelligent being and learned ways to move from hosts.

The Symbiote requires a living host to survive but can fend for itself while searching for new victims. It also is capable of shapeshifting and creating sharp weapons to defeat enemies in versatile situations. As well as mimic human shapes while in connection with hosts, building muscles and height. Venom dramatically enhances the physical strength of those it bonds with. Its hosts experience a vastly larger size and musculature.

Marvel’s alien displays non-human teeth, which are very sharp, and commonly protrudes a long tongue from its mouth. Venom is depicted as being physically much more significant than Spider-Man, as well as having more brute strength. It also exhibits several powers unique to Spider-Man, from tentacle webs and wall-crawling abilities.

There are multiple versions of Marvel’s anti-hero Venom, including Eddie Brock and Flash Thompson who are the most popular approaches. Each host has different personalities, which grants powers exclusive o one and other. Including the modern Agent Venom which utilised army techniques, instead of brutal alien powers - and felt like a realistic approach to the genuinely comic character.   

The characters best arc came from Venom: Lethal Protector, that begins with Venom and Spider-Man made agreements that they would stop chasing each other. Venom then moves from New York to San Francisco, getting into trouble with the iconic Californian Mole People. Shortly after that, the father of one of Venom's victims seeks him out with a group of super-powered mercenaries to take revenge.

Spider-Man, seeing misleading coverage of Venom on television, heads to San Francisco to confront him and instead winds up fighting alongside Venom against five new offspring of them. Scream, Phage, Riot, Lasher and Agony. Each one of these symbiotes has different properties and even end up appearing down the line. The most significant of these alien is Carnage, a corrupted being that knows no boundaries and often overpowers Venom in many instances. Perhaps, we will see the character on screen one day? Because evil Carnage would be a blast for audiences.

In 1997, David S. Goyer wrote a script for a potential film featuring the Marvel Comics character Venom - to be produced by New Line Cinema. Dolph Lundgren was eyed to play the lead role in Eddie Brock and could have included Carnage as the main villain. Sadly the project never happened, as the rights for Venom and Spider-Man transferred to Sony Pictures.

Years later, Eddie Brock and Venom were included in Sam Rami’s Spider-Man 3 with Topher Grace as the character. Grace was intended to have a minor role in the film, with plans for future spin-offs to include his dark presence. Sony has been actively developing Venom alongside direct sequels to Spider-Man 3 by July 2008 but gave up the chase after rebooting the webhead in 2012 with Amazing Spider-Man.

Venom was revived by Sony in March 2016, with Arad and Tolmach producing, and Dante Harper writing a new screenplay. The project was envisioned as a standalone film launching its franchise, unrelated to Sony and Marvel's new Spider-Man movies. A year later, the film was granted a release date of October 3rd 2018. In May, Sony announced that Tom Hardy would star as Eddie Brock / Venom in Venom, to be directed by Ruben Fleischer and officially begin "Sony's Marvel Universe".

But can the film celebrate Venom’s rich comic book history? Or bottle under pressure and throw out all of his best humorous moments. ComiConverse will get back to you with that in a couple of weeks, with their official review of Venom (2018). We hope this article got you excited about the project, or maybe interested in reading his best stories.

Venom releases worldwide on October 3rd 2018.

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Jordan is the Content Editor at ComiConverse. Follow him on Twitter: @JordanESamuel