| NOTE: This article only covered the symbiote and excludes Harry Osborn. |
Venom, also known as the Symbiote is a minor character in the 2018 action-adventure superhero video game Marvel's Spider-Man as well as its 2020 spin-off Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, one of the two main antagonists (alongside Kraven the Hunter) of its 2023 sequel Marvel's Spider-Man 2, and the main protagonist of the story "Kiss the Ring" from issue #1 of the 2024 comic book miniseries Venomverse Reborn.
An alien parasite-like super-organism nicknamed a Symbiote, who was utilized to keep Harry Osborn alive from suffering a genetic disease that already killed his mother. The symbiote, codenamed VNM-252, eventually bonding with his best friend, Peter Parker after he was killed by Kraven but revived by the symbiote, before it eventually returned to Harry, perfectly fusing the two into Venom. After receiving the idea of Harry's dream of "Healing the World", Venom intends to do that by terraforming all human life into symbiotes.
What Makes It a Base Breaking Character?[]
What Do People Like About It?[]
- Tony Todd provided a very entertaining and great performance for it, this extended to Graham Phillips as well for Harry Osborn providing a great performance, best seen when Peter got "killed" by Kraven.
- His design was very terrifying and intimidating and was a very great one.
- Unlike most of his versions that always tended to be goofy and comedic, this one completely lacked that and was actually a very menacing threat. He also lacked the fire weakness, and a minor one to the Anti-Venom Symbiote.
- When playing as Peter Parker in the black suit, the player felt like they were playing as an indestructible monster, especially when activating the symbiote surge.
- The boss fight between Miles and Venom bonded to Peter wwas amazing.
- Playing as Venom was one of the game's biggest highlights and fans loved playing as him absolutely destroying Oscorp security guards and Hunters.
- His boss fight against Kraven was one of the coolest moments of the game, and him eating the head of Kraven showed that this Venom was no joke, it helped that there was blood on Venom's teeth to show how scary he was, while other media that had symbiotes that bite people's heads off lacked that.
- The stake for defeating Venom was very high; despite having to save the world, Peter also had to save his best friend from the symbiote's influence.
- His final boss fight against the two Spider-Men was regarded as one of the best in the game.
- People liked that the Venomverse Reborn #1 comic partially gave back one of his redeeming qualities by making his belief to save others genuine, by having him refuse to team up with Knull in his goal of enslaving others.
What Do People Hate About It?[]
- Fans felt like this Venom is only in name and design alone, with his personality having completely changed to other eviler symbiote characters like Knull or Dark Carnage and completely threw out most of the redeeming qualities that Venom had in the comics. It also didn't help that in the comics, Venom had a vendetta with Spider-Man and Peter only for the most part and was against a symbiote invasion, while this adaption masterminded one, even if it had good intentions with it, it's still out of character.
- Venom's plan to heal the world by terraforming the planet into a world only inhabited by Symbiotes, didn't exactly feel right to some fans, especially for a street level superhero like Spider-Man facing an Avengers level threat since other superheroes hadn’t been fully established in Insomniac Games’ Marvel universe.
- Venom was hyped up to be the main villain for the entire marketing for the game and only showed up for the third act. Fans felt like it was rushed and a complete waste of his character just to prop up Kraven the Hunter and wished it was longer for more screentime for Venom and to flesh Venom out even more.
- Even though it's crucial for Venom and Spider-Man's character and its the status quo/canon events of Spider-Man media, black suit Spider-Man is becoming overused at this point to some fans, especially if its not utilized right, because they all normally play out the same and it's becoming predictable and unpredictable at the same time; Peter gets the suit, becomes stronger and more powerful, the suit corrupts peter at the price making him more violent, Peter realises what the suit is doing and rips it off.
- Him and his Spider-Man 3 film counterpart are two examples of the main problem that Venom adaptations get in Spider-Man media (with the exception of the PS1 game, Sony Spider-Man Universe and Web of Shadows) and why he doesn't really work for being a villain for only one story, that being because Venom takes too long to be an actual character/villain and be faithful to it's source material at the same time, you have to have Peter feeling down until bonding with the symbiote, then Spider-Man begins being corrupted by it and rejects it, and there is mostly more focus and screentime on the black suit and how it corrupts Peter rather than the Venom character itself so when you finally get to Venom being bonded to Eddie Brock or Harry Osborn. 2/3 of the story is already completed and Venom is left half-baked and underused with barely any screentime and are normally killed off way too soon. It doesn't help that in Web of Shadows, divisive as that game and out of character Venom was, had Venom at least being an already established character, and it doesn't help that in the Insomniac Games there are many already established villains.
- Venom's design and prowess overall, doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to some fans, being about 10ft tall and exaggeratedly muscular feels wrong, and it makes him similar to the Hulk.
- It's worse when its host, Harry Osborn is of average height and build. The reason why Venom was incredibly buff, strong and gigantic in the comics and in most Spider-Man media is because it's host, Eddie Brock, was already a naturally (or juiced up) buff, strong and gigantic host to begin with.
- And it also doesn't make sense that Harry, being a weak host overall with his genetic disease nearly killing him, overpowers Peter and Miles even more than when Peter had the symbiote even if it got Adaptational Badass treatment.
External Links[]
- Venom on the Villains Wiki
- Venom on the Near Pure Evil Wiki
- Venom on the Marvel Database Wiki
- Venom on the Marvel's Spider-Man Wiki