| “ | I'm having a moment. This is what he cares about the most in the world. His heart is filled with her. Her and her and her. He'll come here to get her. He'll come, and then we can flip a coin to decide if we kill him in front of her, or her in front of him. Either way, I'm good. | „ |
| ~ Venom to Sandman. |
You're trash, Brock!
Alright so we didn't expect to say this, but... we have a actual candidate from a Spider-Man film. But who, you may ask? Well, we took a look at the ones from the 2000s, and after rewatching not only the movie but a comic, I feel like we had missed this specific supervillain.
This is also a lovely collab with Mrs. Super Nova so I want to thank her for helping me with this discussion!
What’s The Work?[]
Spider-Man 3 is the third and last installment in the 2002-2007 Spider-Man Trilogy starring Tobey Maguire, Kristen Dunst, and James Franco.
This time, Peter Parker seems to be having a steady path, he's going to ask Mary Jane for marriage and is handling both sides of himself fairly well. Things change when a mysterious creature from outer space starts to mess with his life, coupled with the fact that Harry Osborn wants vengeance for his father's demise, and then a rival for his career eventually gains the powers of the creature and teams up with a shapeshifter who has ties with the crook who ended Uncle Ben's life, it's up to Peter to tackle the bad guys before he falls apart completely.
This is going to also take a tie-in comic into account. If you want to read it for yourself then we are glad to provide it right here:
https://readallcomics.com/spider-man-3-the-black
Who is Venom and What Has He Done?[]
Eddie Brock is a smug photographer who wants to get his job at the Daily Bugle at any cost. At the start of the film, he's first seen photographing Gwen's apparent death as she is hanging from a building. And in front of her father no less. Throughout the film, he displays typical jerk behavior such as kissing up to Spider-Man and Jameson, insulting Peter Parker's photography skills, and hitting on Betty Brant. However as the film continues, Eddie shows he is more than just your average a--hole.
Once the symbiote takes possession of Peter, Eddie forges a picture of Spider-Man robbing a bank to become the official photographer of the Daily Bugle. Peter Parker, however, recognizes that the photo has been forged from one of his own and exposes him. Rightfully, he is fired from his job. Upon realizing that Peter has won Gwen's heart over, he goes to a church to pray for Peter Parker's death. When Peter is getting the symbiote off of him from the roof of the church, it falls on and possesses Eddie.
Now let's flash forward to the one shot film comic, The Black. Eddie struggles with their bond at first, nearly consuming almost eight civilians and some cops in his way. As he gains Parker's memories, he tries to sneak into Gwen's residence and ambush her from behind, bragging that she'll love him like how she loves Peter but was forced to stop. He proceeds to kidnap Mary Jane like in the film while also being implied to have murdered a random taxi driver, and manipulates Sandman into aiding him by using his love for his dying daughter to his advantage. In the comic, we see Venom forcefully choke Mary Jane by her face as he licks her with his tongue and states that he's going to "love" her unlike how Spider-Man feels before suggesting to Sandman, who is disgusted by this that he pleads for Venom to place her back in the taxi, that they can flip a coin to decide who to kill first in front of the other. As cops try to rescue MJ, Venom and Sandman massacre the lot of them in their futile attempts.
When Spider-Man arrives, Venom reveals himself as Eddie and whines over how he wants to humiliate him and make him lose his girl because Peter made him "lose" his as he touches Mary Jane's breast and that his body is "tingling". Venom then gloats to Peter that he's going to end Mary Jane's life in front of him as he and Sandman proceed to punch and kick Peter senseless. As they fight, Peter constantly tries to convince Eddie to take off the suit for his own good, but Brock refuses to listen, insisting that he likes "being bad". When New Goblin arrives on the scene to help them, Venom uses his glider to try to kill Spider-Man with, only for Harry to block him, resulting in him being impaled deeply in the chest from behind before Venom tosses him several stories below to morally wound him. Spider-Man manages to get the symbiote off of Eddie by banging some pipes together. When he throws one of Goblin's pumpkin bombs at it, Eddie jumps in to save it only to be blown up into bits.
Heinous Standards?[]
While yes he needs to compete with Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus who does lots of vile crimes, Eddie/Venom is just a mere, normal prick who gains powers for only a few hours before dying, Yet despite that? He proceeds to try and consume quite a couple of innocents and police officers, has heavy signs of killing a innocent driver, proceeds to go on a killing spree with more waves of cops, has implications of sexual assault if not outright rape when he attempts to pounce on Gwen and when he lusts at Mary Jane, doing inappropriate acts such as with forcefully caressing her breasts and then brushing her face with his tongue while proclaiming that he'll make them love him and to the latter that his "spider-sense" was kicking off, plays a sick game in which he flips a coin to decide who gets to force Peter to watch as Mary Jane is murdered or vice-versa, trying to extend Peter's demise, and mortally wounds Harry with a wicked grin on his face, what makes this worse is that he's the only one who murders a crucial character in a particularly nasty way.
All of that combined, plus the personal cruelty and him being the only villain in the trilogy to have rape/sexual assault aspects makes him just vile enough in our opinion, especially since Norman owns a powerful company (Oscorp) and Otto has plenty of technology plus he didn't mean to cause huge collateral damage with the reactor, so Venom comes off as more evil in that regard as well.
Finally, he doesn’t have to compete with the Marvel Cinematic Universe villains since he is effectively gone and never comes back to life to crossover in Spider-Man: No Way Home unlike Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus so no issues there!
Mitigating Factors?[]
None. He clearly doesn't actually care about Gwen as he tried to photograph her clinging to a building for her life, and was seen briefly flirting with Betty Brant. Even Gwen doesn't care for him as she immediately turns down his offers for a date, and makes it clear they weren't in a relationship as they only had a "coffee". While one could argue that he was played with sympathy in the scenes where Spider-Man smashed his camera and got him fired, I'm going to explain why both of those don't hold any water:
- While Spider-Man may have been wrong to smash his camera, Eddie made a bunch of statements such as how he loved his black suit, which he needed to beat Parker in his job position. It's clearly implied that considering Spider-Man was wearing a black suit in front of a robbed bank, Eddie was planning to make him look like the thief, because Jameson made it clear he wanted a photo that would "expose" Spider-Man as a criminal. Spider-Man remembered that conversation and was aware of Brock's true motives, so he obviously wasn't going to put up with Brock's crap.
- Even though Parker probably shouldn't have gotten physical with Eddie over him forging the photo, Eddie was in the wrong for making Spider-Man look like a criminal, so inevitably it had to happen as he was trying to make Spider-Man look guilty for something he didn't do. And all for a job title. Rightfully, he was fired.
While Eddie may not have had control of himself when he attacked the civilians upon his possession, he clearly showed no remorse for those actions once he became more in control. And him saving the symbiote was not out of care but only because the thing gave him power. While the symbiote may have influenced his personality, it obviously hadn't changed much, considering he prayed for Peter Parker's death even before he was possessed, and there's the fact that Peter resisted the symbiote when he realized how badly it was controlling him. When Parker points this out, Eddie's dialogue about how he "[likes] being bad" implies that he is aware of it's influence and enjoys every moment of it.
As for his mass murder of the cops, I disagree that they were too brief to count. One of the them was seen unconscious with blood on his face and one was thrown to the side. There's also the fact that several cop cars were destroyed by Sandman. While one could argue Venom shared these crimes with Sandman, The Black makes it clear that Venom ordered him to keep everyone away from them. Also, him expressing his pity for Flint's daughter is said in such a tone that implies manipulation and obviously can't be taken to heart. So everything Sandman did was a part of Venom's plan.
Eddie also never refers to himself as "we". Very much like Carnage he refers to himself as "I" indicating he sees himself and the symbiote as one. He lacks any of his comic book counterpart's tragic or redeeming qualities and is willing to put several innocent lives at risk just to kill Spider-Man. He is shown to have no standards whatsoever.
Final Verdict?[]
After refreshing on everything, we are a slight yes to Venom.