Venom (Sony's Marvel Universe)

NOTE: This article is about the incarnation of Venom from the 2018 film. The mainstream version can be found here: Venom (Marvel).

“	WE...are Venom.	„
	~ Eddie Brock and Venom's most famous quote.

Edward "Eddie" Brock, also known as Venom, is the titular protagonist anti-hero of the 2018 superhero film of the same name.

He was portrayed/voiced by Tom Hardy, who also played Shinzon in Star Trek: Nemesis, Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, and John Fitzgerald in The Revenant.

Biography

Eddie started off as an investigative journalist who's doing a report on a company call Life Foundation, whose CEO Carlton Drake has found living symbiotes in a comet and have been performing illegal experiments on homeless civilians. However, a certain detailing of the experiments leads Brock to be ultimately fired, resulting a fallout with his girlfriend Anne Weying, who happens to an attorney.

Six months later, Brock receives help from a disgruntled scientist (who is disgusted by Drake's experiment) to expose Drake's crimes. Unfortunately, he discovers that his friend Maria has been captured and bonded to a symbiote. When he tries to free her, she attacks him, and her symbiote bonds to Brock while the scientist ends up being killed by Drake. Because of this event, Brock is hunted down by mercenaries sent in by Drake, and finds himself in conflict with the symbiote, who explains that the other symbiotes are searching for new world in order to devour lifeforms to survive, and offers to help out Brock in return for his cooperation. Though Brock seems to enjoy his new powers, he is upset to hear that Venom was eating his heart because Eddie wasn't eating much in awhile, so Anne Weying is forced to use an MRI machine to separate himself from the symbiote, although he is captured by Drake's mercenaries minutes later.

A separate symbiote named Riot bonds with Drake, who agrees to help Riot seek out the other symbiotes in space. Fortunately, Anne reluctantly bonds with the Venom symbiote, allowing it to free Brock before being convinced by him to stop Drake and Riot from achieving their goal. To that end, Venom manages to damage the ship's probe, causing an explosion that kills both Drake and Riot. As Eddie receives his job back, he allowed Venom to stay in his body under the condition that Venom only eats "bad people." Venom agrees and begins by devouring a thug robbing a grocery store.

Eddie is last seen visiting a state prison as he is about to do an interview with a dangerous convict named Cletus Kasady.

Personality

Eddie Brock

Similar to his original counterpart, Eddie is trying to excel in journalism. However, unlike his original counterpart (who happens to be somewhat wrathful in nature), Eddie tries to be more civil as he tends to avoid causing any trouble with the authorities. He is also more civil with Anne due to their friendship; even after their breakup and learning that she's going out with another man, Eddie decided that it would be better not to interfere with Anne's new relationship.

When being bonded with the Venom symbiote, Eddie seems to be very uncomfortable in becoming its host body as it made him go on the run from the law. However, he seems to appreciate his new abilities, even convincing the symbiote that they would just use the power only to take down criminals instead of hurting innocent people; even the symbiote agreed to this as it admitted that it was treated as a 'loser' in its home planet.

Venom Symbiote

The Venom symbiote was originally malicious and controlling being that worked for Riot in wreaking havoc and conquering planets with life where their current target being Earth. His controlling side best displayed through their early interactions with Eddie and how he caused his host troubles. He also enjoys combat and bloodshed, and has a sadistic sense of humor to boot, a trait that he retained even after befriended Eddie.

Even so, Venom is not without positive qualities, as through his time with Eddie, he grew to appreciate humanity and developed a soft spot for his host and Anne; even agreeing with Eddie that they should only kill criminals instead of innocent people. In contrast to Riot who treated his hosts as disposable battery, Venom cares for Eddie over time in spite of initially for his own survival. This was shown where the symbiote frantically plead to Eddie that he will fix the organs he just feed on and later, leaving Anne unharmed from his possession on her as they join forces to save Eddie from being killed by Drake's mercenaries (though Anne was nevertheless left horrified from Venom eating their heads through her). Venom also had an insecure side, as when telling Eddie how he had a change of heart, he told the man how he was treated like a loser and sees much of himself in Eddie, which eventually allow him to stand up against Riot by the climax of the film.

Powers and Abilities

Venom is a Klynthar, a race of parasitic goo-like alien lifeforms that can possess a living being upon physical contact and endow them superhuman powers including enhanced strength, speed, durability, healing factor, shapeshifting, and construct creation. While he is capable of seemingly suppressing a host's mind and use their bodies as if it were his own, he is able to almost meld minds with them and work collectively with them while sharing the same body. Eddie Brock himself on the other hand, lacked notable superhuman abilities of his own, but thanks to his compatibility with Venom, the alien symbiote who merged with his body, he gained the access for all powers and abilities Venom endowed to him.

• Shapeshifting: Being a Klynthar, Venom possesses the ability to change both shape and appearance of his very form as well as fashion part of its very being into weapons and constructs.
  • Symbiotic Costume: The symbiote can envelop the host's body within a sentient, malleablehbut durable suit complete with eyes, claws and a mouth with powerful jaws and sharp teeth while increases the body mass, turning him into powerful opponent.
  • Construct Creation: As stated before, Venom can fashion parts of his very being and that of host into weapon such as talons, web-like tendrils, shield, and as shown in climax of the film, using most of its biomass into a parachute/shield hybrid to both slow the descend and protection from harm. Venom's mastery over this ability notably pale as most of his constructs are malleable and yet able to create more solid and detachable ones.
• Superhuman Strength: Eddie can bolster his physical strength to superhuman level by having Venom enhancing his muscles.
  • Superhuman Leap: By having Venom increasing the strength of his leg muscles, Eddie can leap superhumanly high at will.
• Superhuman Durability: Due to Venom's presence inside him, Eddie's bodily tissue becomes substantially harder than normal human, which increased to maximum level by forming black, slimy armor around him.
• Superhuman Speed: Venom's enhancement on his muscles also enable Eddie to move faster than regular humans can keep up. A testament of this best displayed throughout his ability to dodge bullets and catch a tear gas that was fired from him.
• Regenerative Healing Factor: In addition of muscular enhancements and increase of bodily tissue's durability, Venom's presence in Eddie's body enable him to quickly regenerate from the most severe of injuries in mere seconds, from ruptured organs to broken bones. This allowed Brock to almost instantly recover from being hit by a van and having much of his body broken, as well as bring him back from the brink of death after he had been impaled by Riot. Even without a host, Venom can regenerate himself even from smallest bit of his very being provided that he has enough nourishment to so, as seen when the symbiote recovered some time after sacrificing most part of himself to protect Eddie.

Quotes

Trivia

• Venom does not like being called a "parasite", even if it is by Eddie (as they are arguing with this at the end of the film). He likely considers it a racist term.
  • However due to a Parasite were mindess creature that swapping any host in order to survive while a Symbiote were more high intelligence that a parasite,and they normally to choose a strong suitable host, it is most likely Venom feel Eddie were ungradeful for his'possession.
• It was also shown that Venom did like Anne and care about her; this could be one of the reasons why Venom didn't kill her while re-swapping into Eddie (which is weird as a symbiote would have to kill its host if he/she wasn't suitable to their nature or when swapping to another host).
  • It is implied that Venom may want a romantic relationship with Anne. After fighting with the SWAT team, when Anne asked Eddie to go to the hospital while the latter didn't want to do so, Venom suggested to Eddie to get in the car because he "likes" her. Another piece of evidence was after the battle with Riot, a survivor Venom tells Eddie that Anne doesn't know they are going to to steal her back.
• This is the second live-action cinematic incarnation of Venom, the first being Topher Grace's portrayal.
  • Ironically, while Topher Grace's portrayal was disliked by the fans, Hardy's portrayal had received more critical acclaim. Also, Topher's Eddie Brock was shown to like being evil, which doesn't fit the original comic's counterpart; Hardy's Brock was more fit to Venom's anti-hero/anti-villain side, and the appearance and personality are more fit to the comic's counterpart.
    • For the same reasons, Topher Grace himself greatly approved Hardy's portrayal of the character.
• The notable difference between Hardy's Venom and his comic's counterpart are the symbiote never met Spider-Man, which explained why Venom lacks the spider symbol on his chest. Also, Hardy's Venom not biologically related with Riot, the symbiote antagonist in the movie.
• According to Venom, on his planet he was a loser just like Eddie, which is one of the reasons for his attachment particularly to him.
  • This is partly a nod to his comic book counterpart that considered as an outcast among its kind because it wanted to form a bond with its hosts that benefited both parties when their species is usually purely parasitic.
• The line "Eyes, lungs, pancreas. So many snacks, so little time" is directly taken from The Amazing Spider-Man #374 .

External Links

• Venom at Heroes Wiki.

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