Characters / SSU Protagonists

aka: SSU Eddie Brock Venom

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Protagonists | Civilians | Enemies

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The Lethal Protector

"We... are Venom!"

Portrayed By: Tom Hardy

Dubbed By: Jérémie Covillault (European French)

Appearances: Venom | Chen's Market^note Venom's voice only | Venom: Let There Be Carnage | Spider-Man: No Way Home ^note  In The Stinger | Venom: The Last Dance

The collective identity of disgraced reporter Eddie Brock and the alien symbiote Venom.

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Tropes that apply to both

• 11th-Hour Ranger: Subverted. Despite being teased to play a major role by the post-credit scene of Let There Be Carnage, Eddie and Venom choose to opt out of the action and end up spending their entire stay in the MCU drinking in a bar before being sent back to their home dimension.
• Adaptational Comic Relief:
  • In contrast to his comic self, who has his moments of being sarcastic and funny, Eddie is portrayed much more comedically due to being a Loser Protagonist. While Venom had this primarily be shown by him freaking out by the insane situation of being bonded by Venom, who honestly does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to protecting them, Let There Be Carnage continues this with things like his Vitriolic Best Buds dynamic with Venom.
  • With Venom it's downplayed with the first film, but played straight in the sequel. This version of Venom is far more of a Jerkass to Loser Protagonist Eddie, making fun of him often which adds to their Vitriolic Best Buds dynamic. Let There Be Carnage makes him more excitable Shipper on Deck for Eddie and Anne, having become slightly more nice since the first film and now desires to be a '90s Anti-Hero.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Prior to obtaining the symbiote, Eddie lightly chides his girlfriend for working for an evil person, and tries to bring up the allegations about Carlton Drake performing life-threatening experiments on vulnerable people during an interview. After obtaining the symbiote, he explicitly forbids it from hurting innocents. While Eddie in the comics does share his movie counterpart's desire to protect innocent people, he indulged in a few unethical practices, was by his own admission not a particularly nice person, and — Depending on the Writer — Venom's villainy was all Eddie's fault as his rage corrupted the symbiote. Here, Eddie manages to be a positive influence on Venom. Also in contrast to Spider-Man 3, where Eddie was a sleazy photographer who willingly forged pictures of Spider-Man to get a coveted staff job at the Daily Bugle, and worked with Venom to hurt Spidey in any way they could, Eddie holds himself to a very high ethical standard (at least as far as the truth is concerned), and only lets Venom hurt really bad people.
  • The symbiote lacks its hatred for Spider-Man and seems overall more reasonable. In fact, it is its idea to go into the fight with Riot due to growing on Eddie and planet Earth. While its desire of eating people and their brain still remains, the symbiote is totally into the idea of becoming a Vigilante in the sequel.
• Adaptation Name Change: In the comics, the symbiote actually doesn't have a name and is only referred to as the Venom symbiote due to its bond with Eddie, with "Venom" being the name of their shared form. Here, it's actually named Venom. While they both refer to themselves as Venom at the end of the first film, in the second film Venom seems to want their superhero name to be "Lethal Protector" which Eddie finally agrees to at the end of the film and is the closest thing they have to a traditional codename.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: Inverted. Due to the ambiguous situation with Sony's cooperation with Marvel Studios over the MCU Spider-Man movies, all connections between Venom and Spider-Man are cut, completely rewriting Eddie's and Venom's origin as it was their shared hatred for Spider-Man that brought the two together in the first place. Let There Be Carnage reveals the MCU is an Alternate Universe to the SSU, and while Spider-Man is implied to exist in Morbius there still isn't a connection between him and Eddie.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • A mild example for Eddie, who is still quite physically fit in this movie but not excessively so, and his personality is less aggressive when contrasted with the vengeful, bodybuilding Badass Normal from the comics.
  • Zig-Zagged with Venom. Venom considers itself a loser on its home planet, and unlike its comic book counterpart, is not the "father" of Riot, but actually ranks much lower than Riot does in terms of abilities. It's mostly a case of Riot getting significant Adaptational Badass treatment.
• Alternate Self: Has one on Earth-96283, as the Spider-Man of that reality references his fight with Eddie's counterpart when mentioning the symbiote in No Way Home.
• Anti-Hero: Together they are this, with Eddie being the moral centre of the two and more concerned with protecting people while Venom is the wannabe '90s Anti-Hero who wants to eat heads. Together they are able to save the world and stop a serial killer.
• Audience Surrogate: Eddie and Venom are newcomers to the MCU, and need someone to recap the events of the previous films to them before they can make any sense of what's happening.invoked
• Dimensional Traveler: Technically, Eddie and Venom are the first characters to visit the Marvel Cinematic Universe from a separate film franchise. Eddie and Venom opt out of taking part in the action and are sent back to their home universe just after Eddie decides to go to New York and talk things out with Spider-Man.
• Genre Refugee: Downplayed as Eddie and Venom are comic characters from the superhero genre. However their own film series was more of a Superhero Horror which at the time when No Way Home came out wasn't a genre the MCU had explored, so Eddie was pretty confused to find himself in a world full of more traditional superheroes. He's utterly baffled by the idea that there was a team of superheroes and an alien obsessed with seemingly magic stones that killed half the universe, while mentioning that in his experiences aliens only want to eat people, and Venom makes fun of the Hulk's name.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Inverted in No Way Home as Eddie and Venom come from a cinematic universe that is just starting out, and at the time had featured only aliens and one superhuman. In comparison the MCU has been around for over a decade and has featured far more than aliens and superhumans, making Eddie and Venom less impressive in the more fantastical MCU.
• Trapped in Another World: Like the other multiversal visitors in No Way Home, Eddie and Venom are this. The "trapped" part is emphasized here though, as they had travelled all the way to Mexico to escape the authorities in Let There Be Carnage, and their warping into the MCU did not change their location.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Venom and Eddie often argue, with Let There Be Carnage showing their relationship becoming pretty aggressive and in Eddie's own words "abusive". However it's also shown that they do care about each other, with Venom becoming deeply upset after he and Eddie have a violent argument in the second film and Eddie on some occasions admitting that he needs Venom.

Eddie Brock

Edward Charles Allan "Eddie" Brock

"We all have our own problems, our own issues, our own demons."

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Affiliation(s): Daily Globe (formerly), The Eddie Brock Report (formerly), Daily Bugle (formerly)

"I'm a reporter. I follow people that do not want to be followed. You have to learn how to hide in plain sight. I'm pretty good at it... but you? You suck."

An investigative reporter who lost both his job and fiancée for being too curious about the Life Foundation's unethical experiments. Through an accident in the foundation's labs, he becomes the host of the Venom symbiote.

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• Abled in the Adaptation: He does not have cancer like his comic book counterpart, though he wonders if the symbiote is a brain tumor-induced hallucination, though it should be noted to be "at the time" as Venom (Donny Cates) later retconned that Eddie never had cancer when he first bonded to the Symbiote and, in fact, the cancer he did get was the symbiote screwing with his body chemistry, and his belief that he did have it at first was the symbiote gaslighting Eddie into staying with it.
• Abusive Parents: Like in the comics, Eddie’s father was a firm believer in Maternal Death? Blame the Child!.
• Adaptational Angst Downgrade: Eddie isn't shown to have cancer, and he takes his firing with sad humor instead of suicidal despair and rage. It should also be noted that Venom (Donny Cates) retconned that Eddie didn't have cancer at first, and when he did get cancer, it was due to the symbiote screwing with his body chemistry.
• Adaptational Badass: Zig-zagged. While Eddie seems to be a fit, exercising man who can hold his own in a physical fight, he does not seem to be the herculean Badass Normal he was in the comics, where he was canonically almost as strong as Captain America and actually a little stronger than guys like Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin. He does seem to be a more competent and famous reporter though, even having his own primetime show.
• Adaptational Curves: Inverted. In the comics, Eddie is very buff and has a broad build (where Venom was originally depicted getting his large, monstrous appearance from), but here Eddie has a more average build (if on the large side of average).
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Eddie Brock is blond in the comics, but has brown hair in the film.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: He's less egocentric than his comic book counterpart. Also, while in the comic books he is mad at Spider-Man for exposing his mistake here he loses his job while really finding out his girlfriend's boss does illegal things and for that the Jerkass Has a Point this time despite costing said girlfriend her job.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Owing to the movie omitting his toxically obsessive hatred of Spider-Man, which is not needed here since Spidey is Adapted Out, Eddie reacts radically differently to his fall from grace compared to the comics. In the source material, Eddie by his own admission wasn't all that kind even before his life went to crap (even keeping a serial killer's identity hidden for a while to write sensationalist articles, as opposed to this movie's Intrepid Reporter) and afterwards became first suicidal, then borderline psychotic as he gleefully embraced the Venom symbiote. In this version, he instead looks at the whole ordeal with a sardonic, self-depreciating sense of humor, coming off more as Endearingly Dorky and even a Nice Guy at times, and spends a solid chunk of the movie being weirded out by the symbiote. The movie also doesn't make any overt references to his Catholic beliefs, which in the comics were a major aspect of his character. His eagerness to build a reputation as a reporter and help those who can't help themselves, however, remain, and by the end of the movie, his relationship with the symbiote more closely reflects that of the comics.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In the comics, Anne Weying was Eddie's wife, divorcing from him after Eddie lost his job as she saw him as a loser. In the movie, they were only engaged and Anne left Eddie after losing her job due to his actions as a journalist. However, as the movies go on, they sort of figure it out and become Amicable Exes in the process.
• Adaptational Sympathy: Compared to his comics counterpart and his depiction in Spider-Man 3, Eddie's transformation into Venom and the subsequent experiences he goes through are played more tragically. He still loses his job due to his own fault like in Rami's trilogy, but instead of being fired for forging photos or for pinning the blame of a serial killer on the wrong guy like in the comics, he goes against orders to try and prove Carlton Drake's guilt, and does accept his role in losing Ann instead of blaming Peter for his mistakes (not that there is a Peter to blame in his universe). Moreover, the fact his relationship with Venom is Vitriolic Best Buds at best most of the time, sometimes to the point he has trouble functioning in his everyday life, makes him more of a tragic figure.
• Age Lift: Potentially. While usually portrayed as only being a couple of years older than Peter Parker, placing Eddie in his late twenties or early thirties, Tom Hardy was 41 when Venom was released. So this version of Eddie might be around the same age. In No Way Home this makes him around twenty years older than the MCU Peter, about a decade older than the Webb-Verse Peter and around the same age as the Raimi-Verse Peter. Meanwhile Madame Web reveals that the SSU Peter Parker was born in 2003, meaning there is an age gap of roughly 25 years between Peter and Eddie.
• The Alcoholic: He spends the first half of the first film mostly drunk, and his appearance in No Way Home has him having spent all day (if not longer) getting drunk at a local bar while trying to learn the MCU's backstory.
• Amicable Exes: With Annie. He seems to have found his peace with Anne living her life. He seems also to be happy for her and Dan and doesn't try to win her back. To his annoyance, Venom doesn't exactly share the same sentiments.
• Apologetic Attacker: He constantly apologizes to Treece and his thugs while Venom beats them up.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: A drunk Eddie scoffs at the bartender's description of Thanos and the Infinity Stones, remarking that the aliens he knows only want to eat brains.
• Badass Biker: He's an avid biker, and his first fight scene with Life Foundation's agents leads to a violent chase scene with him riding a motorcycle.
• Badass in Distress: Due to the Venom symbiote being much weaker than Riot, it and Eddie get absorbed by Riot easily.
• Betty and Veronica: Since Venom is a Shipper on Deck for Eddie and Anne, she becomes the Archie and him the Veronica: a now-anti-hero fused with a violent symbiote, against the mentally sound and honorable surgeon Dan (Betty). Though Eddie is happy for her and seemingly doesn't want to win her back.
• Beware the Nice Ones: When Eddie sees that his favorite shopkeeper is being forced into a "protection" racket, he lets Venom loose on the thug.
• Big Eater: After acquiring Venom, Eddie develops an increasingly absurd hunger, eating every bit of food he comes across, even rotten ones.
• Big "NO!": When Venom seemingly sacrifices itself.
• Brutal Honesty: The first trailer establishes him as someone who doesn't hold his opinions back, which according to Anne got him fired from his job at New York's Daily Globe. In an interesting way, it's used to establish him as a good person, as he bluntly challenges the Big Bad, Carlton Drake, making it clear that he knows Drake is performing life-threatening experiments. More humorously, he outright says to Dora Skirth — the Life Foundation employee who's following him — that she sucks at being discreet.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Eddie's life sucks because of his poor decision making, and in both films nothing seems to go right for him. Even in the sequel he's still shown to be a mess despite having a Career Resurrection, while Venom in both films is shown to be a Hyper-Competent Sidekick who keeps him alive.
  • Venom expresses the desire to fight Spider-Man in the stinger of Let There Be Carnage, but Eddie's streak of bad luck continues as he and Venom get yanked away from the MCU before they get a chance to do anything in it aside from getting drunk at a bar.
• Career Resurrection: In-Universe, Eddie gets back his prestigious reporter job at the end of the movie. He then gets to interview Cletus Kasady at the stinger.
• Composite Character: He's basically 616!Eddie Brock's origin, personality and character flaws mixed with 616!Peter Parker's snark, repressed anger, and overall good nature.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Abused by his father after his mother died in childbirth.
• Deadpan Snarker: Has his moments, most notably after killing the thug with Ms. Chen watching, where he just bluntly apologizes and says he has a parasite while acting like it isn't a big deal.
• Did Not Get the Girl: As a result of his actions at the beginning of the movie, Eddie and Anne broke up, but they parted ways on peaceful terms. While Eddie still has feelings for her, he seems to be happy for Anne's new relationship. Venom, however, is convinced it won't remain this way for long and that they could win her back. However Anne gets engaged in the second film, while in the end Eddie is forced to go on the run leaving it more unlikely that they will get back together.
• Distressed Dude: Is constantly being saved by Venom or Anne or both at the same time, but it is justified as it cleanly establishes just how majorly out of his depth Eddie is. By the final act, Eddie grows out of it as he and Venom become more in tune with each other and learn how to work together.
• Don't Make Me Destroy You: When cornered by a squad of SWAT police, Eddie advises them to back off. They don't listen, so Venom happily crushes them.
• Driven to Suicide: Lightly implied; after getting shut down by Anne again, the scene immediately following has him looking over the waterfront of the Golden Gate Bridge. The Bridge is infamous for attracting suicide attempts, but it also provides a prime view of Drake's Life Foundation headquarters. The scene ends with him asking Dora about the truth of Drake's experiments.
• Drowning My Sorrows: After his disastrous interview with Drake and subsequent fall from grace, he's seen drinking both at a pub and at home.
• Fee Fi Faux Pas: Eddie makes the mistake of trying to belittle the threat posed by Thanos and the Infinity Stones while talking to a man whose whole family was ashed by the Snap.
• Foil: To Carlton Drake. Drake is a billionaire who is fully invested in the big picture of humanity's future, Eddie is upper-middle class and then moves to lower-class after he and Anne break up, is very much in the moment and uses his fame in reporting to bring the plights of everyday people (ie. the homeless, or political protestors) to light. Eddie's reputation and relations all go down the toilet when he tries to expose Drake's inhumane practices, where Drake's fame only grows as he continues (as seen when a group of school children were touring his lab). Even their relationships with their symbiotes are opposite. While Venom is at first using Eddie as a ride and keeps him around because they match perfectly, he still takes care of him and grows to genuinely care for his host to the point that he performs a Heroic Sacrifice to save Eddie from an explosion. On the other hand, Riot is implied to just be using Drake in order to get access to his rocket ship.
• Forgot to Pay the Bill: Doctor Strange's second spell ends up warping a drunken Eddie back to his home universe before he's able to pay off his bar tab. Though given Eddie's financial situation, it's likely he didn't have any money to pay the bartender anyway.
• Game Face: When Eddie is trying to persuade his rocker neighbor to turn the music down, his eyes briefly turn jet-black and his teeth turn into fangs.
• Girly Scream: Eddie's voice jumps several octaves, alongside his testicles, when the symbiote startles him for the first time as he's staring at his own reflection.
• Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist: Eddie wears a Hawaiian shirt and a ball cap at a bar in Mexico. The fact they were transported to this dimension adds to the tourist part of this trope.
• Hearing Voices: Eddie hears the Venom symbiote's voice in his head when it speaks to him.
  Eddie: I'm feeling really sick. I'm hearing a voice...
  Venom: Eddie!
  Eddie: Y-you're not real! You're just in my head!
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Although he does have a few friends such as Mrs. Chen and Maria, Eddie's being hunted down by the police and the mercenaries sent by Carlton Drake because he has become the host for Venom.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: The two spend all of their time in the MCU getting smashed and trying to figure out what's going on, and the crisis passes before they have time to accomplish anything of importance.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Riot stabs Eddie with one of his blades, leaving him to die. However, Venom re-bonds with him, saving his life.
• Innocently Insensitive: When trying to make sense of the MCU, Eddie is confused as to why a purple alien is such a big deal there, unaware that said alien was a genocidal madman.
• Intrepid Reporter: Eddie Brock is an investigative journalist whose desire to "do [his] job" sees him disgraced and run out of New York. In an interview with Dr. Carlton Drake, he goes off-script to interrogate him about allegations that the Life Foundation is conducting illicit human experiments — putting him at odds with his fiancée Anne Weying, whose law firm represents Drake and the Life Foundation; and resulting in him being blacklisted from journalistic work. Eddie being contacted by a disgruntled employee, digging into the Life Foundation's dark secrets, and accidentally acquiring one of their symbiotes puts him in their sights as a threat.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Despite his issues, he is never jealous of Anne's new boyfriend Dan. In the end, Eddie is on better terms with her, though they're not together. It's revealed in the sequel that he is still pretty hung up on it, though, and his genuine attempts to pretend he is happy for Anne and Dan's engagement fall flat. Eddie even briefly considers suicide by traffic accident for a moment until Venom convinces him otherwise.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Despite ruining his career after the interview with Drake and subsequent cynicism, he is still dedicated to do the right thing. After getting on better terms with Venom, he agrees to do things its way, but on the condition that it will only hurt "bad people".
• Knight Templar: Eddie demands that if the symbiote is going to hurt anyone, it should at least only hurt bad people.
  Eddie: I have no problem with you sticking around, but we will only hurt the bad people.
• Loser Protagonist: The first film starts with him losing his job and any public respect he had after totally botching his interview with Drake, quickly followed by his fiancée leaving him for a breach of trust and every other employer blacklisting him. He then lives in his filth in an unemployed malaise for a while. It's implied that he was considering suicide before the Venom symbiote found him.
• Monstrous Humanoid: As Venom, Eddie is a towering, bulky humanoid monster with viscous inky-black skin, white vein-like markings, large white eyespots, claws, a gaping maw full of fangs, and a long prehensile tongue.
• Moustache de Plume: After being fired, Eddie is so desperate to find a new job that he even considers writing under a female pseudonym. He still gets rejected.
• Naïve Newcomer: The reason he never actually shows up to meet Spider-Man? Seemingly, he spent the film's entire runtime taking notes on the MCU, which has way more going on in it than most cinematic superhero universes can claim. Thus, by the time he's ready to track down Spider-Man as he planned to, the movie is over and he's sent back to his home universe.
• Never Hurt an Innocent: His main condition for letting Venom stick around is that, if they must eat people, it can only be bad people. He's also pretty firm in needing solid proof that he's seen for himself before he gives the green light on killing somebody. Luckily for him, Venom's totally on board with this.
• Never My Fault: To a degree. Though he rightly assumed Drake was a bad guy from the start, Eddie's life spiraling downhill was of his own doing. He made the conscious decision to break Anne's trust and view confidential information, then derailed his interview with Drake by bringing up the illegal allegations, which cost him his and Anne's job, as well as their relationship. He blamed Drake for all of this. Anne flat out tells him that it's his fault and he eventually comes to realize this.
• Nice Guy: For all his faults, Eddie is motivated to do what he feels is the right thing.
  • The "Eddie Brock Report" montage near the beginning of the film establishes that he focuses on stories that involve the plight against the homeless in San Francisco. He's on good terms with a homeless woman, Maria, and gives her $20 despite struggling to find work, then tries to rescue her when he finds out she's being experimented on.
  • When Eddie finds out Anne is seeing someone else, he doesn't show any bitterness.
  • His kindness is strong enough that it manages to convince the Venom symbiote, who came to Earth for the express purpose of invading and killing all humans, to turn against Riot and its entire race and live semi-peacefully on Earth, only harming bad people who deserve it.
• Noodle Incident: Eddie lost his job at the prestigious Daily Globe newsroom and was effectively run out of New York due to an unspecified incident — a reference to the comics' Sin-Eater case.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: You can hear Tom Hardy's English accent break through his narration at times, specifically on "own" and "issues." It slips even further in the full trailer, with lines "the guy you work for is an evil person" just coming out as a weird mishmash... thing.
• Perma-Stubble: Contrasting the Eddie Brock from the comics, who was almost always clean-shaven.
• Resigned to the Call: At the end of the second film, despite having been desperate to return to having some sort of normal life through most of it, he seems to accept that he will always be tied with Venom and comes round to the idea of being the "Lethal Protector" as Venom calls them.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: When Venom suddenly shouts his name while he brushes his teeth.
• Throwing Out the Script: The incident that cost Eddie his job as a reporter was that he was supposed to interview Dr. Carlton Drake about their new space probe... but instead threw the script out the window and started grilling him about allegations that the Life Foundations was conducting unethical experiments. Going by Anne Weying's mention of the "Daily Globe incident", Eddie has a history of doing such things and getting into trouble for them.
• Two First Names: He has four, to be exact.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: Tom Hardy gives Eddie Brock an accent that's... a little hard to pin down. It's equal parts Brooklyn-American and Cockney English, with just a tiny bit of Australian thrown in at times. His tendency to slur and mumble his words certainly doesn't help, and his delivery sounds almost Sandlerish at times.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He is afraid of heights, which comes into play when Venom jumps at the highest point of the MNBN building. He even uses an elevator to go down, which gets Venom to call him a pussy.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Initially, he just thinks Drake is a stereotypical corrupt billionaire who violates human rights with illegal experiments on the homeless and he's the Intrepid Reporter going to expose him. In reality, he's in a Superhero Horror and Drake's plans are far more insane, with the goal of bonding humanity with aliens.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Just when you think that Eddie can have a fresh start after becoming a fugitive following the events of Let There Be Carnage, he is brought back to his universe before he can do anything.

Venom

Venom

Species: Klyntar

Citizenship: None

Affiliation(s): Life Foundation (formerly)

"On my planet, I am kind of a loser, like you. But here, we could be more. And I'm getting to like it here."

An amorphous sentient alien entity found by the Life Foundation. Eddie Brock accidentally bonds with it.

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• '90s Anti-Hero: Fittingly considering the character's popularity in that decade, Venom desperately wants to be this in Let There Be Carnage. He even suggests that he and Eddie call themselves the Lethal Protector, and expresses anger at Eddie stopping him from biting the heads off criminals.
• Achilles' Heel: Like in the comics, the symbiote is specifically vulnerable to fire and sound (specifically, frequencies in the 4-6 kilohertz range).
• Adaptational Intelligence: Compared to its last appearance on the silver screen at least. The Spider-Man Trilogy incarnation of the symbiote never shows if it's a truly sapient creature, simply acting like an instinct-driven monster, but this one is quite clearly an intelligent being like in the comics.
  Eddie: Wh-what is that?
  Venom: Not what; who!
• Adaptational Superpower Change: The symbiote in the comics copies a lot of powers his first host, Spider-Man, possesses such as Projectile Webbing and Wall Crawl. Due to Spider-Man being Adapted Out of their origin story, the symbiote lacks that specific Spider-Man-related powers.
• Adaptational Villainy: Truer to the Text aspects aside, this version of the symbiote is far more malicious and controlling than it originally was in the comics. In Venom's original appearance, it was heavily implied (and occasionally confirmed Depending on the Writer) that the symbiote was turned into an insane monster in part due to Eddie's intense hatred for Spider-Man, something that would bite Eddie in the ass when it tries to turn him into a Knight Templar when he's genuinely trying to protect innocent people. Current comics also portray the symbiote as having a pet-like loyalty towards Eddie, while the film begins with Venom merely using Eddie as a way to escape the Life Foundation and proceed with Riot's plan. The trailers even make it out like Venom is the corrupting influence on Eddie, rather than the other way around. However, in the film proper, it's eventually subverted as Venom undergoes Character Development and comes to truly care for Eddie and its more noble nature is uncovered.
• Adapted Out: The giant white spider-symbol that serves as a twisted counterpart to Spider-Man's is nowhere to be seen here, which makes sense considering that this version of the character has no vendetta with — or relation to — Peter Parker. Venom also lacks Spidey's web powers, using his arms and tendril instead to get from place to place.
• Affably Evil: It has little understanding of morality, but if you manage to get on its good side, Venom makes a surprisingly good friend.
• Alien Arts Are Appreciated: The Stinger of Let There Be Carnage has Venom thoroughly engrossed in a Mexican soap opera alongside Eddie.
• Anti-Hero: It kills, but it kills those who are doing worse or are going to do worse than anything it could do. In no way is it a complete hero, but it also isn't a complete villain either. Well, at least because Eddie has to remind it that it can't eat everyone.
• Attention Whore: In Let There Be Carnage, it goes off on its own to a disco party, and it absolutely enjoys being the center of attention as the crowd eats it up, gift it with free neck rings and drinks and cheers it for the excellent "costume", which it says it made it itself.
• Atrocious Alias: Venom is not very impressed by the Hulk's name. Eddie feels much the same about one of Venom's chosen sobriquets.
  Venom: And you thought "Lethal Protector" was a shit name!
  Eddie: Yeah, because it is.
• Ax-Crazy: Has a voracious appetite and won't hesitate to eat humans either — though Eddie manages to persuade it to just eat bad people.
• Badass in Distress: Very briefly. After Riot tears Venom from Eddie, it's about to be consumed but Eddie reforms with it just in time.
• Bad "Bad Acting": In Let There Be Carnage, after a string of failures in finding a new host, it settles on Mrs. Chen. Annie runs to her to ask where Venom is, and "Mrs. Chen" spews hate about Eddie then calls her fiancee Dan a pussy. In less than a minute Anne realizes that Venom is controlling Mrs. Chen.
  Venom, through Mrs. Chen: He said he didn't need him. That life was better without him.
  Anne: I don't understand, what do you care...oh, wait a second. You get out here right now!
• Bait-and-Switch: Venom and Eddie getting transported to the MCU suggests an inevitable conflict between them and Spider-Man, as they decide to go meet him once they get all the info about this mysterious new world—only for both of them to be portalled back to their home dimension almost immediately. Well, almost all of them, as a small sliver of the symbiote is left behind...
• Berserk Button: Being called a parasite by pretty much anybody. Given that it actually takes care of its host while Riot disposes of several once they're drained, it's fairly understandable.
• Big Damn Heroes: Venom saves Eddie from being apprehended by Roland Treece at the conclusion of the motorcycle chase, pulls out Riot's blade from Eddie's abdomen, and then uses it to tear down the rocket Riot and Drake boarded to prevent more symbiotes from arriving on Earth, and stops an armed robber from looting Eddie's favorite convenience store.
• Big Eater: Due to its crazy-fast metabolism, Venom is constantly begging Eddie to feed it. It reaches the point where Eddie has Venom's complete obedience simply by feeding it.
• Big Good: Of the film, though it is definitely not the nicest example of this trope.
• Bio-Armor: When fully manifested, it covers Eddie's body in its biomass and manifests a fanged maw, huge white eyes, and a long prehensile tongue.
• Bishounen Line: Played with. It starts off as an amoeba-like creature, and then assumes a bulky, humanoid shape when it bonds with Eddie. It takes on a more shapely, streamlined form when it briefly bonds with Anne, but returns to its familiar large body when it returns to Eddie.
• Bizarre Alien Reproduction: In Let There Be Carnage, some of its biomass mixed with Eddie Brock's blood gives rise to the Carnage symbiote when ingested by Cletus Kasady. In Spider-Man: No Way Home, a small piece of the symbiote ends up being left behind in the MCU.
• Blob Monster: Without a host, the Venom symbiote is an amoeboid mass of viscous black ooze.
• Blood Knight: The symbiote greatly enjoys combat and bloodshed, and has a sadistic sense of humor to boot.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: It has to be taught the concepts of 'good' and 'evil' by Eddie, and even then it isn't particularly good at discerning the difference without Eddie telling it which way to go.
• Body Surf: Pulls one in Let There Be Carnage after a temporary falling out with Eddie.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Has a very cheerful and exuberant personality, and at its full height stands head and shoulders over normal people. This is tinged with Black Comedy, as shown after it beats up the initial wave of Life Foundation goons at Eddie's apartment.
  Venom: Outstanding! [cheerfully] Now, let's bite all their heads off and pile them up in the corner!
  Eddie: [meekly] Why would we do that?
  Venom: Pile of bodies, pile of heads.
• Catchphrase: "We are Venom."
• Chekhov's Gunman: The Raimi-verse Spider-Man briefly mentions his universe's version of Eddie and the symbiote to his Spider brothers while they're comparing rogues galleries. Sure enough, Eddie and Venom leave behind a symbiote in the MCU for MCU Spidey's future outing.
• Combat Pragmatist: When it is unable to overpower or defeat Riot in a straight-up fight, it opts for using one of Riot's own blades to destroy the ship Riot is on, incinerating him in the process.
• Combat Tentacles: The symbiote sprouts tentacles from Eddie's body to attack the PMCs that the Life Foundation sends to capture Eddie, and also uses them to return him to his motorcycle when he falls off during a jump.
• Composite Character: The symbiote's at times childlike ignorance and speaking and arguing directly with Eddie are features the Venom symbiote in comics barely ever displayed, and are much more in line with the Toxin symbiote and its relationship with its first host Pat Mulligan.
• Creepy Monotone: Its demonic voice seldom rises beyond a guttural whisper in the first movie. It's a lot more emotive and even hammy in Let There Be Carnage, however.
• Dark Is Not Evil: While the symbiote is still a monstrous Ax-Crazy entity, it ultimately has its host’s best interests at heart. Indeed, compare its treatment of Eddie to how Riot uses its hosts. While Venom is coarse and violent, the symbiote protects Eddie from the beginning and allows him autonomy, even though it could take over Eddie's body at any point. Riot, on the other hand, jumps from host to host, taking full control and using them until they're drained and die before it moves on to the next. This is a nod to the comics, where the Venom symbiote was 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.
• Disney Death: At the end of the movie, the symbiote seemingly sacrifices itself to save Eddie from the fires of Carlton/Riot's exploding rocket, but ends up surviving with no repercussions.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Even prior to its Heel–Face Turn, when it was still the vanguard of an alien invasion, Venom was notably nicer than its fellow symbiotes:
  • It allows Eddie a lot more autonomy than Riot does with most of its hosts, despite being perfectly capable of taking him over completely.
  • Venom never kills anyone who doesn't attack it first. Even when it's starving, it makes Eddie go for human food instead of attacking others, and whenever Eddie tells it no, it complies. It also shields the civilians who get caught up in his and Eddie's battle with the Life Foundation.
  • In Let There Be Carnage, Venom seems noticeably disgusted with Cletus Kasady's actions, and further becomes rage-filled towards the man when he continually insults Eddie. And while Eddie is genuinely apologetic to Kasady in his final moments, Venom can only belt out a spiteful Precision F-Strike before biting his head off.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The Venom symbiote, despite its violent nature and initially only using Eddie to bring its kind to Earth, starts to genuinely care about Eddie and Anne as well; admitting that it came to consider their planet to be beautiful and that human beings have things that its kind doesn't — love and compassion. Therefore, it decides to live on and protect the Earth, and one of the reasons it decides to stop Riot from bringing more of their kind to Earth is because Eddie and Anne will die along with most of the humans, and it cannot live in a world without the two people that it cares about and loves as well.
• Eating the Enemy: The symbiote's go-to solution for dealing with enemies is eating them, quipping that it's "fuel in the tank".
  Eddie: Are you... are you gonna eat anybody else?
  Venom: [grins] Most likely.
• Enemy Within: The symbiote serves as one for Eddie in the film's second act, influencing him into lashing out at several restaurant patrons who try to keep him from stealing their food, and growling at Dr. Lewis. It uses its tendrils to slam him around and pin him to a wall when he insults it by calling it a parasite, threatens him unless he helps it accomplish its mission, and is revealed to have been consuming him from the inside-out.
• Good Is Not Nice: While the symbiote may serve as the closest thing to an Anti-Hero, expect it to be vulgar, rude, and violent towards those stupid enough to get on its bad side. It also has a voracious appetite for flesh.
• Grew a Spine: It's implied that if it weren't for Eddie's memories, Venom would never dream of defying Riot, his much more powerful superior officer.
• Ham-to-Ham Combat: Venom's fight with Riot becomes this. Two deep-voiced symbiotes who always speak in a bombastic tone of voice shouting and roaring at each other when they fight.
• Healing Factor: Not solely for itself: it can also heal Eddie's injuries. At one point, Venom repairs Eddie's broken legs, much to his surprise. When Eddie is impaled by Riot and left to die, Venom bonds with him again, saving his life.
• The Hedonist: Venom shows shades of being this, as it keeps encouraging Eddie that they have some fun rampaging, stating "The way I see it, we can do whatever we want!" Not to mention that because of its pariah status back on his homeworld among his own kind, Venom wants Earth to be the first world it can call home.
• Heel–Face Turn: Venom is initially one of a group of symbiotes led by Riot, with the intention of infiltrating Earth and preparing it for an all-out invasion. As a result of it identifying with Eddie, it turns against Riot and fights against it in the film's final act.
• Heroic Host: Eddie and Venom forego hunting down and picking a fight with Spider-Man — which the post-credit scene of Let There Be Carnage implied they'd do — instead opting to chill in a bar, get intel on the new world they've found themselves in, and mull over their options. After being brought up to speed on Thanos and the Snap, Eddie suggests going to New York and talking to Spider-Man but before they can do anything else, they're promptly teleported back to their home universe by Dr. Strange's spell.
• Hidden Depths: In the sequel it's revealed to have photographic memory, able to look at and then replicate Cletus' cell wall scrawlings, and then from there work out where Cletus hid the bodies that the police couldn't find for decades. It's literally better at Eddie's job than Eddie!
• Homoerotic Subtext: While it's unclear if symbiotes even have genders, the symbiote's interests in Eddie comes across as rather intimate. It's especially worth noting that the kiss that put the Symbiote back in Eddie's body was Venom's idea, and not Anne's.
  • Let There Be Carnage takes it even further, with Venom cooking for Eddie like a parody of a housewife, breaking up with him like a couple, and "coming out of the closet" at a rave costume party later in the film. There's also a deleted scene near the end of the movie set on a beach sunset, where Eddie tries to admit to Venom that he doesn't love him. Followed by Venom teasing him that he does.
• Horror Hunger: It's always hungry, with a preference for meat — especially heads... though it develops a taste for chocolate as a Mythology Gag to the comics.
• Horrifying Hero: It's a creepy blob of alien goo that can give its hosts More Teeth than the Osmond Family, and will happily eat human flesh—with a particular taste for heads. Still, it comes to like Earth and only takes a little convincing to turn on the others of its species.
• Humanity Is Infectious: Downplayed. While the symbiote doesn't come to overly like humanity, it does grow to appreciate them and Earth enough to not let Riot destroy it. Also, it comes to genuinely like Eddie and Anne.
• Hunter of His Own Kind: It chooses to fight Riot to protect Earth from other hostile symbiotes. The villain even calls Venom a "traitor" for not aiding it with its mission.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Since Eddie is the protagonist while Venom is the deuteragonist, he is this because in both films he's the main reason Eddie doesn't end up dead while in the second film he's actually the one who figures out where Kasady buried the people he killed.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming: While paired with Eddie, Venom constantly derides and complains about his host for petty things, regardless of what situation they're in. However, when Cletus Kasady begins insulting Eddie during his "final interview", Venom gets more and more furious up until he hits the Rage Breaking Point and tries to strangle Cletus, much to Eddie's detriment.
• I Am Legion: Makes use of this while possessing Eddie, and even when it's just speaking about itself.
• I Just Want to Be Free: In Let There Be Carnage, it feels cooped and locked up inside Eddie's apartment room all the time. They have a fallout about this, and Venom spends most of the movie without Eddie.
• I Told You So: Tells Eddie when he sees for himself what kind of shit Riot packs.
• Immune to Bullets: Bullets are little more than an annoyance to it. If anything, Venom is much more irritated by the sounds of guns popping off rather than guns firing bullets at it.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • In Venom: Let There Be Carnage, when Eddie feels some degree of responsibility towards Cletus Kasady over his death sentence, Venom rightfully states that Cletus's situation was his own fault for being a lunatic and serial killer.
  • During his argument with Eddie after Cletus bit Eddie while in prison, Eddie argues with Venom over how he's been trying to build his life back, unfairly blaming Venom for making things worse. Venom, however, rightfully points out that Eddie ruined his own life before he met him, and it was Venom who found the clue in Cletus Kasady's case and let Eddie take the credit for it.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: It's very demanding and violent, but even from the beginning Venom works to keep its hosts alive while most of its kind use up their hosts and leave them for dead. By the end of the film, its care for Eddie and Anne, as well as Eddie's Positive Friend Influence, make it decide to save Earth from Riot and remain on the planet in relative peace.
• Jumped at the Call: While not caring about people in the first film and seemingly only agreeing to only eat bad guys simply to be civil with Eddie, by the second film he's pretty much embraced the idea of being a hero and starts insisting that he and Eddie call themselves the "Lethal Protector". At the very end of the film when Eddie starts coming round to the idea, Venom excitedly claims that they will need a cape and a mask.
• Knight Templar: This is what Eddie is trying to make it, arguing that it should only hurt bad people. The symbiote couldn't care less who or what it hurts as long as it survives.
• Large Ham: The deep voice makes it sound rather bombastic, which is also helped by its extreme glee at the violence it commits. When fighting Riot, it becomes full-blown Ham-to-Ham Combat.
• Large Runt: Despite - when fully manifested - standing 7'6 tall and 500 pounds, the Venom symbiote is described as a runt compared to Riot, and lacks the awesome shapeshifting powers that make Riot stand out.
• Laughably Evil: Some of its immoral acts can give the audience quite a bit of chuckles.
• Lovecraftian Superpower: The Venom symbiote allows Eddie to contort in ways that aren't humanly possible and freakishly alters his appearance, sprouting Combat Tentacles and covering his arms so that he can perform an Enhanced Punch, and can rapidly heal Eddie from injuries.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The symbiote tentacles form into a shield to protect an untransformed Eddie from bullets, and then forms one during its fight with Riot to protect itself from the giant flail Riot had generated.
• Manchild: It's prone to throwing tantrums (its preferred way is swinging around Eddie or smacking him Moe Howard style) and whining like a child. It only gets worse in Let There Be Carnage, deciding to go its own way from Eddie and giving a speech at a disco costume party deriding Eddie much like a runaway teenager deriding his parents. Annie even tells Venom "don't be a big baby" when it refuses to help Eddie face Cletus and Carnage. When seeing Carnage for himself, Venom retreats back into Eddie whining like a scared little boy that it doesn't want to fight a red one.
• A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: In one of the deleted scenes, Venom sneers that Eddie's mind is a cesspit of neuroses.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: When its head is manifested, the symbiote has multiple rows of needle-sharp fangs.
• Movie Superheroes Wear Black: The symbiote is jet-black and covered in white vein-like markings in the movie, eschewing its comic book counterpart's occasional blue highlights and large white spider symbols.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Its appearance, mostly in the face and build, evokes his Spider-Man: Web of Shadows appearance. The lack of the spider symbol also evokes the Ultimate Spider-Man designs. In addition, its Tainted Veins make it resemble Poison from What If? Spider-Man The Other to an extent.
  • When Venom and Eddie wind up in the MCU, the symbiote reacts with anger towards seeing an unmasked Spider-Man on the screen, referencing its intense hatred for the guy in the comics.
• Neck Lift: Seems to have a preference to this, all the better to get at a victim's brains.
• Never Hurt an Innocent: At the end of the movie, Eddie agrees to remain the symbiote's host if it agrees to limit its menu options to bad people. Despite being confused as to how one tells the difference, the symbiote agrees to this, and later eats the thug who had been running a protection racket on Mrs. Chen. Even prior to its Heel–Face Turn, the symbiote went out of its way to avoid collateral damage — such as not attempting to eat any of the patrons at the restaurant, and shielding civilians from the Life Foundation security force's gunfire during their raid on Eddie's apartment — and only attempted to eat people who were attacking it, like the Life Foundation security team and SWAT troopers.
• No Biological Sex: Being a symbiote, it has no defined gender or sex, choosing to assume the form of its host. It never refers to itself by any pronouns but "we". This is better shown when it briefly possesses Anne, morphing then into a female form. Eddie refers to Venom with male pronouns, however, which Venom never objects to, so while there might not be a biological sex, it's fine with being identified as male.
• Nominal Hero: It helps Eddie fight the antagonists, but it's mostly protecting its host to ensure its own survival, as he's a good match for it, and if he dies with the symbiote inside him, it dies too. It does eventually realize that Earth does not deserve to be invaded and destroyed by Riot and the rest of its kind, but even then, it's more swayed by Eddie's kindness and morals then by an innate sense of right and wrong. That said, Eddie does make progress in teaching it the difference between good people and bad people by the end of the movie.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: While Venom does not at all seem to be a particularly weak symbiote, as it adapts to Earth's environment when two other symbiotes are killed and stands up to Riot (even if Riot has a less compatible host), it admits to Eddie that amongst its own kind it was something of a "loser". That's one of the reasons it wants to stay on Earth alone without the presence of other symbiotes. It is shown to lack many of the same abilities shown by Riot and Carnage however, and consistently shows fear of fighting both of them suggesting that he would be considered weaker than most symbiotes.
• Not Me This Time: In Let There Be Carnage, Venom tells Eddie in The Stinger that bodily transporting into another universe was not its doing, as it only meant to show him a fraction of the Hive Mind.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Venom tells Eddie that he's a loser, but later on admits that on its home planet it is also a loser. This might be why it develops an emotional attachment to him.
• No Sympathy: Unlike Eddie, Venom doesn’t show any sympathy to Cletus Kasady, especially near the end, where Venom simply says “fuck this guy” before eating him.
• Oh, No... Not Again!: Venom is indignantly dismayed when they're sent back to their home universe before they can do anything of note in the MCU.
  Venom: What is happening?! No! NO, WE JUST GOT HERE! NO, NOT AGAIN!
• Off with His Head!: The symbiote's preferred method of eating people, if it doesn't just stop at the neck that is.
• Oh, Crap!: Has a look of horror that Cletus Kasady, with his own Symbiote Carnage, is a red one and runs back inside Eddie the moment he lays eyes on him.
• Ominous Obsidian Ooze: In its natural state, it's a jet-black Blob Monster.
• Overly-Long Tongue: Its tongue is long and prehensile, looking more like a pink tentacle.
• Offing the Offspring: It eats its technical "child", Carnage, after successfully separating from its host. According to him, he tastes terrible
• Past-Life Memories: In The Stinger for Let There Be Carnage it is revealed that the symbiote hive mind spans multiple universes and when Eddie and Venom are transported to the MCU the latter seems to recognise Peter Parker despite having never met him before. Given that every Marvel property canonically takes place in the same multiverse, this means that on a basic level Venom is able to recall some of the previous times it has met Spider-Man which is why it has a negative reaction to seeing him.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: It's hard to blame Venom as he bites off the head of Cletus Kasady after all the horrible things Kasady has done.
  Venom: Fuck this guy! *CHOMP!*
• Pet the Dog: Venom tells Eddie to make peace with Anne, showing that it has a sense of empathy. It also refuses to let Anne come with them to fight Riot, given the danger involved.
• Photographic Memory: In Let There Be Carnage, Venom is shown to have flawless memory recall, able to remember every conversation it's ever had and perfectly reproduce drawings it's looked at for only a few moments.
• Powers Do the Fighting: Venom is the powers in question. When Roland Treece and goons invade Eddie's apartment, the symbiote is the one doing all the work, while Eddie has no idea what's going on and is mostly dragged around by Venom's tendrils.
• Possession Burnout: Both played straight and averted. The symbiote kills its initial host, Maria, before jumping to Eddie. While Eddie finds out that Venom has started to eat his organs, it claims that it can fix the damage. At the end of the movie, the two are bonded without issue, but it mentions to Eddie that it's hungry and they need to eat, or Eddie's liver will start to look tasty — though it's unclear whether it was joking or not. The implication is that a symbiote will only feed on the host it matches if there is no other food source available. It may also be that the symbiote needs to eat raw living food as Venom seemed to prefer living creatures, and that a symbiote that seemed to bond perfectly with another host was still eating him from the inside despite the host being fed intravenously, although given that the guy wasn't talking and didn't seem to be communicating with his symbiote, it's implied that this was a close but not perfect match.
• Psychopathic Manchild: A heroic example. For a monstrous beast from beyond the stars, Venom has a lot of eccentricities that really deflate its menace. He tends to whine and throw temper tantrums whenever he doesn't get his way, he is more likely to fly off the handle when someone pisses them off, he eats a lot of chocolate (though he needs it as a nutritional subsidy) and he develops an attachment to a pair of chickens meant for eating (even naming them "Sunny and Cher"). While Eddie wants to keep a low profile, Venom fully embraces the Terror Hero vigilante lifestyle and takes every opportunity to do it, especially considering it gives him the opportunity to indulge in human brains. A lot of the conflict between him and Eddie in Let There Be Carnage comes from Venom wanting to come out and "have fun", while Eddie is desperately trying to keep him from getting them both in trouble as though he were a rebellious teenager.
• Sadist: Gleefully talks about biting off heads and piling them as if it were a children's game.
• Satanic Archetype: A heroic example that focuses on the Satan Is Good aspects: Venom emerged on Earth after falling from space, is a "fallen" creature from a race of godlike beings, and serves as a tempter to Eddie Brock while promising Eddie individuality and freedom as a symbiote-bound monstrosity. It also warps Eddie into a demonic-looking creature who punishes the guilty.
• Shapeshifter Baggage: The symbiote on its own has about a gallon's worth of total volume, so it disappearing inside a human body is already unreasonable. However, the fully-manifested Venom is a towering brute about twice the size of its host, heavy enough to crush cars, capable of devouring another grown man whole in a matter of seconds before retreating back into its host without a trace. It's never brought up where all that biomass comes from or goes during the transformations.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Becomes one for Eddie and Anne, declaring its intention to help Eddie win her heart again at the end of the film.
    Venom: Look at her. She has no idea that we are going to win her back. You belong with us, Annie...
  • Anne says that the symbiote was invoking this trope when it chose (though seemingly, not entirely without her consent) to use an entirely unnecessary The Big Damn Kiss (any form of physical contact would've worked) to transfer itself from her back to Eddie.
• Slasher Smile: Its default expression when fully possessing Eddie. At one point, it actually frowns, but it has so many teeth that it barely brings his whole mouth down.
• Superpowered Evil Side: The symbiote often takes over Eddie when he transforms into Venom, such as when it devours the would-be bodega robber. However, it's up in the air how "evil" the symbiote was when it first came to Earth. While at first it was motivated by the purpose of invading and conquering Earth, that quickly flies out the window thanks to Eddie's influence. By the end of the film, it drops the 'evil' part entirely.
• Super-Reflexes: It moves fast, hits hard, and is also quick to dodge and counter most attacks. When attacked by SWAT officers, it even catches one of their grenades in mid-air.
• Super-Senses: It's able to sense the Life Foundation security coming to assault Eddie's apartment to steal it back, and warns him before they arrive. Unfortunately, Eddie still thinks he's a hallucination at that point and doesn't listen.
• Super-Speed: It is extremely quick on its feet, making it hard for groups of enemies to attack it. When running away from the police, it is shown to even swim fast, diving into the sea and quickly making it to the other side. It can also climb to the top of trees and skyscrapers in a matter of seconds!
  Eddie: Can this parasite make me climb trees really, really fast?
  Venom: Yes. We just did.
• Super-Strength: It tears through structures and lifts people like they were nothing. Venom even makes Eddie tear through a tree while running.
• The Symbiote: Venom was one of four amorphous extraterrestrial entities discovered by the Life Foundation that bond to and augment their hosts, which lets the symbiote survive in oxygenated environments and allows the host to call upon the symbiote's powers. Venom plays this even straighter than the other three, as it never puppeteers its hosts.
• Tainted Veins: While it lacks the spider chest and back symbols of its comic book counterpart, the symbiote has prominent white veins on its chest, back, and arms that (as stated above) resemble the character Poison from a What If? one-shot.
• Time Abyss: If one of the deleted scenes is to be believed, Venom implies that it is 600 million years old.
• To Serve Man: The symbiote frequently threatens to eat criminals and anyone else who annoys it, and actually does so to a few Life Foundation henchmen.
  Venom: Eyes, lungs, pancreas... So many snacks, so little time.
• To the Pain: In a direct Shout-Out to the Trope Namer.
  Venom: [to a robber] You come in here again... In fact, you go anywhere in this city, preying on innocent people, and we will find you and we will eat both your arms and then both of your legs and then we will eat your face right off your head, do you understand? Yes? So, you will be this armless, legless, faceless thing, won’t you? Rolling down the street... like a turd... in the wind. Do you feel me?
• Took a Level in Badass: During the first movie, it only somewhat held its own against Riot despite having a better compatibility with its host. In the sequel, it manages to battle the even more ferocious Carnage more evenly, despite Carnage also having optimal compatibility with its host.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Brains, though it can also consume its hosts' other organs. Despite them not being living, it seems to enjoy tater tots, and later, chocolate.
• Truer to the Text: Zigzagged. The backstory and design references to Spider-Man are omitted, but everything else is played straight, such as the look of Venom here compared to the Spider-Man 3 version. The symbiote also acts more like a viscous liquid as opposed to a sticky, string-like creature, and the head forms by first forming teeth around Eddie's head and going over it like it's eating him; he has a larger, more monstrous appearance, as well as the long tongue and tons of sharp teeth; and Venom uses plural terms to refer to himself. The tie-in comic also establishes it as being an alien from the planet Klyntar.
• Unexplained Recovery: Despite saying that it is weak to fire and being caught in the explosion of Carlton Drake's rocket, Venom survives it all and is still bonded with Eddie. The assumption is that it was only injured by the explosion, and rested and recovered within Eddie.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: Unlike the comics, the Riot symbiote isn't the spawn of Venom.
• Vocal Evolution: While still voiced by Tom Hardy, Venom's voice is noticeably much more bombastic and lively in Let There Be Carnage than it was in the first movie.
• Weak to Fire: It mentions to Eddie and Anne that it has a weakness to fire and is nearly killed in an explosion near the end, though recovers with time.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: Venom keeps slipping into a deep British accent, but at times you'd swear it was speaking in an American one.
• The Worf Effect: Despite being a brutal and nigh-unstoppable creature, it is no match for Riot, who dominates Venom during their fight. So much so that Venom doesn't defeat it in a straight-up battle, choosing to blow up the rocket instead.
• You Are Number 6: The Life Foundation codenames it SYM-A01.

Other Protagonists

Morbius

Dr. Michael Morbius

"I'm not that kind of vampire."

Species: Human (formerly), Vampire

Citizenship: American

Affiliation(s): Horizon Labs (formerly)

Portrayed By: Jared Leto, Charlie Shotwell (young)

Appearances: Morbius

"To find a cure, we have to push the boundaries, take the risks."

A biochemist who contracted a rare blood disease and became a vampire in an attempt to cure it.

---

• Adaptational Attractiveness: In the comics, Michael's backstory involved him being unattractive. This isn't case in the movie, where he is played by Jared Leto.
• Adaptational Heroism: In the comics, his transformation into a vampire left Michael prone to moments of madness and paranoia, which made it difficult for him to control his bloodlust. Instead of being a Tragic Villain however, Michael in this version has far more control of himself and awareness, making him far more naturally heroic.
• Adaptational Nationality: Morbius in the comics was born and raised in Greece, and while in the film he did receive medical treatment for his condition there it's implied that it's simply a place where someone with his condition is sent like with Milo. So it seems likely that this version of the character is American.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: With Martine and Emil, and to a lesser extent with Milo who is heavily based on the villain Hunger. In the comics Martine and Emil Nikos were his fiancée and best friend respectively, but here they are his colleague (though they admit their feelings to each other during the film) and mentor/father figure instead. Meanwhile, in the comics Loxias Crown/Hunger was a villain before meeting Morbius and being turned into a vampire, the two never having the relationship Michael and Milo have here.
• Alliterative Name: Michael Morbius.
• Ambiguously Absent Parent: Michael doesn't mention what happened to his parents as a child and seems to have Emil as a Parental Substitute.
• Animal Motifs: Bats. The cure he develops involves testing on bats and he gains the power to control the species—even believing himself to have developed a kinship with them—as well as obtaining their hearing and echolocation. And he creates bat-shaped origami in his spare time.
• Anti-Hero: Even before his transformation, Michael is not above conducting unethical experiments to find a cure for his condition. Nor is he above deleting footage of his massacre of the mercenaries and avoiding the authorities. Still, he is not without conscience and keeps himself from hurting the innocent as a vampire—in spite of his ever growing Horror Hunger.
• Body Horror: His disease makes him unnaturally pale and frail, and the sight of his body suddenly shriveling and rendering him unable to walk or even stand properly is not a pleasant one.
• Broken Ace: Michael is a highly respected scientist in his field, being a Nobel Prize winner and even earning his doctorate at age 19. However, his disease brings him constant pain and despair.
• Bullet Time: During Morbius's first transformation on a boat, gunmen swarm him. One of them fires his gun, leading to the whole scene slowing down. During this, Morbius quickly turns around to see an incoming bullet.
• Cain and Abel: Morbius's surrogate brother Milo is revealed to be the film's Big Bad.
• Child Prodigy: Michael is shown to be a genius since his childhood, catching Emil's attention when he quickly fixed Milo's failing blood pump with a ballpoint pen and being sent to a high-profile school due to his intellect as a result.
• Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: Appearing in the third film of the SSU and being its first new protagonist, while he shares a Horror Hunger with first protagonist Eddie Brock, Morbius differs from him in many ways. Eddie is a healthy reporter and Loser Protagonist who betrayed his fiancée's trust, which led to their relationship ending and his career falling apart, while Morbius is an ill scientist and Broken Ace who had an interest in Martine but never acted on it while trying, at first, to keep her uninvolved in his experiments. Also, unlike the normal human Eddie, who gets his powers from a brain eating alien, Morbius is a vampire and therefore there is no way for him to remove his desire for blood.
• Cruel to Be Kind: Upon grasping the truth of his cure, he desperately refuses to give it to his surrogate brother Milo, even shouting at him to get out of the laboratory. This rubs Milo the wrong way, making him believe Michael is being selfish and leaving him to die so he could save himself. The truth, of course, is that he doesn't want Milo to turn into a vampire like he did.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Michael is associated with bats and vampires, and tends to dress in black, but ultimately has a conscience. He doesn't want to feed on human blood, but his vampirism makes it almost inevitable.
• Daywalking Vampire: Morbius' experiments turn him into an unconventional vampire who is not weak to sunlight.
• Deadpan Snarker: Shares a lot of sharp-tongued remarks in his good-natured banters with his loved ones such as Martine, Milo and Emil, but also displays a dry wit when talking to FBI agents or money counterfeiters he goes up against.
  Agent Stroud: I mean, I must admit, doc you don't look anything like you do on the news.
  Agent Rodriguez: Yeah, you look downright robust.
  Michael: Well, I have good days and bad. Pilates helps.
• Decomposite Character: All his worst qualities are given to Milo, such as killing Emil and attempting to kill Martine.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: When his disease takes a hold on him, Michael's skin becomes very pale and he ends up looking emaciated. The effect is enhanced by his long black hair.
• Establishing Character Moment: He has two, one as an adult and one as a child.
  • In Costa Rica, he tests the compatibility of a whole colony of bats with his blood and slashing his hand and drawing their attention towards him, with some quick words of warning to the crew that brought him there- who quickly fly away terrified of the bats as Michael stands fearless. This shows how he is willing to "push the boundaries" to achieve his objectives.
  • As a child, he quickly fixes Milo's failing blood pump with nothing but a ballpoint pen, which catches Emil's attention. This a striking display of Michael's high intellect, which would be a key part of his characterization throughout his teenage and adult years.
• Friend to All Children: He is very warm and friendly towards Anna, a young girl who is a patient at the hospital where he works and quickly works to stabilize her condition once her body temperature spikes and her kidneys are about to stop working.
• Game Face: There are several shots of Morbius's vampire form from the comics, with grey skin, red eyes, a flattened nose, and pointed teeth.
• Guile Hero: Guile Anti-Hero to be more precise, but the way Michael defeats Milo is not through brute force, but by calling on the bats in his lab to distract and hold back Milo so Michael can inject the antibody in him.
• Horror Hunger: Along with curing his disease, Michael becomes stronger than he's ever been and gains a number of abilities... all of which comes at the cost of a monstrous, insatiable thirst for blood.
• Hour of Power: After injecting himself with the cure, Morbius determines that he can initially sustain himself on one bag of artificial blood every six hours, during which time he possesses his enhanced abilities but after which his body regresses to its original state. However, he soon determines that this method is becoming less effective each time he drinks; by the time he is sent to prison, one bag of artificial blood can only sustain him for just over four hours, and he calculates that the artificial blood will stop being effective within a week, forcing him to rely on real blood.
• I Am the Noun: An understated example: When Morbius, still sickly and frail, is asked if he needs a doctor, he responds, "I am a doctor."
• Improbable Age: Michael earned his doctorate at age 19. Even if he had gotten into college at 16 or 17 years old, it would be downright impossible for him to have obtained his doctorate in merely two or three years.
• In a Single Bound: One of the powers he gains from his transformation is the ability to jump great distances with ease. Morbius manages to leap across rooftops with little effort, as well as reach the tops of buildings.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Contrasting his comic counterpart whose unattractiveness was part of his backstory, this version is played by Jared Leto.
• Mook Horror Show: At one point, a group of unlucky thugs think they're hunting Michael through an old ship where he was conducting his experiments in international waters. Michael is all too happy to correct them.
• Our Vampires Are Different: A "Living Vampire", created using unorthodox and possibly supernatural methods. As such, he has all the powers of a vampire to some extent (enhanced abilities, echolocation and a healing ability) but is able to avoid many of the same weaknesses, except for the blood lust.
• Smart People Play Chess: When at the hospital during his childhood, a chess board could be seen in Michael's room, with a game in progress. This quickly establishes him a smart and intelligent individual.
• Super-Senses: He gains echolocation and his hearing massively increases after his transformation, enabling him to detect sounds and voices from kilometers away. Milo even exploits this by forcing Martine to call Michael from a distant rooftop, knowing that he would hear her and come to her rescue.
• Super-Speed: He gains a Bullet Time ability, which he promptly demonstrates in his fight against the mercenaries, dodging their bullets with ease and being generally too fast for his enemies to deal with.
• Super-Strength: His transformation grants him immense, superhuman strength, enabling him to easily break windows and steel doors. Thanks to his increase in muscle mass, he can tear through enemies with little effort.
• Teen Genius: His high intelligence that he displayed since his childhood has also been present in his teenage years. Since he obtained his doctorate at age 19, that would mean he was already in college as a teenager.
• Vegetarian Vampire: Morbius tries to be this using his artificial blood, but he quickly realizes its effectiveness drops with every usage.
• Was Once a Man: Michael Morbius was a man suffering from a rare blood disease and his transformation into a vampire is the result of his attempts to find a cure by any means necessary.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Michael, in his own words, is willing to "push the boundaries" to find a cure for himself. He ends up conducting illegal experiments, and refuses to give Milo the cure out of fear of having him turn into a vampire like him.
• With Great Power Comes Great Hotness: Upon taking his cure and reverting to his human state after his first transformation as a vampire, Michael becomes temporarily muscular and admires his new shape for a bit in a mirror. A video of him shirtless even catches the attention of Nicque Marina at the Daily Bugle.
• You Killed My Father: Downplayed. Michael does kill Milo after what the latter did to their surrogate father, but he has grown remorseful of being responsible for the death of his surrogate brother.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: Says this almost word-for-word while under interrogation, except substituting "angry" with "hungry".
• Zerg Rush: He can command thousands of bats to swarm around his enemies.

Madame Web

Cassandra "Cassie" Webb / Madame Web

"I can see the future."

^{Click here to see her at the end of the movie}

Species: Enhanced Human

Citizenship: Peruvian, American

Affiliation(s): Fire Department of New York (formerly)

Portrayed By: Dakota Johnson

Appearances: Madame Web

A paramedic who gains the ability to see the future.

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• Abled in the Adaptation: In this version, Cassandra is neither blind or paralysed. The ending of the film however has her be blinded and seemingly paralysed after her battle with Ezekiel, caused by debris from the exploding building.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Her mother died when she was born and Cassie spent her entire life believing that Constance cared more about her work than her, since she went out of her way to look for spiders miles away from any hospital.
• Adaptational Angst Downgrade: On the other hand , Cassie is a case of Abled in the Adaptation and didn't spend her entire life paralysed.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Unlike in the comics where she was an old paralysed and blind psychic, Cassandra is a paramedic and relies on Combat Clairvoyance and Improv Fu to fight Ezekiel. She's left blind and paralyzed by the end.
  • Her psychic abilities extends to Astral Projection.
• Adaptational Nationality: While she was raised in America, Cassie was born in Peru. In the comics she was, presumably, born in the US.
• Adaptational Wimp: Her psychic abilities are, at first, more limited as she can only see several minutes into the future and doesn't have much control of it. However this is justified since the film is an origin story for the character and the ending shows that they do improve to see much further into the future.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Due to her Age Lift, her hair color has gone from gray to black.
• Adaptation Name Change: Subverted, her name is still Cassandra but she seems to have the nickname Cassie. Played straight in regards to her surname, which was her husband's name in the comics while here "Webb" is her maiden name.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: Ezekiel killed her mother and is indirectly the cause of Cassie getting her powers, while in the comics the two have never met. She also becomes a mentor to both Julia, Anya and Mattie years before any of them get powers and states in the ending that she will help them become heroes in the future. She's also indirectly responsible for Spider-Man existing, as she saves the pregnant Mary Parker.
• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: While she has met Julia, Anya and Mattie in the comics and even mentored them, here she's forced to protect them years before any of them have gained their powers.
• Adaptation Species Change: A mutant in the comics, in this version Cassandra's powers come from a spider bite, though they don't activate until she has a near death experience. This would make her a human mutate by comic terms instead of a mutant.
• Age Lift: Madame Web is traditionally an elderly gray haired woman while in this version she's in her early thirties. Justified as the story is set before Peter Parker is born and Peter doesn't meet her until he's an adult.
• Ambiguous Situation: Her status in the present day is unclear, which is especially noteworthy with Morbius since that's also set in New York. This suggests that she isn't an active hero in the present, though it's possible that the events of Morbius occurred too quickly for herself, Julia, Mattie and Anya to react to.
• Astral Projection: When her abilities max out at the film's climax she develops this, able to project multiple versions of herself to save the girls.
• Car Fu: She's a big fan of this, flattening Ezekiel with a taxi at the diner and later hitting him again with an ambulance. Considering that his powers makes him far stronger than Cassie, she doesn't have many options.
• Combat Clairvoyance: How she managed to keep ahead of Ezekiel. He's stronger and faster, but her ability to see a few minutes into the future allows her to see what he's going to do and avoid it. The best example is when her visions show her a physical confrontation in the diner will end in him killing them all, so when she snaps back to reality she just runs him over in her taxi and escapes with the girls while he's down.
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: She's never called Madame Web at any point in the comics.
• Composite Character: Visually she more resembles the Julia Carpenter incarnation of Madame Web instead of Cassandra Webb. Since her powers come from a spider bite, instead of being a mutant like in the comics, and her more aggresive personality, she has some similiarities to Peter Parker from the original Lee-Ditko comics..
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Debuting in the fourth film of the SSU, Cassie is the first female protagonist and unlike Eddie Brock or Michael Morbius who were both anti-heroes with a Horror Hunger, Cassie is a more traditionally heroic individual (if slightly antisocial at first) who finds herself with powers she didn't expect and chooses to use them to protect the innocent.
• Dull Surprise: Due to Dakota Johnson's rather, shall we say, 'understated performance.' Somewhat justified as Cassie is an EMT, so she stays focused in high-stress situations.
• Foster Kid: Cassie became this after her mother's death, and it's implied that one of the main reasons why she's so awkward around the idea of families and children, along with her weak social skills.
• Improv Fu: Being unable to take Ezekiel in a straight fight, Cassie has to rely on her environment to get the job done, whether that's running over him with a car or luring him into an exploding fireworks warehouse.
• Red Is Heroic: Is shown to wear a red leather trenchcoat for most of the film. A future vision even has her wearing a red costume with a white spider symbol.
• Socially Awkward Hero: Cassie struggles immensely with talking to others outside of Ben, especially when it comes to anything related to parents or children given her own issues about her mother's death.
• Spanner in the Works: She's the only reason Ezekiel doesn't kill the girls in the train, and he's completely blindsided by how she keeps staying ahead of him. It's not until over halfway through the movie that he even learns who she is.
• You Don't Look Like You: Looks nothing like her comic counterpart and more resembles the Julia Carpenter incarnation of Madame Web.

Kraven the Hunter

Sergei Kravinoff / Kraven the Hunter

"My father puts evil into the world. I take it out."

Species: Enhanced Human

Citizenship: N/A

Affiliation(s): N/A

Portrayed By: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Levi Miller (young)

Appearances: Kraven the Hunter

"I stared death in the face and for the first time, I saw my true self."

After an ill-fated safari trip, Sergei Kravinoff gained the ability to tap into the collective psyche of the animal kingdom. He would go on to use his new power to hunt down profiteers of injustice.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: In the comics Kraven was a beefy man with rough facial features. Aaron Taylor-Johnson has a leaner build with youthful good looks.
• Adaptation Backstory Change: In the comics Kraven's family fled to the United States during the February Revolution in 1917, being the son of an aristocrat who seemingly treated him well before growing up to became a world famous big game hunter. The 2023 comic The Lost Hunt also fleshed out his backstory to explain that his villainy and madness, as well as decision to become a hunter, was influenced by a failed Wakandan ritual that was supposed to help him confront his personal demons. Here he's got an Age Lift and his father becomes an Abusive Parent, having abandoned him as a teenager when he showed "weakness" by not killing a lion and according to the trailer swearing revenge on his father by hunting him and the people who work for him.
• Adaptational Badass: While some versions give Kraven superhuman powers, he typically relies on chemicals and herbs to enhance his physical abilities to a level where he can fight characters like Spider-Man. In this version his blood mixes with that of a lion which appears to have given him his powers.
• Age Lift: Kraven in the comics was eventually revealed to have been born in the early 20th century, with his life span being extended through chemicals and potions. He appears to be the age he looks in this version.
• Alternate Company Equivalent:
  • Kraven was born into wealth, but turned on his own status after a brush with disaster showed him how harsh the world could be. He would then go on to kill various organized criminals, at least one of whom he shot with a crossbow in an office. He's like a cinematic take on Oliver Queen. Which ironic since Oliver Queen was the DC television equivalent to Tony Stark.
  • His new backstory shown in the trailer has caused many to compare him to DC's Catman.
• Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: He's the first Villain Protagonist of the SSU, unlike Eddie Brock and Michael Morbius who were antiheroes while Cassie Webb is a more traditional heroic figure.
• Dark and Troubled Past: His mother apparently went mad according to the trailer and his father, who was abusive, left him to die after being attacked by a lion.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: His favoured outfits tend to comprise of cured pelts.
• Villain Protagonist: Kraven is a big game hunter who brutally murders others in a quest for a revenge, with Calypso calling him a lunatic in the trailer which he agrees with.
• You Are What You Hate: His brother accuses him of being just like their father, both of them simply hunting for trophies.

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