YMMV / Venom

• Adorkable: The symbiote can act like a little lost boy at times. It is very sweet at times, can be very cute, and genuinely cares about its hosts, with the ones that it cares the most being Spider-Man ,Eddie Brock and Flash Thompson. It's very polite to people as well even though it has very awkward social skills, and has a kind heart towards them when it's not corrupted.
• Ass Pull: The revelation that the third Crime Master was Betty Brant's brother Bennett, saved from death and turned bad by a Nebulous Evil Organisation.
• Audience-Alienating Era:
  • The Howard Mackie/John Byrne era interpretation of the character kicks off with the symbiote coming back from the dead with no explanation whatsoever, and returning to Eddie. After an awkward scene where he eats the Carnage symbiote and slaughters security personnel en mass, Venom (who is inexplicably still amnesiac regarding Spider-Man's secret identity, even though the symbiote tried returning to Peter before Eddie) spends the next several issues being ridiculed, with his stint as an anti-hero being regarded as a joke, and his weaknesses being cranked up to eleven (see Never Live It Down below). After anti-climactically beating up the Sandman, Electro, and Kraven II and terrorizing/killing numerous innocent bystanders, Eddie loses his ex-wife in one of the most blatant instances of Stuffed in the Fridge ever, loses his symbiote completely off-panel to Senator Ward, and is last seen ranting and raving in the streets before being punched out by Spider-Man.
  • The first 1/3 of Daniel Way's Venom Vol. 1 ripped-off The Thing, while the rest of was a convoluted mess involving an ancient alien who has ties to Noah's Ark and is more or less secretly running the world. Despite all of his resources and even though he's been on Earth for thousands of years, he decides the best way to Kill All Humans is to grow a 100% evil clone of the Venom symbiote, in the hope that the original (who only appears halfway through the series) would absorb it and give birth to an army of symbiotes that would kill everything. The run had no conclusion, was gratuitously mean-spirited, and was full of creepy sexual imagery and good guys who act like stubborn Jerkasses when they weren't being annoyingly incompetent. Oh, and Canada was nuked.
  • Brian Michael Bendis' Guardians of the Galaxy "Planet of the Symbiotes" three-parter has two issues of the Venom symbiote rampaging and jumping from Guardian to Guardian... and the final issue it's purged of its hatred and bloodlust. Furthermore, the final issue contains an info-dump that retcons the symbiotes into being a naturally peaceful species that seek out worthy hosts to make Agents of the Cosmos, while the evil symbiote empire seen previously is explained as being the result of symbiotes being corrupted by evil hosts. While the nature of the retcon itself wasnt received all that badly, as it did not contradict much of the established lore, the fact all of this was in a quick Info Dump of a mere three pages when it could have been explored in far more depth left a sour taste in many fans mouth as it changed everything known about the symbiotes so far.
  • Not many appreciated the weird changes made in Minimum Carnage.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Venom is either one of the best Spider-Man villains of all time and/or one of Marvel's best anti-heroes or a textbook case of everything that's wrong with the '90s Anti-Hero archetype and all the other tropes associated with The Dark Age of Comic Books. Pretty much everyone agrees that his character design is great, but the actual character himself has proven to be divisive. Many attempts to reinvent the character to add more depth to him also fall into this as well, with longtime fans of Venom as an anti-hero or detractors usually applauding moves to make the character more interesting than being a dark, revenge-obsessed reflection of Spider-Man, while longtime fans of him as a villain feel that giving the character more depth potentially takes away from what made Venom a great Shadow Archetype in their eyes.
  • Carnage. People either love him for his Ax-Crazy ways, or see him as everything wrong with comics during the 90s. How one feels about Venom, himself a Base-Breaking Character, factors into this.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • The Realm of Insanity sequence from The Madness.
  • A lot of fans are confused at best over the Venom symbiote being depicted with spider emblems in flashbacks to before it bonded to Peter Parker, or symbiotes in general being shown with white spider emblems, in Venom: Space Knight and Venom Vol. 3, saying that it doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
• Bizarro Episode: All of Cletus's appearances in-between Venom devouring his symbiote, and his temporary death in New Avengers.
• Broken Base:
  • A small one; Eddie Brock vs Flash Thompson on who is the best Venom.
  • Likewise there's some dispute on Brock's role. Some fans are divided over whether long term Anti-Venom would have been better than Eddie as Toxin, or whether Eddie becoming Toxin was a step backwards from his character development as Anti-Venom.
  • Another division over Cullen Bunn's run on Venom. Some thought that he had a lot of potential and got progressively better at writing the comic, while others think that it's absolute shit and will never hold a candle to Rick Remender's half of their run.
  • Several Agent Venom fans have expressed consternation and dissatisfaction over his first redesign in Guardians of the Galaxy, which removed his body armor motif, gave him a permanent mouth and solid white eyes, and took away the white spider emblem on his back.
  • The pseudo-retcon regarding the symbiotes' nature implemented in Guardians of the Galaxy #23,^note Which was brought about because "most of [the new generation of comic readers] don’t even know that once [Venom] was a bad guy". coupled with Agent Venom's second redesign, making him bulky again but giving him a face like the MCU's Destroyer, has caused even more consternation.
  • The canonicitiy of Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars and Deadpool: Back in Black is contested among fans of Venom, with some accepting it as canon, and others either insisting it's a non-canon What If-type scenario or that it should be. Even the writers can't seem to agree; Poison-X and Deadpool: Assassin firmly establish it as canon, whereas Deadpool's tie-in for Absolute Carnage dismisses it instead.
  • With the beginning of Volume 3, fans were divided over the new Venom. Some were happy that the character is returning to his villainous roots; while others dislike Lee Price's callous stoicism, are frustrated over the lack of closure with Flash Thompson, and think the symbiote should have stayed with him as a hero rather than revert to being a villain. Of course there are those who think it's neat that a actual villainous host is the main character but still hope that the symbiote goes back to a previous and more heroic host -- and got their wish when it returned to Eddie Brock.
  • With the symbiote's return to Eddie, many fans are happy to have the original Venom back. Others are disappointed by possibility that both Eddie's and the symbiote's decade-or-so of Character Development has been undone, especially in light of Eddie's actions in the preceding Carnage Vol. 2 series and the symbiote's in Venom: Space Knight. (Thankfully this turned out not to be the case.) With the revelation of how Flash and the symbiote being separated in Venom #150, fans of Agent Venom are even more dissatisfied.
  • Some feel that Donny Cates' run being focusing on cosmic level threats like Knull and even The Maker is unfitting for a character like Venom that is seen as more of a street-level fighter, but others feel that it bring new opportunities to explore for the characters.
  • Regardless of how you feel about the run, most people agree that the symbiote being turned into a dog is silly and pointless, some even pointed out that having the symbiote "braindead" in this run does nothing but damage for new fans that want to get into Venom comics because of the Venom movie being released around the same time only to find out that the symbiote is out of commission.
  • There's the debate that Donny Cates' run is retconning previous stories for the worse. Fans are glad that Dark Origin has been retconned out of existence and feel that Knull fixes or makes Bendis' previous retcons better, but each issue recontextualizes other Venom stories out there to the point that fans are wondering what past stories are actually real or hallucinations caused by outside forces.
• Cant Unhear It: Most Spidey fans, especially those who are fans of the 2000 Spider-Man game see Daran Norris as the quintessential Venom voice; giving him a Large Ham voice with a comical tone to it, perfectly combining Venom's scare factor and sense of humor. Bonus points for Daran being one of the few Venom voices who didn't have a voice filter - the voice was done completely naturally. On the other hand, a sizable amount of fans also prefer either Hank Azaria^note his voice from Spider-Man: The Animated Series, Ben Diskin^note his voice from Spectacular Spider-Man Tom Hardy^note his voice from Venom, Keith Szarabajka^note his voice from Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, or Tony Todd^note his voice from Marvel's Spider-Man 2—just like with Norris, Todd's Venom voice is completely unfiltered.
• Complete Monster:
  • See here for comic examples.
  • His incarnation in Spider-Man: Web of Shadows-Amazing Allies (PS2 and PSP) Edition is nothing like any of his other incarnations. Hating Spider-Man for untold reasons, Venom allows Jackal to experiment on him in order to speed up his symbiote suit's growth rate, then spreads his symbiote across Manhattan, infecting hundreds of people, including Spider-Man's friends, and turning them into mindless, hate-filled zombies. After manipulating many of Spider-Man's foes into assisting him in destroying the Wall-Crawler, Venom reveals he plans to allow his symbiote to spread across the planet, infecting every human around the world once Spider-Man is dead.
• Creepy Awesome:
  • Jack O' Lantern, who was more or less Agent Venom's answer to the Green Goblin.
  • Pretty much what made Venom so appealing as a villain in the first place.
• Creepy Cute: Venom can be terrifying and scary, but he can also be cute as well. Both the symbiote and its host Eddie Brock are friendly to children and very social towards the people who have done them no harm, albeit with the symbiote being socially awkward toward anyone who is not its host. It can be off putting at first but it does have a good heart, even when its being corrupted and after going back in relapse again, tries not to hurt them even with it saying sorry to one of the people that it hurt.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Flash and Cletus are separated from their symbiotes in Carnage U.S.A, and proceed to fight each other as regular human beings. Neither of them had legs.
  • The disarmed Razor Fist using his stumps to try and punch Toxin.
  • Much of Carnage's appeal comes from the fact that he's equal parts horrifyingly monstrous and darkly humorous.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Unsurprisingly considering Brock's sympathetic backstory and Anti-Hero tendencies, as well as the symbiote's Yandere behaviour toward Peter and, for people who are familiar with it, the far more symbiote-sympathetic original depiction of its separation from Spider-Man, fans can easily find the character likable.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Spider-Man's black suit was initially unpopular with fans, leading to it being disposed of in a storyline that revealed it was a parasitic alien trying to bond with Peter. Now it's one of his most popular costume variants, and the creature itself was formerly an A-list villain.
  • David Michelinie had initially planned to kill Eddie Brock off in Amazing Spider-Man #400 and have the symbiote jump from host to host, specifically mentioning Doctor Octopus, the Lizard, and J. Jonah Jameson. However, Eddie's surprise runaway popularity with fans kiboshed that, much to Michelinie's dismay since he felt that Venom becoming an antihero detracted from the character. This led to him creating an even more monstrous symbiote-enhanced villain to take Venom's place. Long after he and the symbiote went their separate ways, Eddie's still considered the most popular and "true" incarnation of Venom by most fans, to the point where Marvel had the two of them reunite in April 2017.
  • Flash Thompson as Agent Venom: while Eddie, as stated above, is the most popular and well known incarnation of Venom, Flash is a pretty popular second.
  • Toxin, being a heroic symbiote, had a surge of popularity following his introduction in the mid-2000's. Sadly, Patrick, the original Toxin, was killed offscreen by Blackheart and the symbiote was subsequently bonded to Eddie Brock. That the Toxin symbiote seemingly had a bridge dropped on it at the end of Carnage Vol. 2 surprised and outraged a lot of fans.
  • Though Cullen Bunn's run wasn't overly well-received at the time of its publication, Andrea Benton aka Mania - Agent Venom's pupil/sidekick - has become immensely popular with fans. Even more impressive in that she's yet to make an appearance outside of Venom's own books, although Cullen Bunn is determined to ensure she's not forgotten and name-drops her in Monsters Unleashed #2. That she was badly injured and stripped of her symbiote by Lee Price in the Venom Inc. event, and let him keep it despite having spent the event trying to get it back, left her fans — as well as Cullen Bunn himself — shocked and upset.
  • The Venomized Mary Jane from Spider-Man/Power Pack, going by all of the fan art.
  • She-Venom (Eddie's ex-wife) has a big following despite the limited appearances she had and of course, being Stuffed In A Fridge. One side is because of Ann's appearance as She-Venom, her completely insane actions as She-Venom of course, the tragic backstory about her broken marriage with Eddie. Fans also felt writers wasted whatever potential content they could with her by killing her off, especially when Ann told Eddie she felt the symbiote would bond with her permanently, which would make for interesting stories. Fans were somewhat happy with Ann's appearance (alive and well) in the mobile game Spider-Man Unlimited, which not only featured her as She-Venom, but able to control the symbiote.
  • The Symbiote "Rex" from the first arc of Donny Cates' run, for being a Badass Normal symbiote with some humanity and depth, being able to contain Venom without thrown together equipment and impersonate a person for years while conveying more depth than most symbiotes with only a handful of appearances. The Ve'Nam one-shot only helped, giving it something of a character arc and delving into its past.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Take Spider-Man's black costume, have the guy under it bulk up significantly, and give it creepy teeth. Then add a freakishly-long tongue in for good measure in a redesign shortly afterward. Yup, that's a keeper.
  • As far as the symbiote's enemies go, there's the Crime Master, Agent Venom's first archenemy/Big Bad. Some fans were actually saddened by his death for this very reason. Also Jack O' Lantern. There is also Carnage,Knull,and Meridius.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Fans have taken to calling Mac's and Flash's super-muscular monstrous forms "Vulk".
  • Agent Venom for Flash, which quickly became Ascended Fanon.
  • Broxin for Eddie Brock as Toxin. Fans have also started to call Eddie's look in Carnage Vol. 2 "Agent Toxin" due to its resemblance to Flash's appearance as Agent Venom.
  • In a more derisive example, "Sasuke" for Lee Price from Mike Costa's run largely because of his design and the large amounts of Character Shilling for someone the fans despise.
  • Carnage-Man for the inverted Carnage during his AXIS miniseries.
• First Installment Wins:
  • More like first host wins: even though the Venom symbiote has been used by various characters by now, the Eddie Brock incarnation has for a long time remained the most popular, and the only one to get adapted in other medias. This changed somewhat with the fourth Venom, Flash, who gained a significant fanbase and even got his own animated apppearance (ironically in the first show to not feature Eddie Brock). While Flash's Agent Venom will probably never be as well known as Eddie Brock's Venom, it's safe to call him a "runner up".
  • With all the changes that the characters have gone through, a part of the fandom has come with the conclusion that only David Michelinie's Venom stories (ending with Lethal Protector and Planet of the Symbiotes) and the symbiote appearances in the original Black Costume arc in the 80s are the only important ones that define the characters. Everything after those stories — such as some of Venom's 90s miniseries that came out later — are either seen as take it or leave it stories; or flat out ignored, like the majority of the comics released after the year 2000, a lot of which focused on retconning and recontextualizing previously established themes for better or worse. Only few writers, like Len Kaminski thanks to his stories Venom: The Hunger and Seed of Darkness, are seen as worthy successors to Michelinie due to wanting to explore and evolve the characters based on what they are rather than changing them into something that was likely inspired by the 90s Spider-Man cartoon.
  • Aside from Venom, most Toxin fans seem to be under the impression Patrick Mulligan was a better Toxin than Brock was.
• Follow the Leader: Considering Venom is an iconic Anti-Hero with a black and white suit created by Todd Mc Farlane, you can't be faulted for think his solo series was greenlit to ride the coattails on the success of Spawn.
• Fountain of Memes: The AXIS miniseries for Carnage.
• Franchise Original Sin: With Venom getting more and more popular, Marvel decided to give him his own comic book miniseries. They decided that a Noble Demon styled Villain Protagonist would be inappropriate as his actions would be morally wrong, so instead, Venom's more villainous traits were downplayed so they could become an Anti-Hero. While Eddie's orginal "run" and later the full on Venom running series are still very well-liked, Marvel's tendency of turning their Breakout Villains into Anti-Heroes is seen more critical by fans with time, with for example Sabretooth, Wolverine's Arch-Enemy, being irredeemable in the eyes of many fans and being a Complete Monster who likes being evil for the sake of it actually being part of his appeal. Venom's success story can be blamed - in some kind and in parts - for that trend.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In Venom #20, Agent Venom is forced to kill Death Adder by snapping his neck in order to save a family. A few years later a certain superhero got a lot of attention and derision for being put in that same situation.
  • Venom 2099 became the Scorpion, while the present day Scorpion became Venom. There's also a What If? story where Flash became the Scorpion instead of Mac, his immediate predecessor as Venom.
  • Another What If? story asked what if Deadpool had the symbiote, and it's later revealed that he briefly did before Spider-Man.
  • Bane is usually considered Venom's DC counterpart. Then Tom Hardy, who played Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, was cast as Venom in its solo film.
• Iron Woobie: Flash. It's pretty stunning that he manages to keep fighting after the sheer amount of crap he has to go through.
• Jerkass Woobie: Eddie Brock. Despite all the terrible things he's willing to do, seeing him try to be a hero and being extremely desperate for the Symbiote can be very sad at times, not to mention the fact his normal life isn't exactly peachy either.
• Memetic Molester: Knull got this treatment in Scandinavia, due to what his name means over there ^NoteIt means fuck, as in the act. The fact that he's wearing a huge grin resembling a "rape face" and the Scandiavian media getting their hands on the comic's promotional poster saying "Knull is Coming" in a wet white font isn't helping much.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Too Many Symbiotes!"^ExplanationA sarcastic exclamation used by fans to criticize the Marvel editorial department's opposition to having multiple symbiote characters regardless of how popular they are, which fans blame for incidents such as the attempt to kill Eddie Brock off in Marvel Knights: Spider-Man, Carnage being seemingly killed off during Mac Gargan's tenure as Venom, Hybrid and Scream being killed off during Rick Remender and Cullen Bunn's run, and the cancellation of Scream: Curse of Carnage. Of note, Dan Slott confirmed this editorial attitude was what led to Mania (Andi Benton) being de-powered in Venom Inc., Cullen Bunn was blocked from utilizing Mania in most of his stories and chose not to re-empower her in Venomized out of concern he'd be forced to kill her off, and Seanan McGuire confirmed this attitude was a factor in Marvel's initial refusal to let her make Earth-65's Mary Jane Watson into Carnage in Ghost-Spider.
  • "For the last time, Parker! Our pronouns are they/them, not because we are non-binary, but because we are literally two niggas!"^ExplanationAn edit of a panel from Venom: Lethal Protector. Some memes replace Venom with other characters that are made of multiple people.
  • Correct, madam. ^ExplanationAn image of Venom from issue #150. The humorous contrast of Venom's monstrous appearance with the casual and polite answer made it a popular reaction image.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • The Crime Master bonding Eddie Brock to the Toxin symbiote just so he can have Toxin for his personal Legion of Doom.
  • Jack O' Lantern killing Mania's dad. Notably this ends up being the act that cause Venom to try and kill Jack rather than capture him.
  • Lee Price crosses it in his first outing as Venom when he not only kills his best friend but also a homeless person. Both of whom had zero reason to expose his secret.
• My Real Daddy:
  • Depending on the fan and comic creator, many people have been credited with the creation of Venom. The reason being his somewhat convulted history.
    • A reader by the name of Randy Schueller wrote into Marvel with the idea of giving Spider-Man a new black costume. Marvel's editor-and-chief at the time liked the idea and bought it from Schueller. Since he was writing Secret Wars at the time, Shooter asked Mike Zeck, the series' artist, to draw up a Spear Counterpart to Spider-Woman II's costume based on Schueller's design.
    • Writers such as Peter David and Roger Stern gave the suit its ability to morph into other clothes, have an unlimited supply of web fluid, and decided to turn the costume into a living alien symbiote. Both men have taken some credit for Venom for this reason.
    • David Michelinie, the writer of Amazing Spider-Man, wanted to bring the costume back as a villain after displeased fans prompted the editors to return Peter to his red-and-blues, and came up with Eddie Brock's character. He also wrote the first miniseries and initially had the idea of turning him into an Anti-Villain once he became popular enough. Michelinie took full credit for Venom's creation, though amid backlash against him snubbing Todd McFarlane's contribution he admitted that Todd's design was one of the main reasons the character was so well-recieved.
    • Todd McFarlane redesigned Spider-Man's black costume for the villain and came up with the name Venom. Because he was only an artist, he was frequently snubbed as having simply taken and altered another artist's work, and therefore being undeserving of recognition as a co-creator. According to rumor he demanded full creative control of the character, and when Marvel refused he left to help form Image Comics.
    • Since then, many writers have retconned the nature of the symbiotes - Are they drawn to negative emotions? Are they vampiric? Are they Darwinian monsters? - Mark Millar was the first to release the host from Eddie Brock and decided to turn it into a sort of Legacy Character, although that had been David Michelinie's intention from the start.
    • On at least one occasion, writers have attempted to explain the nature and origin of the symbiote species. Since the Planet of the Symbiotes story arc happened during The Clone Saga it quickly fell into Fanon Discontinuity, although it was later referenced during the 2015 Guardians of the Galaxy "Planet Venom" arc.
    • Rick Remender for Agent Venom. His run was critically acclaimed and widely agreed upon as the definitive portrayal of Flash as Venom.
  • Donny Cates has claimed credit for creating Knull, despite Knull having technically first appeared in Jason Aaron's Thor: God of Thunder run.
• Narm:
  • After Venom's design was updated to include Scary Teeth and an Overly-Long Tongue, he becomes prone to this depending on the artist. While not usually drawn poorly, he can easily go from genuinely terrifying to just... ludicrous. This being a prime example.◊
  • Being a product of the 1990s, Carnage was once prone to being Totally Radical. He also looks like a frog on the cover of Deadpool vs. Carnage #3, and when he uses a tentacle to smack the Sin-Eater's shotgun in Axis: Carnage #3, the sound-effect produced is an unfortunately-worded "Fap!"
  • It's impossible to take the name Knull, the Symbiote God seriously when it's Scandinavian for fuck.
• Never Live It Down: The lighter incident◊ from the Sinister Six storyline.
• Newer Than They Think: Even though he's labeled as a "classic" Spider-Man villain, Venom only first appeared in 1988, 26 years after Spidey's debut.
• Nightmare Fuel: Carnage. Being the offspring of Venom naturally means Carnage brings some Nightmare Fuel to the table. However while Venom only started off as a villain and is now an anti-hero who tries to protect the innocent (while also gunning after Spider-Man), Carnage is a full fledged supervillain of the absolute worst kind, making him a borderline Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant.
  • Let's start with the simple fact of this is a serial killer with an alien suit that can turn into anything its user wants!
  • For as long as he's been around, Venom has always referred to himself as "us", to represent himself and the Symbiote as a team. But from his very first appearance, Carnage uses "me" as a pronoun. Cletus Kasady is so completely insane, he can no longer tell where he ends and the Symbiote begins. And given that he was a serial killer before the Symbiote got to him, it's likely he doesn't notice a difference.
    • Perhaps worse - Cletus can tell where he and the symbiote are, but the fact of the matter is, his symbiote had been fused in his bloodstream. Which means that Cletus and Carnage are so utterly fused to one another, that they are, basically, one whole entity.
  • The mere fact one of his first kills after getting the symbiote was looking in the phone book and finding a guy whose name sounded funny - and killing him just because of that. The sheer callousness of the murder perfectly describes his horrific nature. And that's even before he goes after a man named Chip. Not because his name sounded funny or anything... he was just around, and Carnage wanted some fun.
  Chip: B-but why? For the love of God, WHY?!?
  Carnage: Why? 'Cause law's an illusion, Chip-O! An' order's nothin' but a TV fantasy! Why am I killin' you, Cap'n Chips? That's easy. I'm killin' you... *THUK* ...'cause I CAN!
• Pandering to the Base: Bendis' reason for making the Venom symbiote good was to appeal to new fans who have no idea the character was ever a villain.
• Paranoia Fuel: Venom knows who Spider-Man is, doesn't trigger his spider sense and can shapeshift into most anything. When he is trying to kill Spider-Man, he has used this to get the jump on him at any given moment.
• Replacement Scrappy:
  • Mac Gargan as Venom. Ostensibly it was an attempt to reverse Mac's rampant Villain Decay, but as Spider-Man put it "a loser dressed like Venom is still a freakin' loser".
  • Averted with Flash as Venom, as many consider him to be a great character in his own right.
  • Reaction to Lee Price has been overwhelmingly negative, largely due to fans finding him to be an unlikeable character — especially in regard to his casual abuse of the symbiote. When it was announced he would eventually be returning as an antagonist for Eddie Brock, some fans hoped that he would be developed further, but when it was revealed that he will bond with the Mania symbiote in Venom Inc., phasing out an Ensemble Dark Horse character in exchange of shilling a near-wholly loathed one, fans began to hate him even more.
  • Patrica, the second She-Venom, mainly due to not being as memorable as Ann and barely appearing as the host of Venom's clone.
  • Angelo Fortunato rivals even Lee Price in terms of being the worst Venom host by far; being a shallow "Well Done, Son" Guy / All Girls Want Bad Boys double archetype who causes senseless chaos for four issues before even the symbiote considers him useless, dumping him in mid-air.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • A lot of people who hated Carnage started liking him retroactively when he was killed off by fellow Base-Breaking Character Sentry. There was much rejoicing when Carnage was brought back, if not for his return, then at least for the fact that Sentry had been done away with and someone else could now have the honor of slaying Kasady.
  • Even detractors of Carnage see his Inverted self in AXIS one of the best things to come out of the event.
  • People who disliked Carnage did at least grow to appreciate him significantly more after he killed off Replacement Scrappy Venom host, Lee Price.
• Sequelitis: While plenty of people like Cullen Bunn's run on Venom (and Mania is a big Ensemble Dark Horse), general agreement is that it doesn't hold a candle to Rick Remender's run on the book.
• Shocking Moments: Carnage Unleashed! opened with Carnage using his symbiote to murder someone through the Internet, and it just got more insane from there, culminating in everything exploding.
• Squick:
  • Any time the Carnage symbiote oozes out of Cletus's wounds.
  • Emil Gregg's rat and maggot-infested corpse in Axis: Carnage #2.
  • Cletus' appearance underneath the Dark Carnage symbiote in Absolute Carnage, where he's little more than a skeletal maggot-infested undead corpse covered in fourth-degree burns.
• Tearjerker The final issue of Flash's tie-in with Spider-Island. Flash goes out on patrol in the aftermath of the event to find C-List Fodder villain Hijacker robbing a bank in a massive, indestructible battle-tank and crushing a security guard trying to return to his job. As he gives chase, Hijacker runs over an innocent mother and her son crossing the street, killing and mutilating them beyond recognition. Flash nearly breaks down in tears before latching to the underside of the tank and brutally beating Hijacker in his lair as he begs for his life, before biting his head off and spitting it out. All the while soberly musing over the senseless loss of life, just because Hijacker wanted to be rich.
  Flash: The moment... it hangs, frozen... For a million years. Won't go away. The moment hangs there. Then we wake up.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Between 2003 and 2016, a lot of fans refused to accept the fact Eddie Brock was no longer Venom and kept asking that he and the symbiote get back together. This was teased during Spider Island when the symbiote abandoned Flash to take over Eddie, but ultimately didn't occur and, since Eddie was Toxin and Flash was in space, this was seen as being highly improbable. However, Eddie returned as Venom in April 2017.
  • Brian Michael Bendis purifying the Venom symbiote of its hatred, rage, and bloodlust in Guardians of the Galaxy was met with disdain by a lot of fans, especially since the reason he gave for doing so was to appeal to a new generation of fans who had no idea Venom was a vicious monster and simply saw him as a hero with a cool shapeshifting suit. Venom Vol. 3 has even disregarded the revelation that the symbiote's memories were erased, and Donny Cates retconned Bendis' retcon into a lie the symbiotes told in order to cover up their dark past.
• Ugly Cute: The◊ Venom◊ symbiote◊ in The Hunger.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Pyre from Funeral Pyre.
  Venom: Stop it! We cannot... take your microwave blasts! We came to save you!
  Pyre: You came too late!! I was forced to kill by those lifeless at your feet—because you did not rescue me in time!
• The Woobie:
  • The symbiote itself. The Guardians of the Galaxy's retcon only amps this up further by revealing that the symbiotes are naturally benevolent and consider themselves noble warriors that help worthy hosts become true heroes. But somewhere down the line, a symbiote bonded to an unworthy host and was driven insane by bloodlust, leading to the foundation of the empire of carnivorous Lovecraftian parasites they've been portrayed as ever since the original Planet of the Symbiotes. The Venom symbiote was the first in its lineage to be born without that bloodlust, and was imprisoned for wanting to be more like its noble ancestors. It's freed by Spider-Man and deems him a worthy host, but when he finds out it's alive he panics and rejects it. When Eddie Brock shows up about to commit suicide, the symbiote is drawn to his obsession with Spider-Man and bonds to him, but is driven insane with bloodlust, which just gets worse over time. And now it's lost Flash only to find a host in Lee Price. Initially it is very excited when it finds out Lee is a soldier like Flash but it turns out Lee is a sociopath. The poor thing was abused and forced back into the role of a super-villain until Eddie reclaimed it.
  • The Life Foundation symbiotes. They were ripped out of their parent, artificially aged up, experienced the deaths of their hosts, were painfully experimented on by the government, experienced the death of their shared host after merging, were physically separated, more or less lobotomized and turned into little more than equipment by the military, and then experienced the deaths of yet another set of hosts.
  • Mania gets her dad killed by Jack O' Lantern, is unwillingly given a symbiote, and ends up stuck with a hellmark that can't be removed as it's stuck to the symbiote, not her. Getting said hellmark ends up putting her in Crossbone's sights and ultimately drives her insane. And just when her life starts coming back together, she's ambushed and has her symbiote stolen. Web of Venom: Funeral Pyre and Scream: Curse of Carnage amp this up further by killing off her remaining family members and having her be stranded in New York, feeling utterly alone and abandoned to the point of being suicidal.

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