Venom- Supervillain or antihero?

By Cody Rusan

The Marvel character known as Venom may be seen as a bad guy, but this is not always the case.

The Marvel franchise has seen much success with its wide variety of characters, many of whom originated in Spider-Man comics. One of the more popular figures to rise from the comics first appeared in issue 300 of The Amazing Spider-Man: the character Venom. With a power making him undetectable by Spidey-sense, he was the perfect supervillain for the comics.

People who read comic books throughout the ‘90s will know that comics had a very confusing period. In fact, the decade turned many readers away from comics. Not many of Marvel’s storylines were picking up much interest and many were goofy or just downright awful. Any review of the decade in comics will prove such claims, but comic fans continued to purchase Spider-Man comics. It was also the first time Venom was seen as a solo character, turning him into more of an anti-hero than a supervillain.

In the 1993 six-issue miniseries Venom: Lethal Protector, Venom and Spider-Man made an agreement to leave one another alone under the condition that Venom did not commit any crimes. In the series, the father of one of Venom’s previous victims decided to go after him with a team of super-powered mercenaries. This all led to Venom being portrayed in a horrible light on television which made Spider-Man confront Venom. Once Spider-Man reached Venom, it was made clear that Venom was not the bad guy in the situation. Spider-Man ended up fighting alongside Venom against five new offspring of the Venom entity.  

Fighting alongside Spider-Man would not be the only major Venom surprise for readers. Venom also saved an underground city buried under the streets of San Francisco, making him look like a superhero rather than anything he was originally portrayed to be. Since then, Marvel has focused on the good that Venom is rather than the bad.

Look for Venom on the big screen in the future as Sony Studios announced an Oct. 5, 2018 release date for its Venom spinoff film. The film will have nothing to do with the current Marvel Cinematic Universe, so it in no way will be related to the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming film.

Casting and information on who will be behind the scenes for the Venom film has yet to be announced.