| NOTE: This article only covered the symbiote and excludes Harry Osborn, as only the symbiote was voted Near Pure Evil. Thus, this article should only cover the symbiote aspect of Venom, rather than his host. |
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This Article Contains Spoilers -
WARNING: This article contains major spoilers. If you do not wish to know vital information on plot / character elements in a story, you may not wish to read beyond this warning: We hold no responsibility for any negative effects these facts may have on your enjoyment of said media should you continue. |
| “ | Harry: Mom, I don't... What did I just do? Venom (Imitating Harry's mother's voice): Don't be scared Honey, We finally have the power to do what we always wanted! We're going to heal the world. Harry: How? Venom: Let me show you. We're going to heal everyone. |
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| ~ The symbiote showing Harry Osborn that they will "heal" the world together. |
| “ | Peter: Harry, we need to get that "thing" off you. Harry: Do Not... Call Us... A "Thing"! Peter: Harry... Harry: We are not "Harry". We... Are... Venom: Venom. |
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| ~ Harry/Venom's most iconic Quote as the symbiote and Harry transform in front of Peter and MJ |
| “ | Peter: Fight Harry! Fight! Harry: I can't! I'm done, you have to... (Venom covers Harry's face and mutes him) Venom: You have to kill us! |
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| ~ The Symbiote's final words, sadistically taunting Peter that he has to kill both Harry and itself to stop it for good.
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Venom, also known as the Symbiote is a minor character in the 2018 action-adventure superhero video game Marvel's Spider-Man as well as its 2020 spin-off Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, one of the two main antagonists (alongside Kraven the Hunter) of its 2023 sequel Marvel's Spider-Man 2, and the main protagonist of the story “Kiss the Ring” from issue #1 of the 2024 comic book miniseries Venomverse Reborn.
He is a parasite-like organism called a symbiote who, while attached to Harry Osborn, intends to "heal the world" by terraforming all human life into symbiotes. He is the arch-nemesis of Miles Morales/Spider-Man and Kraven the Hunter, one of the two arch-nemeses of Peter Parker/Spider-Man (alongside Doctor Octopus) and the most dangerous and powerful enemy that Peter and Miles faced.
He was voiced by the late Tony Todd in one of his final roles before his death.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Evil?[]
Background/In General[]
- Shortly after crash-landing outside the city, he attempted to bond with Curt Connors, forcing Oscorp security to shoot off his arm before it could happen. While this was partly Connors's own fault due to carelessly approaching Venom when he first crashed in New York, it was still a horrible thing to endure and every time Connors was near Venom, he showed visible fear and unease in the symbiote's presence, indicating Venom caused Connors to develop some form of psychological trauma.
- This was also shown during his raid on his lab as when Venom demanded to know where the rest of the meteorite was, Connors was shown trembling in fear and unable to speak, only gesturing its location to Venom. As Venom retrieved it, Connors was shown curled up in terror and when he mustered up enough courage to make a brief protest, Venom strikes at him.
- The loss of his arm would result in Connors try to find a way to restore it, causing him to turn into the Lizard and his wife and son abandoning him. This made Venom responsible for the creation of the Lizard to begin with and burdening Connors with everything that's happened to him because of it. Although Venom did not know this would happen, he showed no regret for what he did to Connors. During the fight with the Lizard, Venom had Peter insult Connors as too weak and that it was his own fault his family left him, showing that despite being fully aware of what Connors lost because of him, Venom showed no regret and even seemed to take delight in the fact that he caused Connors to lose everything.
- Although he was a mind-controlling parasite, there were instances where he displayed moral agency, such as getting enraged when he was referred to as a "thing", as well as displaying numerous instances of sadism.
- While Venom had a point in calling Peter out for calling him a thing and treating him like an animal, even when he made it very clear he was a sentient being, this was nowhere depicted as redeeming or mitigating, as Venom did awful things even after he started calling Peter out, showing Peter's treatment and wariness of Venom was completely justified.
- At first, he seemed to care for Peter by saving his life from Kraven the Hunter, desiring to rule his symbiote army alongside him rather than eliminate him. He was also genuinely hurt when Peter made it clear that he has no intention of re-bonding with him.
- However, this care was mostly for his selfish needs and was not genuine nor reciprocal, as he turned MJ into Scream to torment him and had no qualms with killing his friends. He also claimed that he was all that Peter needed, proving that his supposed care for him was very obsessive, hypocritical, and toxic. Whatever small remnants of genuine care Venom held for Peter was subverted in the end, as he unhesitatingly attempted to murder Peter upon the latter's refusal to join him.
- While he displayed a sense of humor while bonded to Peter, this was him naturally corrupting Peter's sarcastic tendencies and making them come off as very sadistic and hurtful.
- While Peter had his fair share of mockery, this was often used to distract his enemies or deal with stress. By contrast, the form of humor that Venom made Peter utilize sounded less like quips and more like death threats, making them more horrifying than funny. Furthermore, it showed how strong Venom's hold over Peter was.
- It could of had a tragic past before the second game of being trapped and subdued in a tank with Harry Osborn and experimented on by Dr. Connors and Oscorp for years it's never really established how affected the symbiote is from the experience, and even then, the symbiote doesn't look particularly angsty about it at all.
- Overall, he was a deadly threat that was taken completely dead seriously throughout the game (with his worst crimes being played for pure nightmare fuel), as well as possessing almost no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Whatever small redeeming qualities he held were mostly subverted as the game transpired, showing that he has no care nor regard for people other than himself and his self-interest. In addition, the relationships he had with Harry and Peter are quite toxic and emotionally manipulative, as he demonstrated abusive tendencies and an entitled mindset towards Peter and Harry.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2[]
- While he saved Harry and several passengers at Coney Island when the roller-coaster crashed, this was to keep Harry alive as his host, as well as to conceal his true nature as an alien from Harry and the others. Furthermore, as soon as he learned that Peter was Spider Man in this incident, he immediately moved to bond with Peter, engaging in numerous attempts at that objective until his eventual success.
- While he engaged in some heroic actions when Harry Osborn was first bonded with him, this was likely done to conceal his alien nature, especially since he was disguising himself as an exosuit. It was also explicitly stated by Connors that the tank that Harry was in subdued him, meaning Venom was too weak to resist Harry's decisions. However, upon bonding with Peter, he became strong enough to enact his corrupting influence on his hosts.
- He attempted to bond with Spider-Man whenever the two got into close contact with each other, forcibly refusing to re-bond to Harry after succeeding in doing so. He also influenced Peter into not wanting to relinquish him back to Harry, showing that Venom never truly cared for Harry to begin with. The only reason why Venom eventually re-bonded with Harry was purely out of opportunistic desperation, as Peter had previously excised Venom out of his body. This was furthermore supported by Connors, who noted that the symbiote chose Peter and left Harry on his own accord rather than Harry giving it to him voluntarily, showing that Venom only saw Harry as a pawn.
- During his time with Peter, he corrupted him into becoming far extremely aggressive, cruel, callous, vengeful, arrogant, and even sadistic to enemies and allies alike. It reached its worst when he attempted to convince Peter to kill Kraven after he kidnapped Miles.
- While at the hotel, having turned into a tuxedo to allow Peter to infiltrate a Hunter gathering, Venom saved a server from being hit by a heavy-duty tranquilizer dart because Peter wanted to save the server. However, Venom only did this to start convincing Peter that the symbiote was better on him rather than trying to return it to Harry, since Peter was planning to have Doctor Conners try to remove the symbiote, still believing Venom was just bio armor at that point, alongside not revealing his true nature to Peter, making this act pragmatic and self-serving.
- At one point, he made Spider-Man aggressively throw a Hunter through a window despite him surrendering, resulting in said Hunter having a broken arm. Peter himself noted how unnecessary and unlike him that was, since he usually did not harm an enemy that surrendered.
- After the true nature of the symbiote was revealed to Peter, Connors immediately advocated the symbiote's destruction. Venom responded by briefly taking control of Peter to scare the scientist and forcibly took away his phone to prevent him from calling Oscorp, intimidating him into dropping the subject for a while.
- He controlled Peter's body while he's asleep and went on an animalistic rampage throughout Queens against Kraven's hunters. Granted while they were ruthless and didn't care for anyone getting caught in the crossfire of their actions, not to mention they followed Peter to his house to capture him and nearly learned of his identity, how Venom went about defeating them was extremely brutal and he only did it to satisfy his bloodlust.
- This also briefly ruined Peter's reputation as a hero, the symbiote responding by making him take out his anger on Harry and MJ, most notably the latter for publishing an article criticizing this behavior and putting Peter at odds with the city to begin with. This, combined with Harry's seething jealously at Peter having everything he didn't due to his illness, was a major reason why Harry willingly embraced the symbiote being on him.
- He threw a sewer grate at Miles for trying to help Peter, who had been attempting to talk him down from his brutal tactics. Additionally, his influence initially caused Peter to show little concern for Miles when he got kidnapped by Kraven.
- He attempted to kill MJ inside a decommissioned subway tunnel for shocking Peter with her stun gun and wanting to separate them. Throughout the chase, he repeatedly used his own voice instead of Peter's to torment MJ and repeatedly gave her multiple opportunities to escape, stun or delay him, noticeably not doing it for anyone else, all just for his own sadistic amusement.
- If MJ lost the ensuing chase (or more accurately, allowed Venom to catch her), he would kill MJ by strangulation with his tendrils while ensuring she looked at him as it happens, making it clear that he enjoyed killing her. What made this worse was that he killed MJ by using her boyfriend's own body to do it.
- When meeting with Norman Osborn, Venom made Peter lie and said Harry is getting better to Norman, relieving Norman that he called Peter a second son to him, and that he was proud of him. Harry overheard this comment, and it caused his suppressed jealously of Peter to come out in full force, angered over Norman seeing Peter as a son, when all Norman had done was coddle Harry and treat him as something to be protected, playing a major role in why Harry allowed the symbiote to bond with him again.
- He attempted to make Peter attack Martin Li on sight, only for his powers to repel the symbiote. Later on, he managed to convince Peter to kill Kraven during Kraven's first boss fight, culminating in Venom taking control and strangling Kraven with a tendril. Kraven only survived because Miles intervened at the last second.
- He tried to make Peter kill Miles for revenge after he stopped him from murdering Kraven. During the fight, Venom even spoke through Peter, showing that he had taken almost complete control of Peter. Peter even speculated during the subway fight that, had Miles not intervened when he did, Peter would have turned into the form Venom took when he re-bonded with Harry.
- After Peter managed to remove the symbiote thanks to Miles' encouragement, Venom developed a deep hatred for Miles and tried to brutally kill him several times throughout the story, blaming Miles as the reason for why he and Peter got separated.
- After getting closer to Harry, though he non-fatally subdued the Oscorp guards and hunters, he engaged in this far more brutally compared to Spider-man. If you pay attention, you can hear Venom laughing softly as he attacks enemies, further showing his cruelty and sadism.
- After defeating Kraven the Hunter, he brutally killed him by biting his head off. While Kraven undoubtedly deserved it as well as desired it, Harry was left visibly traumatized by this. Even Peter was horrified when learning of his demise, knowing full well that Venom was responsible for it.
- This also briefly led to Spider-Man being accused of killing Kraven (also confirming Kraven was the only one that had died so far by the hands of Venom) as some people, most notably J. Jonah Jameson, initially assumed it was him still wearing the symbiote. Thankfully, this was quickly proven to not be the case.
- It was revealed that he desired to take over the planet by infecting humanity with symbiotes. What made this particularly awful is that he manipulated Harry using the voice of his mother, Emily, to take advantage of his trauma to gaslight him into yielding control of his body and initiating his plan.
- He attacked a train car that had Ganke and Rio Morales in it for no reason other than pure sadism, presumably to hurt Miles as revenge for Miles separating him from Peter.
- He had the symbiotes commit a multitude of crimes across New York City, resulting in multiple injuries and deaths.
- He attacked MJ at Peter's house and held her hostage to lure Peter in. He later turned MJ into the symbiote, Scream and forced her to fight Peter to "show him what he's missing" before fleeing, much to Peter's heartbreak.
- While MJ was being transformed, she was heard screaming, before coughing and gagging as Scream took over, showing that this was not a fast or instant transformation. MJ also made it clear she was fully aware as Scream took over, meaning Venom inflicted a fate worse than death on MJ just to spite Peter for rejecting him.
- After gaining the meteorite from Doctor Connors in the underground Oscorp lab, he proceeded to infect the whole city with symbiotes, turning it into a parasitical wasteland. It's shown that the infected people were put in immense pain while bonded to the symbiotes.
- During his attack on the lab, he physically brutalized several Oscorp security guards (though non-fatally) and intimidated Conners into giving up the other half of the meteorite. In addition, when Norman asked Venom to relinquish his control on Harry, Venom responded by stating that he was his son, pointing out that Harry was healthy and strong, before telling him this was exactly what he wanted, enjoying Norman's pain. Had Peter not shown up when he did, Venom likely would have killed Norman and Connors then and there.
- When Miles accidentally entered the hive-mind, Venom attempted to convince him to join his cause. When he refused, Venom showed him a vision of his love interest, Hailey Cooper, being attacked by symbiotes purely out of spite and anger.
- During the final battle, he tried to kill the Spider-Men as they and MJ attempted to escape with the meteorite and destroy it. At one point he attempted to bash Miles' head in with the meteorite under the pretense that he "gave [him] a chance".
- He also seemed to relish the dilemma Peter was in, knowing well that if he died, so would Harry by extension. What worsened the cruelty of this act was that Venom was fully aware of how close Peter and Harry were.
- He showed no care for the armies of symbiotes he created as they served as mere extensions of himself and as means of "healing" the world, treating them as expendable soldiers and servants rather than his own kind. This demonstrated he had no care for the symbiotes other than their utility for his own self-interest.
- His death resulted in Harry briefly dying, much to Peter and MJ's heartbreak. Although Miles was able to resuscitate Harry with his electrical powers, it left Harry in a comatose state with a low chance of either waking up or surviving since his illness was still present. This, in turn, prompted his father Norman to order the development of the "G-serum" and come to Doctor Octopus to learn the secret identities of the Spider-Men, blaming them for Harry's condition, as means of getting revenge against the wall-crawling duo.
- He was so awful and monstrous that neither Peter nor Miles ever attempted to consider trying to convince Venom to stop his plan, knowing that any such attempt was futile. Whenever they did appeal to Venom, they were actually speaking to Harry to fight back against his influence.
- This made him the only villain in the series so far that the Spider-Men believed had to be killed. Unlike the other villains in the series, where the symbiote nearly convinced Peter to kill him, not to mention the moment showed how strong his hold over the webslinger was by this point, it's made blatantly clear to the duo that no other option was possible as Venom was wholly adamant in his plans and more than capable of escaping containment and that he was too dangerous to be left alive.
What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]
- He's a well-intentioned extremist as he genuinely wanted to "heal" the world and improve it. While this could be a simple manipulation tactic to convince Harry Osborn to go along with his goal, this was shown in the VenomVerse Reborn 1 tie-in comic that this was genuine and also that he had standards against Knull for doing the same thing of removing free-will in Earth-616 for doing due to only wanting slaves and was disgusted by him. While Venom was aware that he was removing free will too, he also wanted to give the people he infected better lives, safer, happier and more at peace.
Trivia[]
- He is one of only two versions of Venom that are Near Pure Evil alongside Spider-Man 2017 counterpart. Additionally, this is currently the only Near Pure Evil version of Venom that does not have Eddie Brock as his primary host, with this one being Harry Osborn instead.
- He was originally approved as Pure Evil as it was originally thought that him claiming he wanted to "heal" the world was simply a manipulation tactic. However, in VenomVerse Reborn 1, it was confirmed that Venom did genuinely want to "heal" the world, which ended up removing him from Pure Evil.
- During production, there were concepts for a symbiote-infected Sandman, Lizard and Miles. Had this been used, it would have possibly made Venom even worse.
- Venom is the only Near Pure Evil villain in the series to be playable, as he is playable when he is bonded with Peter and also with Harry during the latter's rampage through Oscorp up until after his boss fight with Kraven. This makes him the first Spider-Man Near Pure Evil to be playable in a video game.
External Links[]
- Venom (alongside Harry Osborn) on the Villains Wiki
- Venom on the Ultimate Evil Wiki
- Venom on the Marvel's Spider-Man Wiki
- Venom on the Base Breaking Character Wiki
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 Near Pure Evils
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