Venom: 10 Things The Movie Left Out From The Comics

Content Warning: This article contains depictions/references to violence.

From locations, character motivations, to the order events took place in, it’s clear that many different Venom comic book stories acted as inspiration for the plot and settings of the film.

Although it was faithful to the most easily recognizable aspects of the character, 2018’s Venom film made many significant changes to the source material. In some instances, minor changes were made, but in others, important events from the classic comics were entirely reimagined or omitted completely.

10 The Location

In the Venom film, the majority of the action takes place in San Francisco, California. While he was born and raised there in the comics, the events that led to Eddie Brock becoming Venom actually happened on the other side of the United States.

In the comics, after graduating high school, Brock was accepted into the journalism program at Empire State University (which is a fictional, ivy league research university existing in Marvel’s Manhattan). Upon graduation, Eddie married his longtime girlfriend Anne Weying and settled down in New York City, where he took a job as a reporter for The Daily Globe.

9 Why Brock Was Fired

While the film attempted to condense and consolidate the events of Eddie’s shameful career, it completely changed the actions and the consequences that followed. In the film, Eddie, looking to break a story, confronts Carlton Drake, CEO of The Life Foundation, after discovering classified documents regarding human testing in their facilities. These documents were obtained from his fiancèe, Anne Weying, who was employed by the Foundation as a defense attorney. Both of them ended up losing their jobs, and caused Anne to end their relationship.

In the comics, Brock was fired from The Daily Globe after writing an exposè revealing the identity of a notorious serial killer, whom he had been privately interviewing for months. When Spider-Man captured the real killer, exposing Brock’s contact as a fraud, he was fired and soon became the laughing stock of the journalism world.

8 Eddie And Anne’s Marriage

After Eddie causes Anne to violate her contractual attorney/client privilege in the film, she furiously ends their engagement when they each are fired as a result. In the comics, however, the couple married immediately after they finished college, with Eddie attaining a journalism degree and Anne passing the bar.

Although Anne did not play a role in Brock’s fall from grace in the comics, the result was the same, as she divorced him when he subsequently became obsessed with revenge on Spider-Man, whom he blamed for ruining his life.

7 She-Venom

In a moment of fan service towards the climax of the Venom film, Anne Weying willingly bonds with the Venom Symbiote, becoming “She-Venom” in order to save a captured Eddie Brock. While Anne also became She-Venom in the comics, her time with the alien was significantly more gruesome. Years after divorcing Brock, Anne’s work as an attorney leads to her being caught in the crossfire of an attempted mob hit. In order to save her life, Eddie gives an unconscious Anne the symbiote, hoping to utilize its healing abilities.

After awakening in a panic, Anne flees. When she stops to gather her senses, she is assaulted in a New York alley, only for the alien to brutally dispatch her assailants. Where the film showed her brief partnership with the symbiote as amicable, comic book Anne is traumatized by her time with it and would come to further resent her ex-husband after.

6 Spider-Man

As most fans are aware, the comic book version of the Venom Symbiote originated as Spider-Man’s iconic black costume. Because of this, the comic book version of Venom has a long and intertwining history with Peter Parker. While the Venom Symbiote of the film had a handful of hosts before eventually attaching to Eddie Brock, none of these were Peter.

As a result of this omission, the film depiction of the symbiote also lacks the sprawling white spider symbol worn on Venom’s chest and back in the comics, a remnant of its time with its original host.

5 Not Parasites

Marvel’s comic book symbiotes are regularly depicted as true symbiotes, as opposed to parasites. In the film, The Life Foundation’s extensive human trials involving the aliens are due to the symbiotes rapidly consuming each host they are bonded to. While there are aggressive symbiotes, like Carnage, who are known to mentally overpower their hosts, most members of the comics species seek bonds represented by a true partnership.

To this end, they generally prefer willing hosts and rarely forcefully initiate a bond. Additionally, the comic book symbiotes don’t typically consume their hosts, instead preferring to remain bonded for the duration of the host’s natural lifespan, if it is willing.

4 Not Space Invaders

The film version of the symbiote explains to Eddie shortly after they’re bonded that the motivation of its species is to actively search out inhabited worlds and then consume the inhabitants. This is a drastic departure from the motivations of the alien symbiotes of Marvel’s comics.

In the comics, Venom is the first symbiote brought to Earth, after Marvel’s heroes inadvertently bring it back with them from an adventure on an alien world during the Secret Wars event. From Venom, all of the early comic book symbiotes, including Riot and Carnage, are spawned on Earth, as opposed to the film’s organized invasion from space.

3 Battleworld

The symbiotes of the film are first discovered and brought to Earth from an asteroid passing near the Earth’s orbit. The symbiotes of the comics, however, have a much more complicated original discovery. When Earth’s heroes and villains are gathered by the omnipotent entity, The Beyonder, and spirited away to another world to do battle, Spider-Man’s suit is damaged in combat.

When an alien device ejects a black orb that subsequently envelopes his body, the wall-crawler initially believes he has discovered a suit made from advanced alien technology. He would not discover that it was, in fact, a living creature until months after bringing it back to Earth following this adventure.

2 Riot

The primary antagonist of the Venom film, the Riot Symbiote was established as the leader and most powerful of the symbiote’s who endeavored to conquer and consume the Earth. To complete this goal, he bonds with Life Foundation CEO Carlton Drake but is opposed by Eddie Brock and the Venom Symbiote. In the comics, however, Riot is actually one of five offspring of Venom, forcibly removed from it after Brock is captured by The Life Foundation.

In this version, it was bonded to a mercenary in the Foundation’s employ named Trevor Cole, as opposed to Drake himself. The five symbiote spawns, as well as their hosts were eventually dispatched by Venom, during a team-up with Spider-Man.

1 Brock Wanted Venom

The first act of the film culminates in the Venom Symbiote bonding with Eddie Brock to escape the Life Foundation facility, without Brock’s knowledge. When he discovers that he is infected by the alien, Brock panics and initially attempts to reject it. The comic book version of Brock, on the other hand, was elated to be selected as the symbiote’s host.

Lying dormant after being abandoned by its original host, the creature was drawn to Brock’s rage towards Spider-Man. As the entities merged, the two became united by their shared hatred towards a mutual enemy, with Brock blaming the wall-crawler for the issues in his life, and the alien reeling from its recent rejection. In contrast to Eddie’s hesitation in the film, the comic book Brock relished the power it granted him, immediately on board with the prospect of a permanent partnership.

About The Author

Drew Beaty
(53 Articles Published)

Drew Beaty is a third-generation superhero fan who was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. He began his collection with hand-me-down comic books from a used book store owned by his father and grandfather in the late 1980s. Today, Drew owns and has read over 50,000 individual comics. He was once ranked “Best In The World” in the Marvel Comics category of the mobile trivia game Quiz-Up and still has the screenshots to prove it. When he’s not reading or writing about masks and capes, Drew spends his time with his wife and cats, or rubbing elbows with Portland’s music scene, where he has performed in the hip hop group Bad Habitat since 2008.

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