The 20 greatest (and 10 worst) Spider-Man villains of all time
By Mike McNulty
4th Best Villain: Venom
In order to talk about Venom as a villain, you must also talk about two different characters.
One these characters is Eddie Brock, a reporter for the Daily Bugle‘s competitor, the Daily Globe. As depicted in the classic Spider-Man story, “Who Killed Jean DeWolff?” a serial killer named the Sin Eater was at large. No one could figure out who the killer was, but Brock unmasked him in an exclusive investigate report. Or so he thought. Spider-Man later caught the real Sin-Eater, and in doing so, he inadvertently cost Brock his career.
The other character is Spider-Man’s black costume. An sleek new outfit Spider-Man obtained during the original Secret Wars from 1984, it was actually a shape-shifting alien parasite. Once Spidey realize it was trying to bond with him on a physical and mental level, he discarded it. But this symbiote eventually found a distraught Brock praying in a church, and bonded with him instead. Feeling they were both wronged by Spider-Man, Brock and symbiote “teamed-up” to become Venom.
From the moment this dark, twisted reflection of the wall-crawler first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man vol. 1 #299, Venom became an instant hit. And thanks to his creators David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane, this villain not only looked terrifying, he actually was terrifying. And since the symbiote latched itself on Peter first, Venom not only has Spider-Man’s powers, he’s invisible to is spider-sense, and knows all his secrets.
With Venom’s popularity have come lots of changes. He’s been both a hero and a villain. And Brock and the symbiote and Brock separated, new hosts have included the Scorpion and Peter’s former high school classmate, Flash Thompson. However, Brock and the symbiote have since reunited, and now headline their own Venom series. The only thing they don’t have is the memory of who Spider-Man really is, which does admittedly lose some of their appeal.