The Marvel character Venom is not only one of the most popular villains in comic book history but he also has an unconventional journey to the page. It started when Marvel made the decision in the early 1980s to change Spider-Man’s iconic red-and-blue costume to a black costume. That concept didn’t last long, but it did lead to one of their best supervillain ideas.

Spider-Man’s black-and-white suit was first introduced in 1984 in The Amazing Spider-Man #252. The idea for the suit came from a comic book reader from Norridge, Illinois named Randy Schueller who Marvel actually bought the idea from for $220. Marvel then hired artists Mike Zeck and Rick Leonardi to design the suit. Needless to say the permanent color change to Spidey’s suit was a resoundingly unpopular idea. As for the story details for how Spidey received the new suit, they were chronicled that same year a few months later in Marvel’s 12-issue limited series Secret Wars, in which Spidey got his suit damaged in Battleworld and unknowingly repaired it with the help of a black-colored alien symbiote that attached itself to his body.

The idea for a self-healing biological costume came from Iron Fist writer John Byrne. Another writer named Roger Stern asked to borrow that idea for use in the Spider-Man comics instead, while writer Tom DeFalco and artist Ron Frenz were the ones who came up with the idea for the suit to be a sentient being. The duo also created the idea that the symbiote would be vulnerable to sonic energy and fire.

All this would eventually lead to the creation of the character of Venom himself. Spider-Man writer David Michelinie felt Peter Parker’s Spider Sense gave the character too much of an unfair advantage over his foes. That was when Michelinie honed in on the symbiote suit as a potential means for making its host immune to triggering Spider Sense detection, due to its genetic material mirroring Parker’s after the events of Secret Wars. Michelinie and artist Todd McFarlane (the future co-founder of Image Comics and creator of Spawn who also happened to be one of the people who hated Spider-Man’s black suit) first introduced Venom in The Amazing Spider-Man #300 in 1988, after Peter Parker rejects the symbiote and it instead bonds with Eddie Brock, a disgraced journalist from the Daily Globe who was fired and relegated to tabloid reporting after he captured the wrong murder suspect before Spider-Man caught the real serial killer, as chronicled in the “Sin-Eater” storyline. This not only kicked off Eddie Brock’s resentment towards Spider-Man but eventually his suicidal depression as well. That is until the symbiote found him and bonded with him.

The symbiote is of course a lifeform from another planet and it has various abilities: shape-shifting, telepathy, the enhancement of strength and a wicked set of sharp teeth along with a tongue that would make Gene Simmons jealous. In turn, Eddie Brock also has these abilities while in his Venom form, although the symbiote has gotten ahold of several hosts in the Marvel Universe other than Peter Parker and Eddie Brock through the years, including Mac Gargan (aka the Scorpion), Norman Osborn, Peter Parker’s classmate Flash Thompson and even Eddie Brock’s son.

Being one of the most popular Spider-Man villains, Venom has of course also appeared on screen many times. He was voiced by Hank Azaria in the animated series Spider-Man (1994), he was voiced by Brian Drummond in Spider-Man Unlimited (1999) and he was voiced by Benjamin Diskin in The Spectacular Spider-Man (2008). Venom also made animated appearances in shows like Ultimate Spider-Man, Phineas and Ferb, Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H., Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers, Avengers Assemble and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Venom’s first movie appearance was almost in a titular film from New Line Cinema until the film rights to the character reverted to Sony in 2007, which was the same year Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 came out and introduced the character alongside Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) who teamed up with Sandman in an attempt to kill Spider-Man.

A spin-off film that would portray Venom as an anti-hero was in the planning stages after Spider-Man 3 came out but that never materialized. In 2012, Josh Trank was in talks to direct a Venom film set in the universe of the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man films. Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, the writing team behind the Transformers and Star Trek films and co-writers of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, also tried to take a crack at it. But a solo Venom film really started to gain steam in 2016 after Spider-Man was introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Captain America: Civil War and Sony was left with the film rights to Spider-Man villains only.

The first of these Spider-villain films Venom (2018) was directed by Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) and starred Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock. Critics hated it but audiences loved it and it became a huge hit. Sony hired Andy Serkis to direct the sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) starring Woody Harrelson as the host of a symbiotic offshoot of Venom called Carnage. The third film in the trilogy Venom: The Last Dance (2024) was written and directed by Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage writer Kelly Marcel and the story in that film pits Venom against Knull, a supervillain who first appeared in the comics in 2018 and apparently has some kind of deep connection to the symbiote.

Venom: The Last Dance is said to be the last film in the trilogy and Tom Hardy has already said goodbye to the character, so Venom’s cinematic future is currently unknown. Although there was a clue at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home that suggests his next appearance might be in the MCU since we know a symbiote got loose following the events of that film. But which MCU character that symbiote decides to bond with as its host is completely up in the air. And for all we know, the character could show up on screen again at some point before that. But he’s my favorite villain in the Marvel universe (and that’s even before I became a Marvel fan – he’s just aesthetically and objectively a cool villain) so I’m always up for more Venom appearances no matter where he shows up. Hopefully he will end up facing Spider-Man again at some point because while Spider-Man 3 has its moments, I’ve yet to see a really satisfying cinematic showdown between these two characters.