IGN met up with Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert to talk about Spiderman 3. Talk naturally steered towards the villains and it was brought up that the fans want to see a big-screen version of Venom.
Which led Raimi and Tapert (admittedly not Venom fans) to basically ask what the fascination was with Venom.
Originally posted by IGNTapert fires back with a question of his own: "Can I ask a question back? Why does everybody want Venom in it? I wanted to just know as an outsider, why, because when we walked in today, somebody walked up and said, 'We're so excited Venom's in it,' and then she said that some Internet site ran something today."
Being a room full of Internet geeks, myself included, we preceded to recount to Raimi and Tapert why we thought Venom was such a cool villain and how he would fit perfectly into the film series.
"Yeah, he can shoot webs and stick to walls," Raimi says. "I think he can look like [different people]… Yeah, there's different origins if I can remember them right. I think, I might be getting confused, but I believe that one is a gift in outer space, for some reason he's concerned about keeping his secret identity even there, but they give him a suit, but isn't that an alternate version of it, or am I getting that confused with something else?"
A very interesting read to say the least. And hey, Raimi's at least TRYING, right?
Quite a few Spidey foes I'd rather see than Venom.
It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them. P. G. Wodehouse (1881 - 1975), The Man Upstairs (1914)
I don't know. I always liked Venom, but I'm a sucker for when the villain has roughly the same powers as the hero. I think it makes for an interesting dynamic.
Originally posted by eviljonhunt81Wait, Venom hides his secret identity in outer space?
When Spidy was fighting in the first Secret War, his costume was getting damaged beyond repair.
In the hideout the Fantastic Four were making their base, there was a machine there that could replicate fabrics. It "generated" the black costume which, eventually, turned out to be an alien symbiote.
The costume was pretty much damage resistant and could respond to his thoughts, like uncovering his head or hands or whatever. It shot webbing out of the back of his hands, IIRC. Spider-Woman II has the same style costume.
At the same time the Secret War was being published (12 issues, one a month) Spidy was wearing the black costume in his book and started to notice that he was always tired. The costume was enveloping Peter in his sleep and going out web slinging for the adrenaline rush.
Peter went to the FF HQ and Reed ran some tests and discovered the costume was alive and that only sound-waves (and fire?) could keep it at bay. They discovered that it was trying to bond with Parker forever.
One night, at a church, Eddie Brock was about to commit suicide(?) because his award winning article was a fake and was discovered to be a fake by Parker. Parker was in the bell tower and rang the bell to get the costume off and got the hell out of there. Rejected, the costume made it's way down to the ground floor and found a distraught Brock.
Using their mutual loathing of Parker, they joined forces. At first, Venom was an awesome character. The alien bonded with Brock and increased his strength immensely, but pretty much at the cost of his sanity. "We are Venom."
All that was from memory, so it's pretty much accurate.
Venom was awesome until Rob Liefeld, I think, was the Amazing Spider-man artist and gave Venom that damn tongue. Todd McFarlane(sp?) just had Venom give a dickish heel smirk and that worked for most people. Liefeld have Venom a small green tongue and a mess of shark teeth, and the tongue became longer, and longer, until it got out of hand. Kind of like Spawn's cape, back in the day.
Eventually, Venom got his own series of mini-series'. The first was Venom: Lethal Protector.
After that, he was becoming too overexposed and guest-starring in almost ever non-mutant book. Like The Punisher.
Speaking of him, there was an AWESOME What If? book on What If Venom bonded with The Punisher. A distraught Frank Castle was in the church and not Brock and instead of having a spider logo on his chest, the What If? Venom had the skull with spider legs on it. Webs? Nah, the costume fired bullets.
"We've got separation of powers, checks and balances, and Margaret, vetoing things and sending them back to the Hill!"
Meh -- that's ok; I love when NBC pulls a "special report" even though it's included in the commercial break, like they did twice tonight about the hurricane. If it were a true SR, it should be over the actual show itself.