The Smark Avengers - Vol 4, Ep 12: Mary Jane's Venom?! Breaking Down Every Symbiote Host in Marvel

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

🕷️🖤 Mary Jane's Venom?! Breaking Down Every Symbiote Host in Marvel 🖤🕷️ Mary Jane Watson is the new Venom host — and the Smark Avengers are here to break down EVERY major (and weird) character who's ever bonded with the symbiote! From Eddie Brock and Flash Thompson to some totally unexpected hosts, we cover the entire chaotic legacy of Marvel’s most famous alien goo. 🧠 In this episode: Full reaction to Mary Jane becoming Venom Every Venom host explained — the good, the bad, and the bizarre Jon vs. Dylan: Which Spider-Man fan knew more about each symbiote takeover? Hot takes, deep cuts, and plenty of Marvel trivia you might’ve missed! Whether you're a longtime Spider-Man fan or just catching up with the latest Marvel bombshell, this is your ultimate guide to Venom’s wildest hosts and most shocking moments. 🕸️ LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and COMMENT your favorite (or weirdest) Venom host! Who rocked the symbiote best — and who totally fumbled it? #Venom #MaryJaneVenom #MarvelComics #Symbiote #SpiderMan #VenomHosts #SmarkAvengers #MarvelPodcast #ComicBookPodcast #VenomVerse #MarvelExplained #VenomHistory #SpiderManFans #VenomMarvel #MCU #ComicBookBreakdown #MarvelHotTakes

But like somebody's going to be gambling, right? Yeah. Somebody is. That's fact. You look at the statistics, somebody's gambling right now. I mean, there's whole cities built around it. Exactly. Gambling.

There you go. Gambling cities. Hi, everybody. Welcome to Smart Avengers. My name is Corey. And with me is Dylan and John. How's it going, guys? Good.

Oh, good. Yeah. Nice. So, um, the last few episodes have been something. we had our three episodes of Batman Tears. We had a sober Japanese Spider-Man episode where we watched two episodes of Japanese Spider-Man. And then we had another episode of us watching Japanese Spider-Man, but with a drinking game element involved. Hey, there's balloons.

That was new. That one was brand new. No, it's not doing anything for me. Did I do that? Nothing. This is going to make sense on Spotify. Nope. So anyway, I don't remember much about those last two episodes Japanese Spider-Man.

But I honestly has anything to do with the alcohol as much as the fact that a lot of those episodes were just the fucking same. Well, that was part of the game. That was part of the game. Like half of it is tropes we've already seen before. And the other half is a very being, not a helpful introduction to whoever the villain is going to beat that episode. which happened to be a bad. Sometimes. Yeah.

That truck that ran over that little boy. Yeah. Classic. Great stuff. Yep. Oh, boy. John, did you have any trouble the next day going to work? No, I was okay in the end.

That's good. I woke up super early and that gave me a chance to drink some water and some coffee and eat lots of food. until I was sort of in a good enough condition to go to work. I know you were worried about that at the time. Yeah. It wasn't a fun day in the office anyway, so. Oh.

Well, hopefully this will be a fun day in the office for us, because in the world of Marvel Comics, after five issues of teasing who the all-new Venom is, we finally have our answer. And the results are surprising, and some people found them to be, kind of a what the fuck variety. Baby juggernaut.

Is baby juggernaut? At last. There we go. So the Venom symbiate is kind of an odd creation because it has been passed around from person to person over the years. And we thought before we get into our thoughts on the latest person to hold the Venom symbiate,

we would go down the line and discuss each person that had a chance to be smothered by that sweet, sweet, sweet, Goh. Before we get into it, though, we've talked about Venom before. We've talked about the Tom Hardy Venom movies. We talked about Tofer Grace playing Venom in Spider-Man 3. We've talked about Venom being on our overrated characters list before in the past. We have opinions on Venom. Is it possible for us to be unbiased as we discuss these topics? Yes, I think it is possible. Yes. What about happening? I don't know. I find myself not really caring enough about Venom to be completely frank

well that's part of it I feel like if we were really invested in that character we might be a little more offended but now none of us really care of it by them anymore we're like oh whatever this is just our opinion on this character but yeah maybe because we're not that invested we will be a little bit more fair about it yeah who knows uh John any thoughts on Venom before we

get into it. I think I'm in the minority among our group. I quite like the fact that they've done some different things with Venom over the recent years and kind of try to like

you know, expand the world of the symbiates and stuff. I wouldn't say it's all been successful but I think it's been a pretty good swing and like some stuff has worked so you know I thought whenever you started that

you're like I just want to say that I'm not like the other smart Avengers guys and that I am actually on the list of Venom hosts I was Venom from 2009 Crazy Spider Man 30 2010 when they were the Venom symbiate

just I was too evil for it yeah too evil for the Venom symbiate and it ran away like a little dog and I watched it go and I said someday I'm going to kill that fucking thing which proves just how evil you are if you're killing the venom simian you know so maybe that's the thumbnail

there we go John trying to kill it or is it going to be or will it be that same picture of me as Venom that you've used on I think three thumbs nails now I just couldn't be bothered drawing a new venom So to aid us in this discussion, Marvel.com, the official website of Marvel Comics,

actually published an article on April 4th that lists and does a small breakdown on every Venom host. So I thought would be great as to kind of, it will also be a chance for you guys to test your knowledge on Venom. I'm not a big Marvel reader, especially in the Spiderverse of things. So this will be very learning experience for me in general. my exposure to Venom is very limited to, I think, the episodes of the Spider-Man

in the animated series and parts of Spider-Man 3 that I watched. And I actually did read and enjoy the Agent Venom series by Rick Remender. But I got it because it was Rick Remender. I think Azaria was the voice of Eddie Brock and Venom in the Spider-Man. Oh, no kidding. And that birdcage is a cage that has been lovely. lovingly constructed for us by Marvel.com with their article of every Venom host so far that will act as a guide for us as we go through the world of the symbiate. Do we need to keep track of how many of these me and John recognize?

If you'd like to, I know you enjoy taking notes. I love taking notes. I'm a note taker. You are a note taker. So people call you the note taker. I think that's what they call me. It's hard to hear when they drive past me so quickly, but it sounds like that's what they say. So I'm just going to keep a little tally of how many of these we've heard of. I would imagine we'll have heard of similar ones.

Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to start off from the very beginning, and that is, of course, Peter Parker. I've heard of him. The Venom symbiate was discovered in Secret Wars issue number eight in 1984, where Peter mistook the symbiate for a way to repair his tattered costume after his fight against an army of supervillains on battle world. Back on Earth, he learned the symbiote was not only a sentient being,

but one that was only trying to permanently bond with him in Web of Spider-Man number one in 1985. So, fun fact about the Spider-Man symbiate. I didn't realize Venom has been around since before I was born, or at least symbiate. Yeah. I knew it was the 80s. I thought it was a little later than that. But no, any fond memories of,

black suit Spider-Man. I liked it. I thought it was a cool visual, cool idea. Mm-hmm. It was a good angle. Like a fond, it felt fresh, you know?

Yeah, like the whole gimmick as well with the suit sort of slowly is sort of taken over as well. Like Peter getting dragged out in the middle of the night whilst he was asleep and he's like on autopilot while the suit takes over. and then like waking up exhausted the next day,

like not realizing what the hell's been going on. Like stuff like that, kind of, I don't know if that was like the plan all along when they decided to give him a cool new costume or if it was just something that developed as they were going, but it gave the costume like a cool kind of twist rather than just being like,

oh, here's some new duds for, you know, no good reason. It made him like, stretched down the street with his emo haircut, remember? Yeah, exactly. Do you know if there was ever a point where this was going to be a permanent thing that Spider-Brand would stay in the black and white? Or was he always eventually going to go back to the red and blue? I feel like the way Marvel run is that it's always goes back to the States quo at some point. Yeah, yeah. I can't imagine.

To be fair, the black suit looks sleek as hell. It really did look cool. but I just feel like they I feel like they knew once they put the new suit on them in space that like this isn't going to be a permanent thing

they might not have known that was what the end game was going to be but I feel like once they did it they're like this will just this will give us something to do for a couple of issues you know so that was the first person

to possess the venom symbiate the second person also very well known is Eddie Brock after Spider-Man used church bells to basically disorient the symbiate, allowing it to separate from his body. It fell below to Eddie Brock, who was, I don't know, was he, like, praying or was he angry at God?

I'm not as familiar with the scene. I've seen it played out on, like, the cartoon and in the Sam Ramey movie where Venom just, you know, the symbiate just drops down on top of him. I believe he was, like, contemplating suicide at that point, because his life had basically been ruined because of, yeah, Spider-Man had kind of exposed that... He's faking his stuff. Well, like a story he'd written about the sin-eater turned out to be false.

And, yeah, so that sort of led to him being, like, ostracized in the newspaper business and whatnot. And, yeah, he just blamed Spider-Man for all of the... the wrongs in his life. Yes. He's been a big baby. Yes. So both, because the symbiate who was really upset that Spider-Man didn't want to stay his BFF, and Eddie Brock both had grudges against Spider-Man. Their bonding was very, very potent. And they took on the name Venom officially.

And I know this has been a sticking point for Dylan of the use of the Venom name. How I talked about that on the show before? I feel like we have. Okay. Because I feel like that's an important thing to talk. I don't know why nobody else thinks it's an important thing to talk about I don't think it really matters as much

as you think it does I think it does I mean it's got to be called something why not venom but when it was on Spider-Man it wasn't called Venom yeah and when it went to Eddie Brock it was called Venom

because both of them felt venom towards Spider-Man but it's yeah it's just the name of the symbiates It's the same as the Carnage symbiote is known as the Carnage symbiate, or the Toxin symbiate is known as the Toxin symbiot. It's just what it is. When it moves from person to person, shouldn't it be called something different? Because it's a different person, it's different feelings, different emotion.

Like, Venom, agent Venom is not the same as Venom. They're different characters, with different personalities. And Spider-Man was a different personality than Venom. So why is Venom? Because the symbionion is basically, alive. Right, but that's, but, but the

the one of Spider-Man is never like, that's Spider-Venom, that's not from what it is. No. No. Because why would he be called Spider-Venom? Because it's on Spider-Man and he's for the Venom symbiate, right? Yeah, but Spider-Man predated

it being called Venom. Spider-Man has had the suit since then. Barely. He said, he's had the suit since, and I believe he's had the suit recently. He's had it like, for... And nobody's like that's Spider-Bohom. Or something where he like has to

fight, what was it? It was that against the Norman Osbourne? I can't remember now. But yeah, he basically only, he's not like been a permanent host since he originally wore the suit. The Venom saved. Yeah.

Which wasn't Venom whenever he wore it. No, because it became venom afterwards. It became venom whenever Eddie Brock wore it. No, it didn't have an identity when Spider-Man wore it. What? It didn't have an identity when Spider-Man wore it. But what I'm saying is the identity has Che-in's after Eddie Brock. Whenever the Venom symbiote goes to somebody else, that's not venom.

That's a different entity. It has a different personality to it. Like I said, but Flash Thompson, that's not. the same as Eddie Brock Venom. Those are two different things. Yeah, Flash Thompson is completely different to Eddie Brock, but the Venom symbiate is still the same. Right, but the personality would change because the personality is supposed to change with the person's bonding too. No, I don't think it does. You think the, the agent Venom of Venom is the same as Eddie Brock Venom? It's the same symbiate. But different personalities? No, I mean, the... Yes. That's a sort of...

It reflects the personality of the person who's wearing it, but it's still the same symbiates, so it's got all the personalities of everyone who's wore it. But the symbiate now isn't as like cannibalistic as it was when Matt Gargan was wearing it. Like, it's, you know, it's changed. All right then. Yeah. Well, speaking of change, though,

It was under Eddie Brock's partnership with Venom, the Venom symbiate, that they began to take on a more heroic identity as lethal protector Venom, where he was acting a little bit more of an anti-hero. But any last thoughts on Eddie Brock before we jump to the next person who possessed the Venom symbiate? I would imagine we're both going to say that Eddie Brock is Venom. like all the rest of this is fun but it's all like dressing it up yeah yeah it's like yeah you can put the mask on over 10 you're Sincara but we all know you Sincara

you know what you mean all right so our next person who possessed the venom symbiate for a time and again this is the marvel.com official website Ben Riley after Eddie Brock the entry point says even Peter Parker's club Ben Riley experienced the venom symbiate though not nearly as extensively as Peter the symbiate disguised itself as the blue hoodie in his scarlet spider costume and attempted to do fully bond with him but Ben's strong will prevented the symbiate from asserting control

I don't remember that John you remember that? I have no recollection of that whatsoever apparently this I don't remember him being venom this occurred in either and again this This points to their editing. Venom Super Special number one in 1995 or Spider-Man Super Special in 1995. Could be either one. I don't know. They're editing. I'm assuming it's Venom Super Special number one.

Are you picking another fight with a different website now? The official Marvel website seems to be the case because this is egregious. So any thoughts? We're already three people in already like this sucks. Yeah, yeah. So any thoughts on Ben Riley's flirtation? with the Venom symbiate. That doesn't even sign the coins.

No. Shouldn't, but it's the official marvell.com website. And they're never wrong. No, it's their website. Like I said, this is their website. Okay. This is John's employer that we're talking about here. John, why didn't you rewrite this?

Did nobody, like, give this to you on, like, on your desk at some point and be like, what do you think of this? No, it can't be not. Well, they're going to get fired because this is. Absolutely. shoddy workmanship. I gotta say. I don't like that. I have never heard that before.

I don't think that's a real thing. All right. Our next one on the list is Anne Weighing. Are you feeling with Anne Weighing? Yes. Don't you heard of this one, right? Yep. All right.

So during Venom's villainous years, Anne Weighing, Eddie Brock's ex-wife and mother of his son, Dylan, helped Spider-Man against Venom and the murderous Sin Eater, when Cindy Dershot Anne in Venom Sinner takes all 1995 number two The Venom symbiated bonded with her to prevent her from dying And that bonded pair became She Venom

After she Venom killed several men who had violently wronged her in the past And relinquished the symbiot back to Eddie Disgusted at what it had revealed about her She was The Venom Sima the second time I believe Was she? She was trying to bust I think trying to bust Eddie Brock out of prison

And Eddie got on to the phone with her and the symbia traveled down the phone line and bonded with Anne Wayne. I believe. I think it's only the two times, but I remember the second time to open it happening. I remember the toy for this in the 90s. I remember the lady venom action figure. What do you remember the moment? Because they called it.

Because they called her Bride of Venom. I remember that name very vividly. Bride of Venom, I can accept. She venom, I don't care for. Lady Venom, yep, she venom doesn't sound good. Yeah. Pride of Venom, I'm like, you can see the connection here, I'll allow it. Do you mean?

Yeah. All right. Are you guys ready for our next host? Yes. Mm-hmm. Are you familiar with Angelo Fortinado? Yes. Yes.

Oh, okay. after Eddie successfully separated himself from the Venom symbiates, he decided to auctioned off to the highest bidder in Marvel Night's Spider-Man number seven. Mob boss, Don Fortunato won the auction of purchasing the symbiate for his physically frail son, Angelo,

with the attention of making him more assertive and powerful. After bonding with venom, Angelo was settled to destroy Spider-Man in previous worth, however the Venom symbiaguer disgusted with Angelo after Spider-Man soundly defeated him. In Marvel Night's Spider-Man number eight, is separated from the aspiring mobster mid-leap, sitting angelo plummeting to his death yep that's very very notable um venom appearance

because that gives the illusion that the symbiote has a lot of um sway over the person and not vice versa so you can see how like venom and Eddie Brock worked together because they had a very similar mindset with this Angelo Pochanado gimmick you can see that the symbiote is clearly the one making the calls and he's disappointed with

the lackluster host that he's been given that you know what I mean that that's the first kind of time you see a lot of symbiote actually having its own kind of personality I guess it's like it's it's property

a separate anteby. Don't you mean? That's interesting because you see you to have only been Venom for two issues. Yeah. And you have this very strong, you have this strong memory of him.

Oh yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. You remember how pathetic it was. I mean, yeah, the thing as well that the Marvel article doesn't really get into is like Eddie had cancer at this point,

which is why he decided to like sell the symbiate to the highest bidder. Yes. He was just basically having like this crisis of faith and wanted to do something good before he died and like make all this money that he was going to give to charity. Yes. I feel like that might come back later depending on how this list goes. Okay. But yeah. Yeah. So I was even. Oh sorry.

Even like the Angelo Fortunato guy like there was, there was like a bit of a thing there as well because like I think his his dad was the crime boss who basically felt like his son was too weak and cowardly and needed that extra thing to make him like more powerful so he could take over the business one day. So that's why he like bid a hundred million dollars to win the symbiate and then. But it's also why the symbiote ends up rejecting Angelo because of the fact that he's like, so scared of like, you know, the power of it and whatnot. That killer instinct. He didn't have that.

Yeah, yeah. So that's why it rejects him. And then he basically falls to his death. Do you know what would have been really good, though? Is that they didn't really follow up on that too much. Because I remember Don Fortunato was a big deal in the clone saga. He took over after Kingpin disappeared. And then at Marvel Knights, you see him.

coming up and like that could have been a cool let's explore more about don fortinado like being disappointed in his family or like what's he going to do how is he going to pass on his crime um business is it a business crime is it i guess yeah that that empire that he built like the word is he go with that and they just dropped it after that and that's a shame because it seemed like it was just a gimmick to lead the venom symbia to where I assume Corey's about to tell us where it went

but that could have been like a branch of path you could have told that story as well wouldn't the unfortunate to have had a beef against the venom symbiate after that wouldn't that have been a good story to tell you know all forgotten and I don't even know if he's came back since

I don't think so I don't think so I think he's the oh my fucking son died I guess I'm going to go home. Like, wouldn't he be angry about that? Oh, well. Oh, well. Yeah, fuck.

All right, well, our next Venom, you mentioned it, is Mack Gargan, aka the Scorpion. I'm going to go ahead and say we've both heard of him. Yep. So after rejecting Angelo, the venom-sybion approach Matt Gargan's villain, more commonly known as Scorpion, while he was in prison in Marvel Night's Spider-Man number nine. After Bonnie with Gargan, the new Venom made his debut as a member of the Sinister 12. Following the villains team defeat, the Thunderbolts recruited Gargan in Civil War number four. This Venom eventually joined the Dark Avengers, and when its leader, Norman Osborne was overthrown in siege,

Gargan ended up back in prison where he was separated from the Sibiot for good. When I had my break from comics, because I went from being able to find them at yard cells to not being able to get them until I could buy them for myself, I jumped into the Dark Rain storyline because that was just starting at Marvel. So that was my first exposure to the idea of like, oh, somebody else was venom. That's really weird. It's weird. Maybe he should be called something else, right? That's what you said.

Yeah. I do remember the there was a, I remember there was a toy of the Matt Gargan Venom that had a scorpion symbiant part, like the tail. Yeah. But I also remember, yeah, I remember this was the, this was the venom that seemed the most happy to be a cannibal, which I don't know what that says about Matt Gargan. He was totally cool with it. Well, they say that, but, like, old Vandem used to talk about eating brains all the time. Yeah. That was his...

He talked about eating brands a lot. So, Matt Gargan is Vennam, he was like, I'll eat at all of it. I'm not restricting myself to just the brain. Yes. There's so much good meat on the stomach, you know? I... I... I get why they did this.

You know, if he... leaves, the Venom symbiote leaves Angelo Fortunato, he's a very wimpy guy, he doesn't have a big killer instinct. And he goes to somebody, if we're looking at the lineage of the Venom symbiate, he goes to somebody that really fucking hate Spider-Man, which for a point has Venom, Eddie Brock

hated Spider-Man, and Wayne, as a result of her being with Eddie Brock, hated Spider-Man. Skype. Skype's just having fun with you today, Dylan. Well, I tell you what, man. Enjoy it because it's just not going to last for too much longer. That's true. Try to get as many sparkle fingers as we can.

So to keep that, like, hatred of Spider-Man and the symbiate together going, I get why it went to Mac Gargan because he's, like, criminally insane. He's a big thing against Spider-Man. He's got this, like, I blow it. I don't think would have been a thing you would describe Matt Garganus happened before this. No, no. But certainly a lot of pent up anger and frustration that the Venom symbi can take out. When you look at it like that, it makes sense.

Yeah. I didn't like it as it went on because they were pushing it and they're like, we're sticking with it. This is it. I kind of got more into it, like the stuff with venom and anti-Venom that happened. I really liked that. I thought that was a great one storyline. anti-vanum was Eddie Brock who went to a like a homeless shelter that was run by Mr. Negative. And he was accidentally touched by Mr. Negative.

And then that made whatever like part of the Vanham semiate, but it was still inside Eddie Brock turned him into anti-Banam. Dylan. Yes. Are you suggesting that Eddie Brock got touched by a man. and white goo came out of him? I don't think I'm suggesting that. That's what happened. I think I'm stating that as a fact.

Yeah. Was that term you used at one time, John, love custard? All right, cool. Keep going. We've used a lot of different terms. We certainly have. For the Siemens. You know, we just love talking.

I just won it on record. I didn't bring it up this time as well. No, that was just too good of an opportunity to pass. But do you see the way Corey framed it to make it seem? John, wasn't you that said Lovecaster? Listen, that stayed with me for a reason, John. I don't know why, but it's your fault. It's hard to get that staying out, really.

John, what did you think about Matt Gargan? See how I pulled it around to stop this talking about? See, yeah, a good little segue. I enjoyed it. I think the fact that it was a more sort of, animalistic venom as well, like a bit more uncontrollable. Put him at odds with like the situations he found himself in as well, like working with the Thunderbolts, which was, you know, he was sort of getting zapped and like had to sort of

rein in those tendencies or try to at least. And then obviously working with Norman Odespawns, Dark Avengers as well, where he, basically became like the team's version of Spider-Man. Like that was like, you know, interesting stuff to play with this version of this character. And yeah, it led to some good stuff. Yeah. All right. But I didn't totally hate it.

I only still why they did it. It never felt permanent, but it did feel like this one could go a while. And it feels like it kind of did. I mean, it lasted for a couple of years. Geez. Five years, five, six years. Yeah, yeah. How I felt about it. Like, you know, like, it's not going to be permanent, but they stuck with it long enough. You're like, okay, this has been the serious quo for a while, you know.

So our next Venom host that was not Vindem for terribly long, uh, Carol Danvers. Wait, have you heard of this one? Corey, uh, wait, wait, Carol Danvers, Miss Marvel. Captain Marvel. Yeah, Captain Marvel. John, have you heard this one? is this during the storyline where Dr. Doom had like a bunch of Venom symbiants in like satellites or something and they all got free and came down to Earth?

No, it is not. Norman Osborne I didn't know that one. Norman Osborne's dark rain over the American intelligence community toppled with a crash in siege where the Dark Avengers wrongdoings were exposed and the team were soundly defeated. When Captain Marvel confronted Matt Gargan's venom,

The symbiate overwhelmed her and sensed her immense energy and power that she would make the perfect host in Siege Spider-Man number one. Fortunately, Carol quickly regained her senses and repelled the symbiate, leaving it to rebond with Gargan for the remainder of the battle. So she might have been the symbiate for about four or five panels by the sound of it. Oh, fuck, me, dude. Wait, what issue was this? Siege.

Siege Spider-Man, number one. All right, any thoughts on Carol Danvers' run as Venom? I think we both blinked and missed it. Yeah, I think so. All right, so next up officially is Flash Thompson, the aforementioned Agent Venom. So after the government confiscated the Venom symbiote from Matt Gargan, they bonded it to combat veteran Flash Thompson, taking on the moniker Agent Venom, Flash used the symbion as a force for good. As Agent Venom, Flash undertook Black Op missions throughout the Marvel Universe, he also limited his exposure to the same thing. symbiate to 48-hour intervals in order to avoid making the bond permanent.

During this time, Agent Venom became a member of the Secret Avengers, the Thunderbolts, and even the Guardians of the Galaxy, as he expanded his mission to the cosmos. So, yeah, Agent Venom was the one I read through that run with Requremender as the character. I remember, like, it was also a Flash Thompson kind of, like, I don't want to say down on his luck, necessarily, but it was sort of, like, yeah, no legs. And also, like, it was causing, the Black Opsie was a complete secret from everybody in his life. That was, he was keeping it from his estranged wife, Betty, as well about, you know, where he was going and where he had been. Because I think she just thought that he was doing, like, Goodwill Tours, like, as a member of, like, the USO.

Mm, that's right. If memory serves. Yeah. So anyway, also that run gave my favorite version of Jackal Lantern, which. I thought was a perfect character for Rick Rimmer to write. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Did we ever figure out who that Jackalander was?

No. Okay. No, no, no. He was never given a name. So he just A, Jackalander turned up and was a bitch and then died. Yeah, so yeah, he was basically a kid that the crime boss had adopted and like basically allowed him to keep doing his sociopathic tendencies and then Deadpool shot him. That was the, that was a root of jackal lantern.

But any thoughts on, any thoughts on Agent Venom before we move on? I thought that part of the reason they did Agent Venom was to give Flash Thompson's legs back. Because I feel like they get, I don't know if he is. No, I don't think so. No, I don't think he got his,

I don't think he got his legs back though. I think he did. I think he has prosthetics, but I don't think has his legs back. I believe that's correct. But it gave him legs as part of the... As the civia, yeah. Before he was Agent Benjamin, he was in a wheelchair. Yes.

And then they were like, you did good service for us. Want to do some more service, but we're going to torture you while you do it. And he was like, that's what being in the US Army is all about, sir. Sign me up. More torture, please. So, like, all right, you get the bond with this fucking homicidal symbia. Yeah. Forty at all right?

Enjoy these. these memories it's going to give you for some reason and he's like but I can play hopscots again right? I'm like oh yeah sure but he so your heart's content it'll try to make you kill people he's like yeah but

hopscotch though yeah yeah I feel like flash I feel like you're taking a weird angle with this you're not even thinking about the the implications all the murderous that it's going to try to make you do you know well I could put shoes on again

you wouldn't have to the venom symbiote will just make you shoes and say what, that's even better. Well, somebody else that was associated with the United States government that also had the venom symbiate Thunderbolt Ross. John?

Say what? Okay. That's another one we didn't know. So during his search for allies, the impending battle against Blackheart, General Thunderbolt Ross in his gamma radiated alter ego as the Red Hulk crashed into Thunderbolt or into Flash Thompson's apartment to recruit Agent

Venom to prevent the Red Hulk from harming flash the venom symbiate temporarily bonded with ross until he discarded it and the meeting deescalated later during a showdown with blackheart the symbiote and symbiote again with ross again to augment his powers against the demon that doesn't seem like it makes any sense right like if you if you were the venom symbiote and you're trying to go to get like you always said the bit with carl damvers where it saw that it had the possibility to like yeah so if you were like the red hulk and the symbiote the symbiote bonded with the red hulk wouldn't that combination make the symbiote go do this fucking ribs this is it this this is the power i was looking for this fucking guy is going to make me the head boss of the whole earth right

like why why why would he do that just to see a flashed thompson that doesn't make any sense the symbiote would want to be part of the Red Hulk, right? Well, that's why it jumps on the Red Hulk to begin with, but then the Red Hulk sort of calms down and then I guess, like, you know, he loses his power. But he would get it back, though, and that power would be exponentially more, and the symbiote could influence Thunderbolt Ross to make that Red Hulk come out more so that he would be Red Hulk and Venom and be more of a killer than Flash Thompson. He didn't kill a whole lot of people.

despite being in the United States Army. Well, there you go. So up next, though, another name that might make you scratch your head, Otto Octavius. John? No. I don't remember this. Describe the scenario. After Otto Octavius hijacked Peter Parker's body to become the superior Spider-Man,

he mistook Agent Venom and its host as villains and battle the symbiate. Octavia separated the symbiote from Flash Thompson only for to escape and bond with him instead, effectively making him the superior venom. When the Avengers staged intervention over his increased brutality against criminals, Octavius battled the team. He eventually recognized that the symbiate had affected his mind, so he turned to Flash, who helped them separate in Superior Spider-Man issue number 25. That bit sounded familiar.

Because there was a bit where the Avengers were like questioning who he was. and he couldn't figure out a way to come out of it. So I feel like the way that they did it was him going, oh, this venom symbiote, twist of my mind. But I don't remember it enough to be able to say that that is correct. John, I imagine you're the same, right? Yeah, pretty much. I want to put that down as we didn't remember him.

Okay. Well, if you have fun here, here's another one. Lee Price. I remember that. Yes, I know this. Awesome. Yes. very infamous

I would say In an unseen incident The Venom Siviot separated from Flash Thompson It made its way to Black Cat's criminal gang How unsatisfying is that by the way Unseen incident Just at some point

No Flash Thompson did not It was done After all the shit to the Venompson Poor Flash Thompson He just one day he's like nah fuck it See you later Yeah The Simbiot bonded with one of the black cats

Hinchman Lee Price and tried to continue his heroic activities, only for Lee to assert control and steer it back to full-on villainy in Venom number one. After Spider-Man and Eddie Brock defeated them in Venom number six, the enemy was forcefully separated from Lee before he was murdered by resurrected Cleas Cassidy. Okay.

I hated this. Ronnie? I hate it. I hate it so much. How come? I hated it because the way, they played it in the comics was like, Venom's got this cool new

fucking guy. And he's, this guy that he's attached to is so scary. Even the Venom symbiote scared of him. And I'm like, oh, that must be a pretty cool deal. Who is it? It's just some fucking prick that you've never heard of before. Just some guy. Just some ass guy.

And I'm like, this is nuts. You know what you were talking about like when you know it's not going to stick around? Whenever they were like, the new Venom symbiote host is Lee Price. I'm like, that's not sticking around. that's not at all sticking around. This is just a waste of time until he goes back to Eddie Brock.

100%. This is like, what a waste of time this is. I guess it was a means to an end there to get it back onto Eddie Brock. They just, but it's the same way that they this manufacture in the WWI

that would manufacture a big strong who can heal to fight John Cena. Like, where did this guy come from? Nowhere. Suddenly he's a big deal. He's going to get beaten by John Cena and he's going to disappear back to OBW. That's what's going to happen.

And that's what happened to Lee Price. He came in out of nowhere, no backing, no nothing. He disappeared and became the Venom symbiote. But like you said, six issues. And then they're like, well, that's the end of that. And he goes away again. And like, well, that's, and then fucking, what I like is they kept trying to make Lee Price into like a, he's bonded with a symbiote now. He's kind of like one of the guys.

I'm like, he was, this, this is, this is, you should just let this alone. You know what I mean? This is, I didn't like it. All right. Well, next up, tell car. What? Tell car. Yeah, what are we telling the car?

Just telling them. Tell them. Tell them. You know, bad at there. Yeah. In Venom first host, it explored Venom's history before his faithful encounter with Spider-Man, provided the Sybiot with a cosmic backstory. Shortly after the Venom symbiots spawned on the Clintar homeworld,

the Cree recovered it and bonded it to Warrior. Telkar so you can infiltrate the scroll military. After Telkar's deception was discovered, Ronan the accuser took him into scroll custody and separated him from the symbiate, which eventually ended up on Battleworld. We're at first encountered Spider-Man. Okay, so John, I just wrote that we didn't know that one.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. This is the same creative team that gave you Lee Price, by the way of Mike Costa. What I'm learning is Dylan is not a fan of Mike Costa. He needs to be stopped. All right. Next up, Malketh the accursed. Was that torn the war of the realms?

John, you were correct. Yeah, that one sounded familiar. So after learning about all black, Gore, the god-bitcher's god-killing blade forged from a living symbiate, the evil dark elf, Malkith the accursed, desired one of his own. To accomplish this, Malkath stole the venom-sybate and tortured it until it's submitted to his will in war the realms number four. He also enchanted portions of the symbiate bond

with several of his associates to form his own personal strike force. However, the Thor Corps, all right, proved too much for them. They defeated the dark elf and freed venom so it could reform and find a less manipulative host. Yeah, that definitely rings a bow. Yeah. All right. I'm not the same with that.

All right, so our next one, the Guardians of the Galaxy. This I feel like I remember I remember Venom in the Guardians' Galaxy I remember I'm in the group but I don't remember I don't remember who it was but I remember it being in the Gardens galaxy While Agent Venom worked with the Guardians of the Galaxy The Symbiate became a liability for the entire team when it separated from Flash and began acting erratically

It then started bonding with individual members of the Guardian starting with Groot before ultimately bonding with Drax Controlling Drax the Samviot traveled to the Clintar homeworld where it was purified and restored to normal. Afterwards, it safely took Flash as a host again and Guardians of the Galaxy number 23. What do you mean restored back to normal? I guess it was acting erratically for reasons.

And those reasons were fixed. Who wrote this article real quick? This was written by Sam Stone. Surely not an alias. Well, kid, you've just found yourself on our list. I could keep 500 people on the list. So any thoughts to the Guardians of the Galaxy, but this is Brian Michael Bendis, by the way. Our favorite.

Yeah, I fucking hated Bendis's Guardians run. Why? Sounds great, doesn't it? Because I think he had his own idea for how he wanted it to be, and then the MCU Guardians was an entirely different being, so then he had to redo all of his shit. It was better. Yeah. I did recently find out that that it was based, that, uh,

James Gunn took a lot of inspiration from Farscape and to Guardians of the Galaxy, and that makes all the sense in the world. Do you ever want to watch a really fun science fiction TV show that the Henson Company did all of the alien effects for? Farscape. It's really good. So let's move on to Mercurio, the 4D Man. What the fuck?

Yeah, that's not to know for me. All right. The cosmic supervillain Mercurio, the 4D Man, has battled everyone from Thor to Captain Marvel, but he found a different fight in his hands when he confronted Agent Venom. After Agent Venom became the Space Knight, he intervened in an interplanetary conflict

involving Mercurio and Venom's Space Knight number five. Mercurio separated the symbiate from Flash and briefly bonded with it, but it ultimately rejected him and returned to Flash who defeated the unhinged despot. Don't like it. Oh, good for him. All right.

Next up, Mysterio. Okay. So technically, we have heard of this. Yes. Have we? Well, we heard about it by half an hour ago. Yeah, okay. Realistically, me and John were like, I've never heard of this before. But this was spoiled for us before we started recording. So for the record, I'm going to write down we hadn't heard of this.

All right. So in the series, Symbiot Spider-Man, they revealed some previously untold history about Spider-Man's early days with the Venom symbiate. For instance, during this time, Mysterio tasked Black Cat was stealing a piece of the symbiate for him to examine, only for the King Ben's henchman to interrupt to escape from this sticky situation, Mysterio temporarily bonded with that piece of symbiote

in Symbiott's Spider-Man number four. And then what happened? That's all it says. It doesn't sign good. Because you would think if he bonded Mysterio to Venom, You could tell some stories. There's this period of time where they would, like, Marvel would go to Peter David and they'd be like, hey, Peter, can you do a mini-series basically picking up something you used to write and just act like nothing has happened since then? And we'll just say these are untold stories from that time period.

Because he did that. He did Maestro Hulk. I think he did Joe Fix It. He did a Genis Vale, Captain Marvel. He was doing a bunch of little miniseries, and that was one of them with symbiates Spider-Man. But next up, Dylan Brock. You'd be a part of them? Yes.

While Anne Weighing was bonded to the Venom symbiate, it combined her and Eddie Brock's genetic material along with trace amounts of the symbiate itself. As a result, Anne became pregnant with their son, Dylan Brock. Dylan's unique heritage allows him to telepathically control symbiates. After Null's defeat, the Venebibati initially watched over Dylan as his own. protector. When Jackalantae mortally wounded Dylan during a mugging, the venom symbiab bonded with him to save his life, making him the new venom in venom number 35. So he was an immaculate conception via symbiate DNA. No, no, no, no. I think they revealed that Anne was pregnant when the venom symbiate like attached itself to her. And then that's when it kind of stuck its

codex in the baby. Yeah, I just don't want to start sticking your codex in a baby. So as the way it's written, it sounds like the symbion bonding came first and as a result of the symbiate bonding,

she became pregnant. Like that was how the writing seems to imply that that occurred. I'm not sure about that, but we've had our issues of this writer for a long time. So any thoughts on Dylan Brock? He has been the most recent venom as of late.

Wow. Not the most recent venom. Not the moment. I mean, it makes sense, I guess, right? Like, keeping the family in terms of sharing your symbiote. Like, it makes sense.

But once they introduced to Eddie Brock and a kid, we're all kind of like, okay. All right. It's a matter of time, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, and this it all played into the whole null storyline as well and the King and Black

because basically Dylan had sort of similar powers to null where he was able to like control symbiates and stuff and so that became like kind of like a big plot point in you know the end of that big storyline

yes but I don't like that storyline there we'll talk for that later okay well that brings us to the most recently revealed host of the symbiate as we discussed at the top of the hour Mary Jane Watson John, you heard this?

I have not heard of Mary Jane Watson. Who is this person? This feels like the setup to like a Jay Leno bit where you're just like you heard about this, have you heard about this? Yeah, but that's Mary Jane Watson. Do you ever notice that he's got footlong fangs? It's not about it.

And then there's Kevin Eames. That's my guitar in his lap just kind of going. You crazy. Jay Lano. Pretty good, right? Ah, Jay, you got it. Anyway, yes, that was our recreation of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. John, who are you playing?

I'll be the couch. All right, there you go. We're going to have to sit on you? What did the first? So, following Venom War, in which Eddie Brock and his son Dylan fought over ownership of the symbiate, Venom selected a new host. The mystery of the host's identity unfurled. identity unfurled across the first five issues of all new venom,

where Luke Cage, Rick Jones, Madam Mask, and Robbie Robertson were all eliminated as potential hosts. As revealed in All New Venom number five, Mary Jane Watson has become the symbiates' latest host, although it is yet to be seen how this came to be. And it's probably going to be very unsatisfactory. So let's kind of get into that. Okay. A lot of what's been going on in Spider-Man, I pick up has not been terribly popular. People did not like the introduction of Paul as Mary Jane's boyfriend who she spent a year trapped in a parallel universe with imaginary children with.

People have not cared for the jackpot identity that you had to explain to me, John, as like Paul is an inventor as well and came up with a superhero identity for her. I think that was it? Yeah, I don't know. And so like I said, people have been just a lot of really. weird decisions have been happening over in the Spider-Man world. And this is going back to Ben Riley once again becoming full evil as chasm. Yeah. Yeah.

And now we also have Eddie Brock with a symbionate again, but this time it's carnage. Mm-hmm. And I think Flash Thompson is anti-venom now. I think so. Yeah. I think Toxin is dead. I think. I don't know. He'll be back. He'll get better. They all come back.

So, like I said, I've been getting a lot of impressions that people have not been really wild about what's been going on in the Spider-Man world for a good bit. Well, we haven't. I think we've been pretty vocal, or at least I have, where I haven't really been enjoying a lot of the more recent Spider-Man stuff. And then you hear something like this, when they're like, hey, who do you think the big reveal of Vennam is going to be? That's right. Mary Jim Watson. That just makes... long term fans of Spider-Mod just kind of shake their heads and go this isn't what it's supposed to be yeah this is not what it's supposed to be

I get trying to shake up characters like that but they've been trying to shake up Mary Jane for a while like you said with the new boyfriend and the jackpot thing and like they're trying stuff but you could like how is this better than the Murray Jane of the 90s where she was married to Peter Parker and was like his rock and was

is a really supportive, lovely person and a great different voice to have in that comic. Why was that character so bad and this character, whether they're just throwing stuff out of to see if it works? Why is that better? You know what you mean? Well, it kind of goes back to that weird thing

with one more day, where it seems that there's this weird idea that Peter Parker cannot be... Alive. Well, good, unless he is, like, down on his luck, Peter Parker. You know, and, like, I guess people like, he's had it too good for too long with the smoking hot model wife and the happy loving relationship.

Yeah. Which I don't agree with because Norman Osborne stole his kid and presumably killed that kid. We're not totally sure what happened there. Like, he's been through some hardships and the hardships he's been through now have been just silly and weird. And it doesn't make you feel sympathetic for Spider-Man, you know? But I also would argue that even whenever he was married to Marry Jeanne, there was, I feel like there's more sympathy there because wouldn't you feel as a married man, he's trying to protect his wife and himself, that there is more sympathy there because he's got a lot on his plea,

a lot more pressure, he's doing it for other people as well. He's not just being a selfish man. Wouldn't you say that that's more impactful and more interesting than just him as a solo guy going on just fucking punching guys in the face you know mm-hmm isn't I mean basically what we're cheating this dying to is none of us like marie jambians

better well I don't think like after everything she's sort of been through like watching all the hardships that peter's gone through being spider man and everything like why would she want to be a hero Why would she want to put on a super suit or whatever and go and put herself in that situation? Because, well, but you would, you would say, well, are we going to say the same thing? Go for it, you first.

Well, you would think that if they are putting her in that position, then logically the overall move would be for her to reconcile with Peter Parker and go, I have been a hero. I have had the responsibilities that you've had placed on me. even to the minute degree I know empathize with what you went through yada yada doesn't that seem like the only reason they would do that is to circle back to Peter and Mary Jane right? I mean the theory that I saw

people suggest is that basically Marvel they have no interest in doing a Peter Parker Mary Jane thing but the Mary Jane character is so popular that they have to keep her around so it's like that's why we're doing these various different things to keep her around because even when it wasn't hinting that she was the new venom she was in the

book because she's basically taken Dylan in because like yeah so like that was yeah that's the hook right isn't that why people like this is going to be a very temporary thing because venom is taken over Maritian as a way to get back to Dylan Brock yeah i've already seen that there's a pay there's a i already saw some panels of Dylan like pleading with the venom symbiote to come back to him and the venom symbiates saying that no it has to be this way for whatever reason but it's like a matter of time yeah it's not sticking with her for very long yeah so i mean again there's like this weird thing with comics where it's like do do the characters need to grow and change or do they need to be reverted and stay the same for the sake of you know storytelling

it's hard to tell because it's like this is not you know a lot of the more popular larger characters are it's not a movie there's never going to be an ending there will they're very they have written the definitive final story for spider man but they're still putting out spider man books every month so it's like do we write ourselves in a corner if we allow the characters to grow and change too much it's kind of like why they always create new young x-men but they never rotate the old x-men out like there's a reason like when you get an X-Men comic book it's going to be like Cyclops Wolverine Gene Gray you know robe Gambit and such because those are the characters people want to stick around and read yeah and like if you cycled them out to

replace them with like cannonball and moon star and Sunspot and shit or the new mutants horse girl you know I sent you that cover of that horse looking real scared in cave, didn't I? You did. Amazing. Tell you a horse girl. Yeah, I don't know. But anyway, yeah, it's just that kind of thing of like, do you grow, you let the characters grow, or do you keep them where they are and just rotate stories? And I think that's where they, I think that's where the original idea of we need to put Peter Parker back to not being married to open up possible stories. That was such an unpopular decision because a lot of people really liked

Peter with Mary Jane. Yeah. I agree. It was earned, you know? Yes. It felt like a good, like a permanent victory for a guy that has been down in his luck for so long. Like that's a nice thing to do to a character. You're allowed to do that sometimes. Characters are allowed to have something nice happen to them.

Yeah. Instead of just relentless fucking, uh, more tragedy. Like, they're allowed to have one good thing in their life. Well, it reminds me of, you know, like, originally Claremont was trying to retire Cyclops by creating Madeline Pryor. You know, like Cyclops was supposed to be retired in Alaska with Madeline Pryor and their baby. But, you know, Marvel editorial was like, nope, we need Cyclops around. So have him abandon his wife and child and look like a dickhead. And they did.

And nobody noticed. So maybe they weren't that wrong. So, yeah, no. I mean, like I said, I think it's where we're kind of stuck. I just, it reminds me, I was really, of the choices that they put out there, who could it be? I really, in my bones, thought they would pull the trigger and have it be Luke Cage for some reason. I don't know why. I don't know why I thought.

I thought maybe they would give Luke Cage something new to do because the character's been really stale since Ben to stop writing him. Because I saw like the options. I was like, Luke Cage is an option. Madam Mask. Why on earth would they do something like that? Rick Jones. Rick Jones is always subbing in for people. Yeah. Like Rick Jones was abomination

for a while and Rick Jones was like half of Captain Marvel in the 90s. So like Rick Jones is always getting subbed in. So I felt like that was too obvious of an option. But yeah, I would have thought they would have gone with Luke Cage for some reason. I feel like that could have been interesting. And it's Al Ewing

writing who I think would really do well with Luke Cage as a character. But we haven't seen a black venom so far so but uh we went with uh we went with mary jane and a move that feels like you guys said temporary hmm yeah oh far as not pointed out like mary jane knows how this venom this venom symbi has targeted him and tortured him and stuff like she knows this is not a force for good you know yeah she's been terrorized by the venom symbiate itself as well so Yeah.

But also, now that it's bonded with her, she would know all that first hand. All the memories, right? Yeah. So she would know what kind of a vicious, horrible fucking thing this is that tried to kill her and her former husband on numerous occasions. Right? The dozens, hundreds of people that it is killed. On the way, trying to kill Peter Parker. Yeah.

Or, yeah. I mean, just, you know, also like, I mean, it shares memories. You would think it's like, all right, cool. You know this thing eats people. Like, Matt Gargan ate people while as venom. Like, does that mean, are you feeling peckish? She's a woman that's very familiar with the Scorpion as well.

So, like, wouldn't she be like, I don't want the Scorpion's memories in my head? I don't want that. Because you're going to see all the shit about him eating people. And like, I didn't want that. Like, it doesn't seem like from a character perspective that this would be a good fit. So we know that there have been other there other symbiates out there we talked you mentioned a couple of them by name you know toxin anti-venom carnage carnage rascal who is red goblin so we know that each of the symbiates kind of have their own vibe and their own personality it just feels like venom is just the if you wanted to do something like that it feels like venom's the wrong one like this will sound weird to say but rascal would probably be the best simpies

be it for Barry Jane. Like would have worked. Toxin, yeah. Like not a full-on villain, you know what I mean? Yeah, well, I'm rascals like a child. Yeah. And Mary Jane has a maternal instinct that's whole, part of the reason why her psyche is all kind of weird

is her imaginary children that she was taking care of with Paul. You know, they disappeared as I imagine your children tend to. She would have had this little symbiate, you know, on her all the time that she could mother. Problem solved. Problem solved. And they could stop They could stop writing drawing Normie Osborne

as like a teenage character when he's supposed to be like seven. Yeah. That made reading Red Goblin really weird because I'm like, how old is this kid supposed to be? 48. 48. 48 years old.

All right, well, any final thoughts on Venom before we wrap it up? Both me and John knew 11 Venoms and didn't know seven Venoms although I feel like that those numbers are probably a little off but that's what I wrote down

so overall we knew most of the Venoms but there was a lot more than we thought we wouldn't recognize yeah I think a lot of those shouldn't count though because it's like literally a couple of panels wearing them the Marvel one doesn't kind

definitely I feel like the Ben Riley one doesn't count because he was disguised as his hoodie it didn't bond with him. That doesn't... That's bullshit. It's really defied that we hadn't heard of. Yeah.

There's a lot of weird ones, for sure. But yeah, no. I suppose we should wrap things up. I got nothing else to talk about venom-related. You didn't talk about the dinosaurs. No, we didn't talk about the dinosaurs. They were talking about people, not animals. Or we would have also talked about the weird venom horse

that was running around during a Venom war. There was a dog, wasn't there? Wasn't there a dog? I'm sure there was. Pretty sure that we don't. Why wouldn't there be? You have a dog. Yeah. So, John, what's your movie count at?

I am up to 272. 272. Yeah. And we talked about your rating on the birdcage that you don't remember watching. So if a viewer wants to look up that rating of the birdcage and see what you forgot to think about this movie, where can they find that? They can find it on Letterbox at Big John Bowsky. one word. Dylan,

you got anything to promote or sorry, Wilbert Manifest. Great name. Oh my God. Wilbert Manifest. Wait, wait, wait. Is that still what's coming up?

It's just Wilbert Manifest. Wilbert Manifest was like last week. I changed it before I came on here. No, I didn't see that one. Oh, fuck, dude. Well, okay, so Wilbert Manifest

should have appeared on the two Spider-Man episodes we did. Mm-hmm. And then I changed it tonight before I came on. So it was a different name. So.

Nah, it didn't take. Maybe I'll leave. it till next week and then you'll see tonight's name for next week. There we'll be a bonifest I was very happy with. It's a good one. This one's not as good. But anything you want to pitch? I don't think so.

All right, there you go. I have the other show Largeville Cups. I've been updated in a couple weeks now because life is hectic. But enough about that, we will see you all next time as long as one of us doesn't get bonded to the Venom symbiate on the way there. Again. again. Happens a lot.

Goodbye, everyone. Goodbye. Bye. Sounds you were like falling down a well. Yeah, falling a cliff, yeah. Yeah. You got to mix it up, dude. You got to mix it up.

Phona had to venom it to save me. But it saves you.