Highlights

  • Insomniac will face a challenge in turning Venom into a likable protagonist after his villainous role in Marvel's Spider-Man 2's story.
  • However, Eddie Brock's odd couple dynamic with Venom in the movies can be used to redeem Insomniac's take on the character in the upcoming game.
  • The plot of the Venom game could focus on Eddie and Venom learning to work together to channel their violent impulses for good.

With the revelation that Insomniac is working on a Venom game spinning off from Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, fans have been wondering exactly how that is going to work. The Venom symbiote explicitly dies at the end of the game’s story. And even if the alien is still alive somehow, the questionable character writing made it a seemingly irredeemable villain after trying to overrun Earth with a symbiote invasion. Insomniac has its work cut out for it, turning this character into a likable protagonist for a game of his own.

Venom as a character has always been about the unique union between the alien and the host. In Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, that host was Harry Osborn. While this was a semi-original take on the character, it largely fell flat for longtime Venom fans for being too one-dimensional and lacking the anti-heroic bent the character has had since his earliest days. But the team at Insomniac has one unlikely ace in the hole that will give Venom’s first solo game the character writing the wicked webslinger deserves.

marvel's spider-man 2 venom
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The Venom Game Should Emulate the Movies’ Odd Couple Dynamic

The Venom game needs Eddie Brock. The first and most famous host for the symbiote, Eddie is most well-known to the general public as Tom Hardy’s loveable loser from the film series. There’s no forgetting the fact that the Venom films are deeply, deeply flawed, but the comedy duo relationship Eddie has with Venom makes for an entertaining and incredibly endearing dynamic.

The odd couple style relationship tempers the symbiote’s enthusiastic bloodlust with Eddie’s more reserved disposition, highlighting one of the overall strengths of Venom as a character; the fact that he’s actually two sentient beings working together as a team. The Tom Hardy movies, for all of their many faults, understand this perfectly, and audiences have responded really well to those films because of the decision to essentially make them superhero buddy cop movies.

In Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Venom essentially overrides Harry and uses him as a meat puppet for the symbiote agenda. This was arguably a misstep because it completely negated any opportunities for those two personalities to clash and cooperate. With Harry down for the count in a coma, the Venom game is the ideal place for Eddie to step in and explore his own deliciously dysfunctional relationship with the symbiote.

The Venom Game Can Redeem Insomniac's Take on the Character

The snappy, bickering dynamic present in the movies was instantly endearing when Venom first hit theaters in 2018, and Insomniac would be able to kill two birds with one stone by incorporating it into their version of the character. During his debut in the third act of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Venom was about as villainous as he's ever been.

There was no one he wasn’t willing to kill and, if not for the efforts of the Spider-Men, he would’ve taken over the planet. He was a very far cry from the Lethal Protector that most versions of the character progress into. It’s a hard sell to take a character who’s that evil and make them a relatable, likable protagonist starring in their very own title, but not impossible if the game takes notes from the movies' depiction of Eddie and Venom's relationship.

In the films, the alien arrives on Earth as part of a conquering force. But six months after arriving, it bonds with Eddie and, as a byproduct of their relationship, decides Earth is worth saving. Something similar could happen in the upcoming Venom game. Despite the symbiote's previous actions, bonding to a human like Eddie and seeing the world through his eyes can force it to reform and generally make it a more heroic character than it was in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.

How Eddie/Venom’s Relationship Can Shape the Plot of The Venom Game

Much like the original movie, the symbiote can learn what it means to be a hero through its working relationship with an everyman. Of course, it’ll still have some violent impulses, but that gives the perfect opportunity for character growth. A major story beat of the game could be Eddie and Venom learning to work together to channel those impulses onto bad guys instead of the entire city of New York.

The Venom films aren’t a perfect adaptation of the character; there’s a mile-long list of issues they have with tone, pacing, character writing, and hit or miss comedy, just to name a few. But they’ve hit a real home run with the Eddie/Venom dynamic, and the box office numbers for both Venom films reflect that reality. For better or for worse, those films are some of the most successful portrayals of Venom out there, and Insomniac would do well to tap into that for its next crack at the character.