Venom and Eminem

Today I present for your consideration an old post I wrote back in 2018ish on Tumblr (when it was relevant) following the release of Sony's first Venom movie. It's a bit of a departure from my usual musings but I'm fairly happy with the analysis younger me produced. My hope is that I can preserve some of my older material here for future me to re-discover. Who knows, maybe someone else will find it interesting? Anyway, enjoy!

 Venom and Eminem

I’ve recently had a few people ask me my opinion on the song ‘Venom’ by Eminem for the soundtrack of the titular film. So here we go:

Despite perhaps not being top-tier in terms of his best work, Eminem’s Venom song does hold more merit than might be thought from your first listen. 

For those only familiar with his early hits or present day charting singles, Eminem frequently utilizes more than one persona for his various songs: Eminem (the Rap God), Marshall Mathers (the man behind the facade) and Slim Shady (the dark and offensive Evil Twin). 

Through his early career the artist became mostly associated with his Slim Shady persona, partly because of which songs became hits and which lyrics drew negative media attention and partly because he encouraged it and even enjoyed it. 

Over the years, he’s come out with many songs discussing his meteoric rise to fame, his poor handling of the popularity and the scrutiny of media associated with living in the public eye. His marriage fell apart, he was banned in places and demonstrated against. He was a villain because he gave into his dark impulses and didn’t care who got hurt as a result. Sound familiar?

Venom started out as a villain who gained popularity exceptionally quickly and was later transitioned into an anti-hero as a result. Often described as an evil counterpart to Spider-Man, the combination of the alien symbiote and former journalist turned obsessive Spidey stalker Eddie Brock, Venom never actually corrupted it’s former host Spider-Man. In fact, until Eddie came along the symbiote was merely a glorified tool, an extension of the hosts will. Under Eddie’s influence Venom suddenly became a fearsome malevolence that hurt and killed those in their way without remorse and justified and rationalized their actions so as to never blame themselves. 

'Ever since I came along
From the day the song called “Hi! My Name Is” dropped
Started thinking my name was fault
'Cause anytime things went wrong
I was the one who they would blame it on
The media made me the equivalent of a modern-day Genghis Khan’

–Guts Over Fear

Further into his career, Em tried to transition himself into a more sympathetic light, with more singles and album tracks focusing on his personal struggles and private life, while still maintaining the harder edge and unapologetic attitude that made him famous. In terms of trajectory, this very much mirrors Venom’s repositioning into an anti-hero in the comics. In more recent times we’ve seen Em address his own status as a villain in the industry including attempts to make amends with such songs as 'Headlights’ and 'Bad Husband’ as well as more vulnerable songs like 'Walk on Water’ and ‘In Your Head’. 

‘Hailie, baby, I didn’t mean to make you eighty/Percent of what I rapped about/ Maybe I shoulda did a better job at separating/Shady and entertaining from real life/But this fame thing is still the hardest thing to explain/It’s the craziest shit I/Ever seen, and back then it was like I ain’t even/Bothered taking into consideration/You one day being older and may hear me say things/I didn’t (A) mean and (B) just ain’t me/’

–In Your Head

There’s almost a one to one comparison between the character of Venom and the artist Marshall Mathers. Eddie blames others or deflects responsibility for his behaviour, as Em often dismissed criticism of his foul and offensive lyrics as just his art - the work of his evil other half, Slim Shady- not intended to be taken seriously. Both became overnight hits, both became more sympathetic overtime and both seemingly flit between the role of villain and anti-hero in their respective mediums and in the eyes of fans.

The song Venom itself makes for a microcosm of themes. The song starts by claiming it’s for those who’ve been given a ’raw deal’ and are feeling angry. This can be read as referring to both Eddie Brock and Marshall himself when they were at low points in life. then we are introduced to a few themes with 'When something’s in your mitochondrial/ 'Cause it latched on to you’ conjuring images of the alien symbiote and 'Knock knock, let the devil in, malevolent/ As I’ve ever been, head spinnin’, this medicine’ using the symbiote as a metaphor for his past drug dependence and bad behaviour. These ideas reoccur throughout the song, with shifting meanings as the song progresses. 'shoulda been dead a long time ago’ can also be read as referring to both Em’s near death experience via overdose before going sober and Eddie Brock’s attempted suicide and/or cancer diagnosis before finding the symbiote.

The chorus makes reference to the erratic behaviour of both Eddie and Marshall with ’ Venom, (I got that) adrenaline momentum/ And I’m not knowin’ when I’m/ Ever gonna slow up and I’m/ Ready to snap any moment I’m/ Thinkin’ it’s time to go get 'em/ (W-w-when they get bit with the-)/ Venom’. There’s also not-so-subtle references here to the adrenaline rush a person feels when using certain drugs, which also describes the way Eddie feels when empowered by the alien symbiote. 

Another commonality, Venom and Eminem are known for using descriptions of over the top violent acts, often for humourous effect. The humour is also juxtaposed against the dark themes of the song or the actions taken. This can be seen to address the power fantasy of both Eddie Brock’s newfound abilities and Marshall’s fame and influence, which inevitably results in them abusing their abilities and status. Tell me that doesn’t remind you of anyone else?

'Then I wait to face the demons I’m bonded to/ 'Cause they’re chasin’ me but I’m part of you/ So escapin’ me is impossible/ I latch onto you like a—parasite/ And I probably ruined your parents’ life/ And your childhood too/'Cause if I’m the music that y'all grew up on/I’m responsible for you retarded fools/ I’m the super villain Dad and Mom was losin’ their marbles to/ You marvel that? Eddie Brock is you/ And I’m the suit, so call me—/ Venom’

While the symbiote is initially used as a way to talk about the dark side of Marshall’s personality, fame and former drug addiction, by the song’s conclusion he admits that despite his decade of sobriety and efforts to change, the darkness always resided within him. Unlike Eddie Brock, Marshall is taking responsibility for his actions. However, if Em is the symbiote suit, then he’s granting great power, and it’s up to the audience (’Eddie Brock is you’) to use it responsibly.

Or maybe it’s all just a catchy song to sell records?

Carnage Was Nearly An Avenger?!

 

Sadly, Venom: Let There Be Carnage still hasn’t been released in my country, so I’m still riding that pre-viewing excitement for the film. So, I figured why not go all in on throwing out Carnage posts (I may not get this chance again) and detail a few MC2-related Carnage appearances that I’ve yet to discuss.

 

Firstly, and I can’t believe I missed discussing this one previously, but thanks to the MC2 A DAY blog, I was reminded that Carnage technically makes his first MC2 appearance in Spider-Girl #44 in a flashback to the events of Spectacular Spider-Man #217 where Peter Parker teams up with Ben Reilly to take down the symbiotic serial killer.

 

Secondly, and for now probably finally, did you know Carnage was nearly made a member of the Avengers of the MC2 way back in What If #105? It’s true, as evident from this early concept sketch by Ron Frenz for the Avengers cameo scene in the issue where we can see him alongside The Vision, Speedball (here known as Ricochet), the original Juggernaut, Jubilee and Thunderstrike. I imagine the implications of this cameo would have radically altered the MC2 going ahead! Interestingly, we don’t learn the identity of the person bonded with the Carnage Symbiote here either, so it again might not have been Cletus Kasady.

 

Just a nice quick post for today. Hopefully you haven’t noticed a huge dip in my output lately, as I’ve tried to bank a few posts for release this month. That said, I’m now officially tapped out. If there’s any specific topics, you’d like to see me cover on the blog, let me know!

 

Until I figure out the membership policy over at the Avengers Compound, I remain

 

frogoat

 

 

Where is Cletus Kasady in the MC2?

 

While I’ve been busy lately, it’s perhaps a good thing I already jumped the gun and detailed Carnage in the MC2 years back when the first Venom movie came out. That said, with Venom: Let There Be Carnage out in cinema (well, in some parts of the world! Not here yet, sadly) I figure I should at least try and put out something to tie-in. One question not specifically addressed in my previous post is the whereabouts of Carnage’s first and most iconic host: Where is Cletus Kasady in the MC2?

 

Cletus Kasady made his very first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #344, cameoing as Eddie Brock’s prison cellmate. When the Venom symbiote busted Eddie out, it left behind it’s offspring which bonded with serial killer Cletus to become the mass-murdering Carnage and the rest is history (Amazing Spider-Man #345, #359-#361). 

 

When a splinter of the Carnage symbiote (specifically Specimen 297 of 300) appeared in the MC2 starting in Amazing Spider-Girl #9, Cletus was nowhere to be seen. To explore why, we should look to the last published appearance of Cletus Kasady prior the MC2’s own publication history, a two-part story in Amazing Spider-Man #430-#431. The story starts out as a fairly standard ‘Carnage on a rampage’ plot until the Silver Surfer shows up and the Carnage symbiote abandons Cletus and bonds with the Surfer (Amazing Spider-Man #430).

 

While at first it seems as though Cletus is merely suffering a kind of withdrawal in the absence of his symbiote ‘other’, when Spider-Man takes Kasady to a hospital it’s discovered that he is suffering from an advanced case of stomach cancer and that the symbiote has been keeping him alive (Amazing Spider-Man #431).

 

By the story’s conclusion, the Surfer allows the Carnage symbiote to re-bond with Kasady…only to leave him encased in an unbreakable shell of ethereal energy ‘for the rest of his life’. Ironically, the Main Marvel Universe never really addresses Cletus’ situation, either how he escaped this seemingly permanent imprisonment nor recovered from his terminal cancer. Instead, the next time we see him he’s just in prison and shortly afterwards has his symbiote eaten by Venom with almost no ill effects. Wasted potential.

 

While we also don’t have an explanation for how the Carnage symbiote escaped the Silver Surfer’s encasement (though perhaps I could present a theory on that someday?) we can assume that Cletus Kasady is probably long dead in the MC2. The interesting thing to note is that both stories here were written by Tom Defalco and both refer to the symbiotes ability to keep a host alive even with a terminal cancer diagnosis, with the Carnage symbiote promising to help save new host Moose Mansfield’s father in exchange for his co-operation (Amazing Spider-Girl #9-#12).

 

Well, hopefully you got something out of this. I know I was pleasantly surprised when I realized the similarities between the two Defalco Carnage stories. I’m also fairly sure Defalco was the first person to associate symbiotes with cancer in anyway.

 

Until I find another tangential connection to the Venom films, I remain

 

frogoat

The Venom Symbiote Family Tree

I thought since it’s nearly Halloween and I had some free time; I might offer up a creepy and gooey MC2 Family Tree for your approval. This time we’ll be looking at very different kind of family, one that’s not even human! Today, we’ll look into The Venom Symbiote Family Tree!

*Before we dive right in, the usual rules: For the purposes of these family trees, I accept that MC2 characters share their published history (up to a point) with their 616/Main Marvel Universe counterparts. I make exceptions for any retcons implemented after the point the MC2 diverges from the 616 and in cases where it's explicitly or implicitly different (Aunt May really died) or when a writer later introduces a previously unheard of relative (the Pym family) who is never mentioned, seen or heard of in the MC2. With the last exception, I would add them to the family tree in later updates should they be mentioned in MC2 material at any point. Got it? Excellent!*

The Alien Symbiote later known as one half of the villain-turned-anti-hero Venom first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #252. This story was published before the events which preceded it in Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #8 where we see Spider-Man pick up the alien costume for the first time. I think we all know how things turn out. Peter finds out the costume is an alien symbiote trying to bond with him permanently, he rejects it before it comes back and he drives it off using a church bell. In Amazing Spider-Man #299 and #300 we learn that it later bonded with someone who hates Spider-Man and blames him for his problems: Eddie Brock. The two became Venom and the rest is history. You can find more about Venom in the MC2 here.

It turns out symbiotes produce asexually as we learn when the Venom Symbiote breaks Eddie Brock free from prison, leaving behind its spawned offspring. This offspring would join with Brock’s cellmate, serial killer Cletus Kasady to become Carnage. The Carnage symbiote first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #345 before being led on a rampage of random murders by its host. It’s worth noting that Eddie Brock was unaware of this spawn until alerted to the threat by Spider-Man. It’s also probably important to mention that upon consulting with his own symbiote, Brock is told the symbiote’s race reproduce once per generation and have no social structure or concept of family (Amazing Spider-Man #362). Keep that in mind. For more on Carnage in the MC2, see here and look forward to another post next year about Cletus Kasady. 

Venom would get his own series in the form of continual mini-series starting with Venom: Lethal Protector. It’s here that we learn the Life Foundation has forcibly removed five ‘seeds’ from the Venom Symbiote and accelerated their physical maturation. So, I guess Venom was incorrect or lying when it said they only produce once per generation? It is mentioned that the fifth ‘seed’ they take is the ‘final’ one, so maybe six spawn is the limit instead of one? The five spawn are bonded with volunteer security personnel from the Life Foundation to act as ‘Guardians’ of the organisations twisted plans (Venom: Lethal Protector #4-#5).

The first of these five ‘Guardians’ we see is a Yellow Symbiote with prehensile hair tendrils when bonded to its host, but we soon meet a Grey Symbiote, a Green Symbiote, a Lavender Symbiote and an Orange Symbiote. All five symbiotes are seemingly destroyed using the same device that accelerated their growth (Venom: Lethal Protector #5). A short time later, in the Venom: Separation Anxiety mini series we learn that the five symbiotes and their hosts survived and had rejected the Life Foundation and its world views. Seeking out Eddie Brock to help them, the ‘Guardians’ liberated him in hopes he would teach them how to communicate and control their symbiotes.

Things deteriorate when Leslie (host of the Lavender Symbiote) is murdered and the group blames Brock. Ramon, Trevor and Carl (hosts of the Green, Grey and Orange Symbiotes) would also be slain before Donna (host of the Yellow Symbiote) was revealed as the killer, driven by her schizophrenia to murder all who bond with symbiotes (Venom: Lethal Protector #1-4).

A bit of a detour now, as I want to talk about common misconceptions among fans regarding these five Life Foundation symbiotes. They are never given codenames on-panel in any of their appearances. While all five Life Foundation symbiotes appeared previously in the Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety video game from 1995, all five go unnamed throughout.  However two of the five were released as action figures for a line of toys called Venom: Planet of the Symbiotes where they were dubbed as follows: ‘Scream’ for Donna’s symbiote and ‘Lasher’ for Ramon’s symbiote. The names of two other unrelated action figures were also erroneously applied to Trevor and Carl’s symbiotes: ‘Riot’ and ‘Phage’ by some fans. Leslie’s codename of ‘Agony’ appears to come from nowhere official. Apart from Scream, these names would eventually be assigned to the various symbiote characters in 2011’s Carnage, U.S.A. #2 years after their initial hosts death’s.

As for Donna aka Scream, not only had she been given solo appearances in the Spider-Man titles seeking Venom’s aid prior to the events of Separation Anxiety, she would go onto appear in two further mini-series, Venom: The Hunted and Venom: Tooth and Claw as a more sympathetic character who helps children but also fluctuates between helping fellow symbiote-hosts and hunting them. While all five Life Foundation symbiotes appeared previously in the Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety video game from 1995, all five go unnamed. As mentioned above, her codename Scream appears to originate from an action figure produced in 1996, despite which she is simply called ‘Female Symbiote’ only in other merchandise such as collectable trading cards. 

Even more trivia: Scream appears in the Theme Park ride The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man opened in 1999 as a member of the Sinister Syndicate led by Doctor Octopus. It’s a lesser known fact that this ride has a tie-in comic which identifies the character as Scream, making it the earliest on-panel reference to the name, albeit likely not one from the Main Marvel Universe (Marvel Super Hero Island Adventure #1). The Civil War: Battle Damage Report handbook would finally identify her as Scream in 2007. What was the point of noting all of these naming-facts? To make it clear why I used quotation marks for all five symbiotes in in my Venom Symbiote Family Tree above. None of the Life Foundation Symbiote characters began using the codenames fans attributed to them until well after the MC2 diverged.

The four host-less Life Foundation Symbiotes found themselves tortured in through experiments during the events of Planet of the Symbiotes. When the entire invasion force of symbiotes were destroyed by a psychic shriek, the four symbiotes joined together into a hybrid to survive. Escaping with the aid of Guardsman Scott Washington, the composite symbiote would soon seek out and bond with the man becoming the heroic vigilante known as Hybrid (Venom: Along Came a Spider #1-#4, Venom: The Hunted #1-#3). 

That’s it for the 616 aka Main Marvel Universe before it diverges into the MC2 Universe, so let us now talk about Mayhem. After arranging the apparent death of Peter and Mary Jane Parker’s newborn daughter May Parker, Norman Osborn cloned her and genetically tinkered with both infants. Sending one baby away, Norman continued to enhance the other, going so far as hiring Eddie Brock and using cell samples from the symbiote to transform the baby into a unique hybrid. This hybrid child would lay forgotten in a secret lab for many years following Norman Osborn’s sudden death. Finally rediscovered and awakened, this ‘May’ would encounter her counterpart, briefly attempting to replace her before bonding with both her and Peter Parker (at the time controlled by the brainwaves of Norman Osborn) to become a monstrous ‘Goblin God’ as part of Osborn’s revenge (Amazing Spider-Girl #20-#30). 

Freed with the aid of Spider-Girl, the symbiotic-clone hybrid would move in with the Parker family and assume the name April Parker. Unfortunately, this wouldn’t last. As a result of a rising gang war and an encounter with Fury the Goblin Queen, April set about ending the violence by killing anyone involved. When Spider-Girl confronted her, she soundly beat the hero but found herself unable to kill her ‘sister’. When the gang war escalated, Mayhem wound up killing the Hobgoblin, definitively ending it (Amazing Spider-Man Family #5-#8, Web of Spider-Man (vol. 2) #1-#4, Spectacular Spider-Girl #1-#4).

May and April had a climactic battle in a warehouse which would lead to an explosive fire in which May died. The resulting fallout would send April into a spiral of destruction and trigger the creation of Bio-Preds (mercenaries bonded to pieces of the Carnage Symbiote) to stop her. However, these Bio-Preds turned on humanity instead, driving it to the brink of destruction. As humanity’s only hope, an elderly April would make a desperate trip into the past to change history. Unfortunately, the older April found herself materialized within the warehouse wall dying. Sending out her symbiote tendrils to her younger self, she relayed her story which convinced April to save May. This final act of heroism apparently cost April her own life as she was consumed by the fiery explosion (Spider-Girl: The End).

I had a great time deep-diving into this gooey pool of symbiote lore and I hope it shows. I’ve always had a great fondness for April Parker aka Mayhem but researching the other symbiotes has left me with a great appreciation for the blobby little aliens. For example, I think the original Scream and Hybrid were woefully underutilized. I huge thanks to arias-98105 for their help once again.

Until I spawn a whole batch of gooey symbiotes with a craving for brains, I remain

frogoat