Venom: Let There Be Carnage, while the movie's end-credits scene included a big surprise for Spidey fans.
When Eddie and Venom finds themselves suddenly transported from their world, it becomes clear they are in the Marvel Cinematic Universe when they see Tom Holland's Spider-Man on television. While Venom's time in the MCU from there only amounted to a brief cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home's end-credits scene, the scene actually did a lot more than it appeared to. In just a few minutes and without Eddie Brock ever directly interacting with Peter Parker, No Way Home re-invents how Venom's rivalry against Spider-Man begins.
Venom stands as one of the most popular Spider-Man antagonists ever created, while Tom Hardy's Venom does not inhabit that MCU and exists in a world where he has never met Spider-Man himself. Coming off Venom's No Way Home appearance, that is all but certain to change. It will also happen in a way not only vastly different from when Let There Be Carnage initially teased but also different from the classic Venom mythos. As Hardy's Venom has been introduced and discovered Spider-Man, here's how Venom's relationship with Spidey is being re-envisioned.
Venom Is Traditionally Motivated By Revenge Against Spider-Man
The origin story of Venom in both the comics and past Spider-Man adaptations has given both Eddie Brock and the Venom symbiote bitter grudges against Spider-Man that motivate them. In Venom's comic book origin story, the symbiote feels spurned by Peter Parker freeing himself from its bond with him. Meanwhile, Eddie Brock comes to know Spider-Man as the man to inadvertently ruined Eddie’s career as a journalist. Specifically, Spider-Man capturing of the Sin-Eater destroys Eddie's reputation, Eddie having previously interviewed a man he thought was the Sin-Eater and Spider-Man's action revealing him to be a false-confessor. This leaves Eddie embittered towards Spider-Man, and his and the symbiote’s shared hatred of the Wall-Crawler brings them into an extremely volatile bond as Venom.
Spider-Man: The Animated Series and 2007’s Spider-Man 3 carried these aspects over, though both made Eddie’s journalistic downfall his own fault through knowingly false reporting about Spider-Man. 2018’s Venom completely jettisoned Spidey’s connection to Venom with the symbiote bonding with Eddie directly. It wasn’t until the end of Let There Be Carnage that Eddie and Venom took an interest in Spider-Man, but the circumstances were completely re-invented.
No Way Home Alters How Eddie & The Symbiote Know Spider-Man
After being transported from their universe in the MCU, No Way Home’s end-credits scene shows Eddie contemplating that he should “go to New York and speak to this Spider-Man.” Though Eddie and Venom are returned home before getting the chance to do so (Venom also leaving behind a tiny fragment of himself that could find its own MCU host), their interest in the Wall-Crawler exhibits little, if any, hostility, with the two seeming more driven by curiosity.
With Venom snarling, “That…guy,” after seeing Spidey on the news in Let There Be Carnage’s end-credits scene, a popular theory has been that the symbiotes originate from a hive-mind. This could explain Venom recognizing Spider-Man, sharing a multiversal memory with Topher Grace’s Venom symbiote from Spider-Man 3. However, he and Eddie still don’t seem intent on an aggressive assault on Spidey. Whatever their motivation and however it comes to , the combination of the Venom movies, their role in Sony's Spider-Man villain universe, and No Way Home have established a completely new foundation for Spider-Man and Venom’s relationship than has traditionally been seen. As has been heavily speculated since No Way Home, it is more likely than not that a different Spider-Man from Tom Holland's will be the one Eddie eventually makes with.
How Eddie's Conflict With Spider-Man Could Unfold
A Spider-Man-Venom meeting seems inevitable after No Way Home’s tease, though Eddie and Venom returning to their universe along with Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man having already faced his own Venom suggest the Andrew Garfield’s Spidey is the most likely candidate to be the Web-Head he’ll encounter. This is further backed up by the basic fact of Sony needing a Spider-Man vs. Venom battle for their as yet undefined villain-based universe. Venom possibly retaining the memories of his counterpart from Spider-Man 3 probably means he’ll have more reason to be untrusting of Spidey, while Eddie as the voice of moderation in their relationship could be the one to hold him back.
Eddie and Venom have also byed their villain phase and gone directly to anti-hero mode in the Venom films. Whatever way in which Sony facilitates Venom and Spidey's meeting, the personal nature of Eddie’s bitterness towards Peter Parker won’t be a part of that equation, while Venom’s might be more of a general dislike of Spider-Man as an enemy of his own kind. The aspect of the multiverse being the basis for their meeting will be also be interwoven into the multiversal origin of Venom’s conflict with Spider-Man, and potentially with The Amazing Spider-Man timeline as Venom's foundation.
The traditional origin of Venom has positioned Peter Parker and Eddie Brock as two sides of the same coin, each being tempted by the Venom symbiote's power and Eddie's bond with it fueled by Peter freeing himself from it. On its own, Venom already circumvented that by having Eddie as the symbiote's first and only human host, while his journey thus far has shown that a Venom-Spider-Man encounter is very much a mandate for Sony. The studio has taken a far less direct route than usual to get there, while also re-shaping Venom's origin as a Spider-Man villain. As it stands, Tom Hardy's Venom has never been and may never be a villain at all, and literally crosses the multiverse to potentially meet Andrew Garfield's Peter #3 rather than Tom Holland's Peter #1. As comic book movie adaptations go, that is quite the re-invention with both Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Spider-Man: No Way Home key players in remolding the Venom-Spider-Man rivalry.
