Warning! Contains Spoilers For Marvel's Spider-Man 2!The longer a character exists in comic books, the more likely it is that their original personality will be lost. Sometimes character traits are added and improve the character, but that's not always the case. In Venom's case, I feel that Marvel has completely forgotten what made the character originally scary and has just turned him into a generic monster over the years.

When Venom is depicted as a villain these days, he's often reduced to a giant hulking monster with the intention of destroying, or taking over the world, with symbiotes – something I always find this be pretty reductive of what Venom's character actually is.

Venom's meant to be a dark mirror to Spider-Man, but I don't think most modern writers truly understand that. Being a dark mirror of Spider-Man doesn't mean he wants to just destroy everything, it means he has a twisted sense of heroism and responsibility. That's what originally made him so terrifying.

First, Let Me Start With A Good Example Of A "Bad" Venom: Insomniac's Version Of The Character

At Least He Looked Cool (Credit Where Credit's Due)

First, I think it's worth taking the time to isolate one specific example of contemporary Venom, one that people outside comic book fandom will be familiar with, in order to devote further attention to what makes a "bad" depiction of Venom, in my opinion, as compared to a "good" or "classic" iteration of the character. For this purpose, I'm going to dive into the version of Venom from Marvel's Spider-Man 2, the video game. While in many ways the game does a great job of adapting Spider-Man lore into a new medium, I have issues with their approach to Venom.

One of the biggest antagonists in Insomniac's highly anticipated Marvel's Spider-Man 2 was Venom. However, this character was a major departure from what fans originally knew. Not only was he Harry Osborn instead of Eddie Brock – a change that makes the Venom moniker nonsensical – but he was also essentially just a mustache-twirling villain. The game-version of Venom only wanted to take over the world with an army of symbiotes, and manipulated Harry to achieve this. This desire is completely separate from Spider-Man, and I don't think it has anything to do with Peter Parker's character at all.

The reason this story doesn't work is that Venom is meant to be Peter's reflection. He is terrifying because he has all of Peter's power, without accepting any of the responsibility. Insomniac's Venom is totally untethered from this. He claims he wants to help people, but that's only a tool to manipulate Harry to make him a willing host. Newer fans of Spider-Man argue that Venom needs to be huge and hulking and serious to be terrifying, but that's never what Venom originally was. He was goofy and ridiculous and constantly made jokes, which only contrasted with how incredibly deadly he was.

I Have Always Loved How Venom's Goofy Character Traits Were Meant To Contrast His Violence

He Makes Ridiculous Jokes, Then Eats Someone's Brain

Spider-Man makes quips to set civilians at ease and to infuriate his villains. Eddie did it because he was insane. There's a major difference though. Every other villain Peter has gone up against wants something. They want to rule the world, or they want money, or they want power or to take over New York City. They want something. Venom was scary because he didn't want anything of personal gain. All Venom wanted was to kill Spider-Man, because, as Eddie states in the fantastic Donny Cates run, Eddie truly believed killing Spider-Man was the right thing to do.

My favorite example of Eddie's twisted morality was when he saw a homeless man asking for money. Venom then promptly broke into a jewelry store, stole everything, and gave it to the homeless man...remaining completely oblivious as the police arrested the man and took him away.

Eddie is a character who had a tenuous grasp on reality when he was originally Venom. My favorite example of Eddie's twisted morality was when he saw a homeless man asking for money. Venom then promptly broke into a jewelry store, stole everything, and gave it to the homeless man. He truly believed that he had solved that man's problem, remaining completely oblivious as the police arrested the man and took him away. That's a perfect example of Venom having Peter's powers and desire to help, but no responsibility; it's the core reason he was so terrifying at first.

Venom Truly Wants To Help, But He's Completely Oblivious To How To Actually Be A Hero

That's What Makes Him Legitimately Scary

Reducing Venom to just a generic gooey monster is a complete disservice to his character, and I'm pretty tired of it. He was scary because he was what Spider-Man could be if he wasn't a responsible person with his powers. Eddie would start a fight with Peter, throwing cars at him and chasing him through the city, but he'd stop to save a civilian in trouble, right before going back to trying to kill Spider-Man. This showed that Venom wasn't just evil like the Green Goblin. He clearly had some grasp of right and wrong, he just wanted Spider-Man dead.

It's not unusual for other mediums to simplify characters just to get them on screen. Just look at the MCU's version of the Hulk to see how far that can go. But I really don't think a villainous version of Venom needs to be reduced to a gooey Hulk with plans of world domination. Insomniac could have easily had Venom learn from its time with Peter and want to try and protect the world in its own twisted way, but that's not what fans got. Like most evil interpretations of Venom these days, he was just a one-note villain with none of the nuance I loved about him in the comics.