Todd McFarlane Reflects on How (& Why) He Created Venom

Screen Rant

By John Atkinson

Published Aug 8, 2018

Venom co-creator Todd McFarlane looks back and reflects upon how and why he first gave life to Spider-Man's now iconic symbiote archnemesis.

Ahead of Sony's Venom movie hitting theaters, and hopefully kicking off their Spider-Villain Universe, Todd McFarlane has looked back at what led to the creation of the now-iconic character. Venom debuted in 1988, on the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man #300. The Venom symbiote has had many hosts over the years, but Eddie Brock has always been the most popular and enduring of them all. Originally conceived as a new nemesis for Spider-Man, Eddie Brock/Venom was eventually spun-off into his own series and evolved into more of an antihero.

One such series, Lethal Protector, will serve as a major inspiration for the upcoming film, which also stars Riz Ahmed as Carlton Drake/Riot and Michelle Williams as Anne Weying. Though anticipation for the film was originally lukewarm at best, more recent trailers have won people over. Even Topher Grace, who was the first to bring the character to the big screen in Sam Raimi's ill-received Spider-Man 3, has high hopes for Tom Hardy's iteration. There's still no word on whether the film will indeed be R-rated, as fans hope, but director Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland), right down to the dialogue, is definitely offering a more traditional, comic-book accurate version of the character. Albeit without the canonical backstory and, potentially, some alterations to his abilities.

Looking back rather than forward, however, Todd McFarlane took to Instagram to reflect on the real-life genesis of the character. Displaying some classic, black and white artwork, McFarlane revealed that Venom was born from a desire to see Peter Parker back in his traditional red and blue costume. "Marvel said they would bring back the 'classic' look in issue 300 if I joined the book (which I did on issue 298). The problem was...what to do with the black costume?" Little did he - or anyone - know that something as simple as switching a costume would ultimately spawn one of the most popular comic-book characters of all-time. Check out the full post below:

Clearly, Venom is as much on his mind as it is on fans. It could be argued that he himself wishes he was helming the adaptation of his own co-creation. Fans would no doubt have rejoiced. And it wouldn't be the first time. He is currently adapting for Blumhouse another of his comic creations, Spawn - a property he would love to see in a crossover with Venom. He also just recently posted a video editing the film's design of the character to be more akin to how he envisions it.

On the other hand, what he will ultimately make of the film as a whole remains to be seen, though McFarlane has been quite vocal in praising what he has seen thus far. Also, given that it was 30 years ago this year that he and David Michelinie devised the character, he's more likely experiencing a combined bout of nostalgia and excitement that fans can no doubt relate to.