In the recent trailer for Venom, we got a horrifying look at Eddie Brock's (Tom Hardy) transformation into into a giant, toothy, long-tongued monster - courtesy of an alien symbiote he picks up while investigating the Life Foundation. Dr Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed) has been trying to use the symbiote to create an enhanced version of humanity, but it seems that the process has so far been particularly hard on the hosts.
The nature of the symbiote is such that it's often hard to tell where the host ends and the alien entity begins. The symbiote merges with a host's body, hiding inside and then emerging and transforming its host in interesting and often horrifying ways. What we've seen of Eddie Brock's transformation into Venom in the trailers is similar to the portrayal in the comics, but also seems to draw upon other influences, like Venom's transitions in Spider-Man: The Animated Series.
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Venom is a character steeped in body horror, so the transformation scenes could make or break this movie - and also offer some great insight into the relationship between Eddie Brock and his new symbiote pal. Let's break down what we've seen so far.
- This Page: How Eddie Brock Transforms Into Venom
- Page 2: Venom's Shapeshifting Abilities, The Animated Venom, & Spider-Man 3
Eddie Brock Gets Infected With the Symbiote
In the comics, Eddie Brock first bonds with the symbiote when the two of them have aligned goals - namely, a hatred of Spider-Man - so the process is quite smooth, with Eddie and the symbiote working in tandem to take down the web-slinger, and Eddie glad to have the symbiote in board. In the movie, however it appears that Eddie won't even realize what has happened to him at first. We see him looking physically tormented by his new pal: sweating profusely, downing pills, and startled by the voice in his head. His journey to becoming Venom is portrayed as a kind of infection or demonic possession. Director Ruben Fleischer has compared it to a werewolf movie.
In many ways, this resembles moments from the classic '90s story Venom: The Madness (pictured above), in which Venom fell into a toxic chemical mix that infected him with demons from the Realm of Insanity. Instead of having just one voice in his head, Eddie had many voices - including Creep, Paranoia and Delusion - that stole away his usual measure of control and made him extremely dangerous and highly aggressive. Although Venom is mainly based on the Lethal Protector comic arc, the movie could well draw on inspiration from other stories in the early run of solo Venom adventures - The Madness among them.
The Venom Movie Transformation Reflects a Lack of Control
In the comics, the Venom's appearance varies depending on the emotional state of the host, and also reflects the balance of control between symbiote and host. During the symbiote's first appearance, when it attached itself to Peter Parker, it essentially looked the same as Peter's usual Spider-Man suit. When the symbiote latched on to Peter it dissolved the existing Spider-Suit underneath and replaced it, and Peter soon realized that he could control the suit with his thoughts (for example, creating a seam in it so he could conveniently store his wallet and keys). It was some time before Peter even became aware that his suit was actually a separate living being - at which point he rejected it.
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The symbiote doesn't just use its hosts, but instead can form deep, emotional attachments to them, and therefore was deeply hurt by Peter's rejection. After crawling away, it discovered Eddie Brock, who held an obsessive hatred of Spider-Man due to the fact that Spider-Man caught and identified serial killer called the Sin-Eater about an hour and a half after Brock published an exposé on the wrong suspect. The symbiote latched onto Brock when he was seething with hatred and, as a result, the first appearance of Venom shows the symbiote not simply as a skintight suit, but as something that has physically transformed Eddie - giving him claws and a large mouth with sharp teeth. More recently, Flash Thompson's turn as Agent Venom demonstrated what a host can do when they are in total control of the symbiote; Flash uses it to create a simple tactical suit for himself, and also to regrow the lower half of his legs, which he lost in the Iraq War.
From what we've seen in the trailers, Hardy's Eddie Brock seems to have little to no control over the symbiote, which would explain why his physical transformation is so extreme. When the suit takes over his body he grows in height by several feet, and his face is enveloped by a monstrous mouth and teeth (and the long, slavering tongue that was introduced by artist Erik Larsen, and would go on to become a trademark of the character). Unlike the Eddie of the early comics, the movie's Eddie seems to be a nice enough guy who isn't consumed by rage or hatred, and describes himself as being "taken" by the symbiote - begging it not to hurt people, warning people not to aggravate it, and even apologizing when it attacks.
Page 2: Venom's Shapeshifting Abilities, The Animated Venom, & Spider-Man 3
Venom's Shapeshifting Abilities
The Venom suit can not only make its host taller, bulkier and more monstrous - it also has some pretty handy shapeshifting abilities. For example, in the latest trailer we see the symbiote take the form of a shield in order to protect Eddie from a hail of bullets, and one symbiote (it's hard to tell for sure whether it's Venom or Riot, though it seems to be the latter) transforms its arms into a giant pair of blades, taking out an entire room of people.
The symbiote usually appears in its trademark fluid-looking black form, regardless of what shape it takes, but it has been known to get a little more creative. For example, in Spider-Man/Human Torch #4 (above), Peter Parker used the symbiote to create a disguise for himself inside the Wakandan embassy. However, the suit's interpretation of Peter's request led it to transform into a traditional Wakandan outfit, which wasn't much of a disguise, since Peter is very obviously not Wakandan.
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Shapeshifting and color-changing also gives Venom the chameleon-like ability to blend into any background by changing the appearance and texture of its skin. In The Amazing Spider-Man #347, Venom plays a rather nasty game of cat-and-mouse with Spider-Man on a deserted island, and disguises himself first inside a pool of water, and then against the bark of a tree. There have been no indications yet that we'll see this useful ability in the movie, but it could certainly come in handy when Eddie is on the run from the Life Foundation.
Venom in Spider-Man 3 and Spider-Man: The Animated Series
One of the biggest challenges of bringing Venom from the comics to the screen is actually showing the transformation in motion. Spider-Man: The Animated Series took the approach of having Venom's mouth close down around Eddie's head, and then fold back like a hood whenever Eddie wanted to expose his own head. In the big transformation scenes from the trailers, when Venom takes over Eddie's body to terrorize a bad guy and muses over which "snacks" to eat first, we see a very similar effect. with Venom's teeth closing unnervingly over Eddie's face.
Topher Grace's Eddie Brock, in Spider-Man 3, had a slightly different transformation into Venom. The symbiote's tendrils crawl over his face and engulf it, with the eyes and teeth only appearing when Eddie's face is completely covered. Spider-Man 3's Venom also had a less extreme appearance, closer to the early comic book appearances, rather than a bulked-up monstrous form and long, drooling tongue. He also, of course, had the white spider symbol on his chest, which Hardy's Venom won't have (for obvious reasons).
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What we've seen of Venom's transformation scenes so far has evoked a mixed response from fans. The design is certainly comic book-faithful, and there are some cool effects, but they're somewhat undermined by the unpolished CGI. Hopefully the final version of the movie will look a little better, and use those transformations to truly horrify the audience.
