Who Is Riot? Venom Movie Villain & Comic Backstory Explained

The latest (and probably last) trailer for Venom gave viewers their first glimpse of the movie's villain, a monstrous symbiote known as Riot. The last few months have seen Sony gradually pull back the curtain on Venom, unveiling a film that's strongly lifted from the "Lethal Protector" comics.

In Venom, it seems the symbiotes are recovered by the sinister Life Foundation, run by Riz Ahmed's Carton Drake. Drake believes the Life Foundation's experiments will secure the future of the human race. Convinced that environmental collapse will lead the human race into space, Drake begins to invest in space exploration - and stumbles across the symbiotes. He believes bonding with these symbiotes will give human beings the edge they need in order to survive in a dangerously unstable world. "He's trying to do right by humanity and save the future," Ahmed said at SDCC, "but as they say, to make an omelette you got to break some eggs."

But that means Venom isn't the only symbiote in town. Drake has been experimenting with this space goo for some time, and he has other symbiotic warriors who serve as his agents. The most important of them, now confirmed as the film's key villain, is a symbiote known as Riot.

This Page: Riot's Comic History & Venom Movie Role Explained
Page 2: Riot Is Just One Of Five Symbiotes In Venom

Last Updated: August 6

Riot is the Venom Movie Villain

Riot is rather different to other symbiotes; while most remain bonded to a single person, he moves from host to host, bonding with anyone in order to find its target. As director Ruben Fleischer explained, "He has a unique trait. You don't know where Riot is going to turn up." As the trailer shows, when the Riot symbiote possesses a host, it turns into a massive and monstrous being similar to the Venom of the Ultimate Comics line. Riot will actually possess Carlton Drake himself in the end, with the trailer ending with a scene in which Drake/Riot launch an attack upon Venom himself.

This makes perfect sense from a narrative perspective. Superhero films are well-known for their love of "doppelganger" villains, opponents who are distorted reflections of the hero. Superman battles rogue Kryptonians, Green Lantern clashes with Sinestro the Yellow Lantern, Wolverine tussles with Sabretooth, and of course one of Spider-Man's greatest nemeses in the comics is Venom. The advantage of this approach is that the villain inverts the hero, shining a light on just what kind of monster they could be if they ever truly cut loose. In this regard, having Riot bond with Carlton Drake is a stroke of genius; it allows the film's other reflective villain to be a physical menace, with the two eventually bonding together into a single monstrous entity.

Who is Riot in the Spider-Man Comics?

Until the early '90s, Venom was a Spider-Man villain. Marvel saw potential in the character, though, and had Eddie Brock begin the journey to becoming an antihero, star of his own ongoing comic books. That led to David Michelinie's classic Venom: Lethal Protector run, which saw Eddie attempt to start a new life in San Francisco. Unfortunately for Eddie, he soon fell foul of the Life Foundation. In the comics, this organization believed that the Earth would soon suffer an extinction level event. Carlton Drake was a businessman, not a scientist, and he had the idea of selling spots in a survival bunker to the rich and famous. When Drake saw Venom in San Francisco, he realized this was his opportunity to create the ultimate super-soldiers to defend the bunker in the event of an apocalypse. He captured Venom, and extracted symbiotic "seeds" in order to create new symbiotes of his own.

Riot was one of Drake's creations, although the character wasn't given a name at first. In the Lethal Protector run, he was simply one of Drake's mercenaries bonded to a brutal symbiote; the name "Riot" was given to him by a line of action figures and, although there's precious little similarity between the action figure and the comic book character, the name stuck. Riot's host was killed at the end of the Lethal Protector miniseries, but the symbiote survived, and over the years it's jumped around a lot. The most recent Riot host was Petty Officer Howard Ogden, who worked for the US military in battle against Carnage.

Page 2 of 2: Riot Is Just One Of Five Symbiotes In Venom

Riot is One of Five Symbiotes

In the comics, Riot was one of five symbiotes created by the Life Foundation. The other symbiotes were:

Scream, the only one of the five symbiotes to be named in the Lethal Protector arc. She uses her "living tendril hair" as a weapon, to wrap, tangle, or choke enemies.
Agony, who can use her metabolism to spit acid that could burn through most substances. She can absorb chemicals into herself, including Spider-Man's webbing.
Lasher, a symbiote who creates tentacles on his back, and uses them as whip-like tendrils.
Phage, who preferred to form his symbiote into savage bladed weapons in a similar manner to Carnage.

The five symbiotes are typically found working together, and they proved to be a formidable enough force to easily defeat both Venom and Spider-Man. They were only defeated in the Lethal Protector miniseries when Spider-Man and Venom used the Life Foundation's own technology against them.

Which of the Five Symbiotes Appear in Venom?

The first official still for Venom showed Eddie Brock as a journalist, researching the Life Foundation. According to the notes on Eddie's notepad, there were rumors the Life Foundation was "testing its pharmaceuticals" on vulnerable civilians - and not all of them survived. In the original Lethal Protector run, the Life Foundation was tricking the homeless and destitute into becoming test subjects in their experiments. Eddie's notes clearly suggest a fairly accurate adaptation of the comic book arc. That idea was supported by one early casting call, which included a character who could conceivably be one of the five symbiotes.

Trailers have confirmed this, although they've also made it clear that Sony is making a lot of changes to the five symbiotes. Scream's origin appears to have changed; it looks as though she's one of the first respondents to the alien crash-site in Asia, and is unwittingly bonded with a symbiote. Presumably collapsing, she's rushed away in an ambulance, but breaks free before launching a killing-spree in a city. Somehow she winds up captured by the Life Foundation, presumably giving Drake the idea of bonding humans to symbiotes. Scream is the one who Eddie Brock encounters during his break-in at the Life Foundation.

Surprisingly, it seems another of the symbiotes in Venom is a being named Toxin. In the comics, the Toxin symbiote was the only one Spider-Man has really considered an ally. The "spawn" of Carnage, the Toxin symbiote was bonded to a police officer, and his strong moral center allowed him to control the symbiote's bloodlust. It's possible that, just as in the comics, the Toxin symbiote will actually be a hero rather than a villain. Speaking at SDCC, Fleischer teased that "there may or may not be other villains in the movie," saying he didn't want to give too much away. That kind of comment is clearly intended to make viewers believe other symbiotes will indeed appear in Venom, including perhaps other members of the Five.

Of course, it's impossible to know just how comic-book-accurate Sony's symbiotes will be. The trailer suggests Riot bears more of a similarity to the Ultimate Universe version of Venom than the 1990s iteration, so it's entirely possible the other symbiotes will be very different to the ones we've seen in the comics too. At the same time, though, the five symbiotes are relatively minor secondary characters, and no stories have actually developed them as individuals, or given them particularly noteworthy character arcs. Given that's the case, Sony has a lot of room to maneuver in Venom.