| NOTE: This article only covers Eddie Brock and excludes the symbiote, as only Eddie was voted Pure Evil. Thus, this article should only cover Venom's host, rather than the symbiote itself. |
| “ | I want him dead, too, Flint. That's why I've been looking for you. Oh, yeah, I know all about you, like the fact that Spider-Man won't let you help your poor daughter. That just… doesn't seem right to me. Look, I wanna kill the Spider, you wanna kill the Spider. Together, he doesn't stand a chance. Interested? | „ |
| ~ Venom striking Sandman with a deal. |
| “ | Never wound what you can't kill. | „ |
| ~ Venom mocking, taunting, and bullying a tied up Spider-Man as he tortures him. |
| “ | I like being bad. It makes me happy. | „ |
| ~ Venom telling Spider-Man that he enjoys his villainy, and his most famous quote. |
Edward "Eddie" Brock Jr., best known as Venom, is the main antagonist of the 2007 film Spider-Man 3, the third and final installment of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, and the main protagonist of its tie-in comic book Spider-Man 3: The Black.
He is a former freelance photographer and the arch-rival of Peter Parker/Spider-Man at The Daily Bugle. However, after getting fired upon being exposed as a fraud by Parker he ends up bonding with the Venom symbiote.
As a result, Brock becomes a monstrous and unhinged evil mutant counterpart of the titular superhero and is one of the most dangerous enemies, willing to do anything to destroy Spider-Man's life and Spidey himself out of spite.
He was portrayed by Topher Grace.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?
- Even long before becoming Venom, Eddie Brock was already a dishonest, callous, devious, petty and cold person, as he was very willing to photograph his alleged girlfriend Gwen Stacy potentially falling to her death from a building in front of her father, NYPD Captain George Stacy. He even points out during Gwen's near death moment that he is dating her.
- He plagiarized and fabricated one of Peter Parker's photos of Spider-Man and framed him for robbing a bank that had actually been robbed by Sandman, solely to get in J. Jonah Jameson's good graces in order to get the staff photographer promotion that Peter wanted/deserved and out of spite and revenge for Spider-Man breaking his camera. It's also implied that if Spider-Man didn't break his camera, Eddie would still falsify his own authentic picture of Black Suit-Spider-Man too, all for the same reasons. Even when Peter was confronting him on his fraudulence, Eddie just insulted him, then pathetically begged him not to expose the forgery when Peter showed that he wasn't going to back down.
- Although it wasn't exactly right of Spider-Man to break his camera out of spite or even slamming him into his framed picture as Peter, this doesn't justify Eddie as a scapegoat in any way because he was wrong to use one of Peter's photos to forge a fake image to frame Spider-Man and make him look like a criminal just for fame and to steal a promotion, all of which was completely dishonest, unprofessional and unjustifiable (even Jameson was outraged at Eddie’s act, even though it painted Spider-Man as the criminal he believed to the public) and Eddie didn't feel any remorse for it.
- It's also hard to blame Peter for it because he had every right to be mad at Eddie for forging one of his photos to make Spider-Man look bad and stealing a promotion. Even if Peter wasn't wearing the symbiote and gave Eddie a choice, either Peter will expose the fraud or have Eddie come clean on his own terms, Eddie would still behave the same way.
- Instead of repenting or asking for forgiveness, he sought revenge as he prayed to God at a church to kill Peter for getting him fired and blacklisted by exposing the forgery and for "stealing" his crush Gwen. This particular attitude wasn't only blasphemous and against Catholic principles, but also a complete exaggeration on his part, since forging photos that incriminated Spider-Man just to get in good graces with J. Jonah Jameson and obtain a promotion was an absolutely dishonest, unprofessional and unjustifiable act, and even if Peter hadn't exposed his forged photos to the Daily Bugle team on that occasion, his fake photos would likely be discovered sooner or later anyway, and as for Gwen, she never loved him and would eventually hate him for his fraudulence, and only saw Peter as a friend.
- Although he bonded with the Venom symbiote after Spider-Man removed it from himself originally against his will, Eddie quickly embraced it and let it empower him so he can get revenge on Peter for "ruining" his life (as the symbiote gave him Peter's memories) and do whatever he wants.
- As shown in the canon tie-in comic book Spider-Man 3: The Black, Venom's first action upon leaving the church was trying to eat two teenagers before attacking a group of police officers and possibly a couple of civilians, and while he had yet to gain more control over the symbiote at that point, Eddie showed no remorse over what he nearly did after gaining control and deciding that he liked his powers, believing that being able to do anything Spider-Man can do is worth it.
- Once he gained Peter's memories, he went to the Stacy household and tried to ambush Gwen so she "will love him like she loves Peter", implying that he would rape her, only stopping when he came up with the idea to recruit Sandman to help him in his revenge.
- He murdered a taxi driver and stole the cab in order to kidnap Peter's love Mary Jane Watson to take revenge on Peter.
- He trapped Mary Jane inside the taxi, suspended from several symbiote spider webbing in a construction site alongside constructions vehicles that can fall on her, in order to lure Spider-Man to save her.
- He choked Mary Jane and then licked her face while claiming that "Peter doesn't love her the way [he] does", heavily implying that he was going to rape her while claiming that he was "having a moment" if not for Sandman insisting him to stick to the plan and leave her alone.
- He suggested to flip a coin to decide if they kill Mary Jane or Spider-Man, planning to make the one they don't kill watch the other die solely out of pure cruelty and sadism.
- When a bunch of cops came in to save Mary Jane, he and Sandman proceeded to defeat them and it's implied that Eddie ate the police officers he killed, making him a cannibal.
- He attacked Spider-Man once he came to the rescue by kicking him through the taxi's windshield, endangering Mary Jane in the process, before taunting him by grabbing Mary Jane from her chest, remarking that his body is "tingling" and promising to make him lose his girl like he did to him.
- He repeatedly prevented Spider-Man from saving Mary Jane and brutally fought him to the point of strangling him with his symbiote webs and a metal beam while taking sadistic joy in seeing him suffer, while Sandman punched him senseless to near-death, only being saved thanks to Harry Osborn's intervention.
- He tied Spider-Man up from his hands and beat him with a sharp pipe and when Peter attempted to convince Eddie to take off the suit, saying that it was influencing him to do this, Eddie merely remarked that he likes being evil as it makes him happy, to Peter's horror on realizing that Eddie was completely beyond redemption due to fully embracing the symbiote's power and showing that he knew what he did was wrong and he didn't care.
- He tried to impale Spider-Man with Harry's glider, but impaled Harry instead after he got in his way while sacrificing himself to save Peter, leading Venom to exacerbate his wound by intentionally throwing him aside several stories below, eventually killing him and laughing about it.
- This gives Venom personal villainy due to him being the only villain in the trilogy to intentionally kill off a main character, and as evidenced later by his dialogue with Ned Leeds in Spider-Man: No Way Home despite it being vague, Harry's loss has affected Peter since then.
- After Peter forcibly separated the symbiote from Eddie and prepared to destroy it with a pumpkin bomb, Eddie jumped back into it, showing that he was addicted to its power and never wanted to go back to being a normal person, which ultimately caused his own defeat and demise.
- Although Peter was saddened by what happened to Eddie, his death isn't played any for sympathy by the narrative, and he truly deserved it considering all the horrible things he did to Peter, his friends, and all the innocent people he murdered.
- Although his camera getting destroyed by Spider-Man is a bit humorous, it doesn't detract from his villainy as the situation doesn't portray it for any laughs as it just gives him a petty excuse to get back at the webslinger. After he receives the Venom symbiote for the first time, he is taken completely seriously, and his worst crimes are played for horror, drama, and nightmare fuel.
- While his remarking to MJ by saying his "spider senses are tingling" is a bit comical, it's just to show how sadistic and perverted he really is rather than being funny.
- While he does seem somewhat affable towards Sandman, by showing sympathy that Spider-Man "wouldn't help [his] poor daughter," and that it "didn't seem right to [him]", it was just to manipulate him into joining forces so he can kill Spider-Man in an easier manner as he only saw Sandman as a pawn and didn't actually care that his daughter was dying.
- Even Flint himself couldn't stand Eddie's twisted psychopathy and sadism, despite the fact he was willing to help him kill Spider-Man, as he was extremely disgusted of how he was going to rape Mary Jane and literally told him to stop doing so and put her down so they can focus on Spider-Man, which further proves that their relationship was fake and outright toxic.
- Although the Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus and his tentacles might have done far worse due to them having more screen time, they had more resources and powers, as well as very mitigating factors, as Doctor Octopus isn't only tragic, but he is pretty much controlled by his tentacles, who themselves have little (if any) characterization, and the Green Goblin (due to now being part of the MCU), fails the heinous standards to multiple other MCU villains, while Venom only had his for one whole night while trying to do the absolute worst he can with them in those couple of hours.
- Speaking of which, given how Venom never crosses into the Marvel Cinematic Universe since he wasn't brought there by Doctor Strange's spell, he has no need to be compared with the MCU's high Heinous Standards, making him stand out even more.
- Unlike most versions of Eddie Brock who are genuinely tragic, have anti-heroic/villainous qualities, being an actual victim of the Venom symbiote in some adaptations, and oftentimes redeem themselves in numerous issues, this version of the character has absolutely none of it, and is an outright vile, perverted, psychopathic, devious, spiteful, dishonorable, heartless, dishonest and outright sadistic scumbag who was already a horrible person even long before bonding with the symbiote. In fact, Eddie here acts very similar to his original Ultimate Universe counterpart and Nick Katzenberg from the mainstream comics.
Trivia
- To highlight the character's Pure Evil status, Venom was originally not planned to be in the movie as Sam Raimi wasn't initially a fan of the character, stating the character "lacked humanity" in comparison to the previous villains until he gained an appreciation for him later on. Instead, he planned to have Vulture as the main villain of the story. However, he was pushed by Avi Arad to replace him with Venom, as he felt that the series was relying too much on Raimi's personal favorites instead of the villains that the fans like.
- In the San Diego Comic-Con 2006, in the lead-up to Spider-Man 3, Topher Grace and director Sam Raimi gave their opinions on Venom's villainy: Grace felt that one of the key differences between Venom/Eddie Brock and Spider-Man/Peter Parker was that, unlike Parker, Brock had a terrible childhood with abusive parents. However, as this isn't mentioned on-screen and is only considered Grace's opinion, this doesn't prevent Venom from being Pure Evil.
- Sony Pictures initially planned to make a spin-off Venom film starring Venom after the release of Spider-Man 3, with Topher Grace reprising the role in spite of the character's onscreen death. Had it been released, it's possible that Venom's status as Pure Evil could have been affected, as Venom's co-creator Todd McFarlane had opined that a moving focused on a villain wouldn't do well, implying that Venom could have redeemed himself. However, the film never materialized thanks to Spider-Man 4 being cancelled and the franchise getting rebooted with The Amazing Spider-Man.
- This is the only Pure Evil version of Venom in which Eddie Brock himself is Pure Evil instead of the symbiote half of Venom, given that in the versions of Venom that counted as Pure Evil, only the symbiote part qualified while Eddie Brock was depicted as a genuinely tragic villain and a victim to the symbiote's corrupting influence.
- He is the first live action Spider-Man villain to be Pure Evil.
- He is the only villain in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy to be Pure Evil.
- His novelization version can’t qualify due to being brainwashed by Venom.
External Links
- Venom on the Villains Wiki
- Venom on the Hate Sink Wiki
- Venom on the Spider-Man Films Wiki
- Venom on the Marvel Wiki
- Venom on the Marvel Movies Wiki
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