10 Best Times Supervillains Switched Sides

9. Venom - Lethal Protector

Venom Lethal Protector
Marvel Comics

2018's Venom movie went to great lengths to claim that Venom - to many a longtime adversary of Spider-Man and the perfect visual embodiment of an evil-looking villain - was actually an anti-hero. Shocking, yes, but it was true; for the last two decades, Venom has primarily been depicted as an anti-hero.

Or, at least Brock himself has. Recent alterations made to the history of the symbiote have repositioned the alien species as inherently good creatures corrupted by an external force, but back when that wasn't the case, a little storyline called 'Lethal Protector' depicted a version of Eddie attempting to do some good. He packs his bags and leaves for San Francisco, attempting to get his feud with Peter Parker out of his head, but ends up uncovering an evil conspiracy from the villainous Life Foundation to weaponise and clone his symbiote.

Brock disagrees in no uncertain terms, and proceeds to take them down. Years later he would also return as a symbiote hunter as Anti-Venom, before once again bonding with Venom to take on Knull, the self-professed 'god' of all Klyntar.

Other than Brock, Venom has been considered as a proper hero during a period spent with Flash Thompson. They even joined the Guardians of the Galaxy!

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.