There isn't an alien entity as pesky - or as misunderstood - as the Venom symbiote. There are other symbiotes infinitely more worse than it, and though it has gotten up to some terrible things in the past, a lot of that is down to the host too; quite a lot of Marvel's characters have, surprisingly, steered the creature to do good - even if that good streak hasn't lasted all that long in the grand scheme of things.
Dozens of Marvel characters have fallen victim to - or commandeered - the creature at varying points over the years as well, with countless more having become Venom in the publisher's What If? series and other assorted texts centred on the multiverse too.
But while the list of Venoms to have appeared in the many Earths of Marvel Comics was always going to be pretty massive (even Galactus, at one point in time, donned the suit in one of those books), more surprising is just how many hosts the suit has had in mainstream Marvel continuity, or Earth-616 for short.
Sure, there are the usual suspects, but scratch beneath the surface and you find a who's who of unlikely hosts - each with their own story to tell...
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.
