This article contains spoilers for Venom: The Last Dance.
We. Are. Venom. Those three words really capture the appeal of the Venom franchise, a trio of films that somehow, despite being a Spider-Man spinoff that lacks Spider-Man and despite being made by Sony, managed to be huge hits. Those three words, delivered by Tom Hardy in an outrageous voice, point to the warm-hearted romantic comedy vibes that make the movies so much fun.
The other appeal to the Venom movies have been seeing just how hard they commit to the symbiote concept. For those who didn’t read Marvel Comics in the 1990s, there was no potentially profitable concept that the soon-to-be-bankrupt company wouldn’t exploit to the highest degree. So when Venom became a hit, and Carnage only doubled that hit, the company started churning out more and more variations on “gooey Spider-Man.” Which turned out to be good news for Sony, as they’ve been shoving symbiotes into all of their films. The climactic Venom: The Last Dance ups that count, too, thanks to Dr. Teddy Payne (Juno Temple) running tests on the symbiotes in a secret lab.
However, these new symbiotes must deal with xenophages, which kinda look like symbiotes but are in fact a different type of sludgy monster who eat symbiotes. These come from Knull, ruler of Venom’s home planet Klyntar and the god of the symbiotes. Still, despite the xenophages gobbling everyone up, we still have more symbiotes than you can wag your tongue at, so let’s get into who’s who.
Venom
You know him! When a runt from Klyntaar bonded with hard-luck journalist Eddie Brock, they became a true Lethal Protector, a creature who wants to be a hero but cannot help its craving for brains. Also they kinda love each other. It’s sweet. That sweetness makes Venom’s death heartbreaking, as the symbiote sacrifices himself at the end of the movie to save the Earth from Knull’s attack. Well, forestall the Earth from Knull’s attack because the post-credits scene shows that he’s still on his way, and who in the Sony Spider-Verse is going to stop him? Morbius? Madame Web and the Spiders-Women who aren’t even Spiders-Women yet?
I don’t think so. Sony’s Earth is doomed and, honestly, good riddance.
Toxin
Played by Stephen Graham, cop Patrick Mulligan pursued Cletus Kasady and Frances Barrison throughout Venom: Let There Be Carnage. But because Kasady bonded with a bit of Venom to become Carnage and because Barrison had mutant powers that allowed her to become Shriek, he seemed to die at the end of that movie. In The Last Dance though we discover that a symbiote bonded with Mulligan during his battle with Carnage and that has kept him alive. He becomes Toxin, a cool, greenish-blue floaty symbiote with the power to dump exposition and then, uh, die. For real this time because he’s eaten by a xenophage.
That’s a real bummer, because Toxin is easily one of the more interesting symbiotes from the comics. As in the movie, Toxin has genetic memories that give him a greater understanding of the symbiotes and their history. But that memory also makes him less feral and more dignified, the true hero that Venom longs to be.
Agony
We meet Mulligan/Toxin under the supervision of Dr. Teddy Payne, a scientist who studies symbiotes. In a Lizard-esque twist (but not a Rhys Ifans twist, as he’s just playing a hippie called Martin Moon here), Payne has a paralyzed arm and sees the symbiotes as potential for healing. Yet it’s a xenophage attack that prompts Teddy to run from her lab with a pink and blue symbiote sample in tow. The same attack further prompts her to bond with the sample and become Agony.
Despite the metal name, agony doesn’t really have anything to do with Agony. She can move really, really fast. That’s kinda cool, but not agonizing. Then again, if your Christian name is already Teddy Payne, then you’ve got nowhere to go but down.
Lasher
Payne becomes Agony to help save colleague Sadie Christmas (Clark Backo). After briefly becoming She-Venom, a role previously held by Anne Weying (Michelle Williams, because Kelly Reichardt films only pay so much), Sadie becomes a green and red (get it?) symbiote called Lasher.
While one might roll their eyes at the obvious Christmas color scheme, at least Lasher’s nom du symbiote makes sense. She has tendrils that look like giant whips, with which she lashes at enemies. Given that she’s almost immediately eaten by a xenophage, Sadie’s only other choice was “lunch,” so she picked the right one.
Hybrid
Speaking of names, none of the other symbiotes get to give themselves cool monikers. And given the way the designs break from the comics, I might be off in some of the symbiotes who show up for two seconds, there’s definitely room for argument.
However, when a symbiote merges with different people and becomes a two-headed monstrosity, that’s probably Hybrid. Introduced in 1995’s Venom: Along Came a Spider #1, Hybrid was actually a, well, hybrid of the other C-list symbiotes in Marvel at the time, namely Lasher, Riot (the big bad of the first Venom film), and Phage (we’ll get to him). This version of Hybrid just looks cool for a second and then dies.
Phage
Phage is the only well-known symbiote from the comics not to appear in the movies. Or maybe he did? People have been saying that Phage has popped up in some form even in the tests from the first Venom film, but it’s never been determined. I would guess that one of the chunkier symbiotes from Payne’s lab is supposed to be Phage, even if we don’t really see them making blade arms for more than a couple of seconds.
Scorn
In a couple of frames, we see a purple female symbiote battling the xenophages. She has a lot in common with Agony and, Sony being Sony, it’s not outside of the realm of possibility that it’s just CGI elements of Agony plastered into a different scene. But if we want to be generous, we could say that’s Scorn, a very frightening symbiote from Zeb Well’s 2011 Carnage miniseries.
Big Mother
Okay, this one is a reaaaal stretch, but some battle shots have a symbiote shooting fire. Not many symbiotes can do this because most of them fear fire (they also fear loud noises, but then more than one of them have Shriek’s powers, so…). The one notable symbiote who has fire powers comes from a retcon. Big Mother was introduced in Peter David and ChrisCross’s excellent Captain Marvel run from 2001, but not as a symbiote. She was Grendel’s Mother, as in the mommy of a monster who fought Beowulf in the classic English epic and the less-than-classic Robert Zemeckis abomination.
Big Mother and Grendel became symbiotes only after Knull’s introduction. Marvel retconned a lot of symbiote-esque things to be actual symbiotes to justify making the brand new baddy Knull the big bad of a company-wide crossover. Given the way Knull sort of works in The Last Dance, it would follow that Big Mother would appear among the beasts.
Everyone Else
I’m sure that other symbiotes do show up for a frame or two before become xenophage food. Honestly, watching those scenes of The Last Dance is like taking a really nerdy Rorschach test, because the CGI splotches could be anyone. So if you saw some other CGI splotch that was, I dunno, Mania or ZZZXX, sound off in the comments. But nicely. Like Venom would.
Venom: The Last Dance is now playing in theaters.
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