Characters / Venom: Rogues Gallery

Venom Main Character Index
Venom
The Venom Symbiote | Main hosts of Venom (Eddie Brock | Flash Thompson) | Other hosts of Venom | Alternate Incarnations of Venom | Supporting Characters | Rogues Gallery
Symbiotes in General
Symbiotes | Hosts to other Symbiotes
Other Symbiotes
Carnage (Character) (Cletus Kasady) | Toxin (Character) | Scream (Character)
Comics Characters Pages
Carnage Characters Page | Toxin Characters Page | Scream Characters Page

Bedlam

Bedlam

Alter Ego: Eddie Brock

First Appearance: Venom (Vol. 5) #1 (November, 2021)

A bloodthirsty and vicious King in Black whose avatar manifests as a colossal red symbiote.

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• '90s Anti-Hero: When he's not being evil or just screaming incoherently, he tends to talk like a cliched 90s character. Fitting, given he's been reset to how Eddie as he was before his Character Development.
• Acquired Poison Immunity: Exaggerated in Venom (Vol. 5) #17. Bedlam is infected with the Transmode Virus by a Techno-Demon and almost succumbs, but instinctively draws on the King in Black's power to purge himself of it and become immune.
• Alternate Self:
  • The events of Venom #17 result in time breaking, creating two different versions of Bedlam. One goes on to attack Dylan and continue the time-loop, while the other is defeated by Darkoth, ejecting Eddie's codex into the depths of the Symbiote Hive-Mind and leading to Darkoth being taken over by the symbiote.
  • In Venom #29, it's revealed that the resurrected Eddie confronting Bedlam in Baywater created another split in the timeline—one where everything proceeded as Meridius planned, with Bedlam cooling his heels in the Renegades' bar until he turned into Wilde, and another where Eddie defeats Bedlam in a Battle in the Centre of the Mind and convinces his violent counterpart to team up with him.
  • Venom #30 creates yet another offshoot of Bedlam when the timeloop is broken. Eddie's Bedlam and this new Bedlam attempt to kill each other to determine who the real Bedlam is, leading to a Battle in the Centre of the Mind that lasts until they're convinced to pull an Enemy Mine against Carnage. The new Bedlam is killed by Carnage using All-Blood, but Eddie's Bedlam survives and rebonds to him.
• Ax-Crazy: Bedlam is noted to be extremely volatile by the other Kings in Black, trying to kill Finnegan purportedly just for finding him annoying, and trying to eat Eddie's avatar and Finnegan in Issue #5. When fighting Venom, he notes it would be all too easy to kill Dylan and the Venom symbiote, but that his mission to make Venom stronger through suffering takes precedence. Even after teaming up with Eddie, Bedlam openly misses the good old days when he was a cannibalistic supervillain and happily chows down on any enemies he can get his fangs on.
• Black Bead Eyes: In contrast to the white eyespots sported by most symbiotes, Bedlam's eyes are small, round, and solid black.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: In the Dark Web tie-in, Meridius mocks Bedlam for not using a bladed weapon to counter Codex (Dylan Brock)'s Necrosword katana. Bedlam manifests a chainsaw arm-blade, which he uses in the finale to rip and tear Limbo's demons to shreds.
• Blood Knight: Bedlam loves nothing more than venting his nigh-bottomless font of rage by tearing opponents apart, and relishes fighting against strong opponents. In Venom (Vol. 5) #17, he immediately starts looking around for his next opponent after killing Darkoth.
• The Brute: Issue #10 reveals that Bedlam isn't particularly loyal to Meridius, attempting to kill him for his part in turning him into a rage-fuelled monster before being manipulated into believing his time would be better spent maiming Dylan and Venom. As the embodiment of Eddie's rage and hatred, with all but his earliest memories having been erased, he's also the least intelligent and analytical of the Brock offshoots.
• Extreme Omnivore: Bedlam eats a Doombot that accosts Eddie when he attempts to enter Latveria.
• Evil Is Bigger: Bedlam is colossal, towering over the other Kings in Black, and is a vicious and bloodthirsty warrior.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Eddie's internal monologue says his voice sounds low and gravely and full of hatred.
• Eye Scream: Loses an eye to Dylan wielding the Necrosword, though he eventually regenerates it.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Wilde and Tyro excuse Bedlam attempting to kill Finnegan by telling Eddie that Bedlam has a volcanic temper and Finnegan's neurotic and delusional rants set him off. This is sort of true, but leaves out an important detail, that Bedlam is being set off by seeing his past selves.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: After his fight with Dylan Brock in Baywater, he ends up squatting the burnt-out ruins of the Renegades' bar waiting for Meridius to call on him again, and in #29 it's revealed that he's meant to sulk there until his rage cools and he turns into Wilde. During his fight with the resurrected Eddie born from the timeline schism in Limbo, Bedlam declares himself to be the true Eddie Brock due to his opponent having grown beyond being a rage-fuelled revenge-obsessed villain—which Bedlam views as a weakness—but Eddie retorts that Bedlam is nothing but an incomplete amnesic shadow of his former self unfit to even call himself Venom.
• Hulk Speak: While he can speak coherently, once he gets going he tends to be reduced to screaming "HATE YOU!" and "KILL YOU!"
• Identical Twin ID Tag: In Venom (Vol. 5) #30, Eddie's Bedlam retains the spider chest and back insignia to differentiate himself from the insignia-less Bedlam created by the time-loop being broken.
• Identity Breakdown: Thanks to Laser-Guided Amnesia, he believes he's Eddie as he was in his earliest days, but freaks out upon realizing he can't sense the Venom symbiote.
• I Hate Past Me:
  • Issue #9 reveals that he's an Eddie Brock, with Issue #10 revealing that he's Eddie's future self relapsed into his bloodthirsty rage-fuelled state, consumed by hatred for his "weak" past selves and his cruel and manipulative future self Meridius.
  • In Issue #30, Eddie's Bedlam gets into a fight with his new Alternate Self created from the time-loop being broken over which of them is the real Bedlam. When they prove equally matched physically, they engage in a Battle in the Centre of the Mind by merging their faces together.
• Mental Time Travel: At Meridius' behest, Bedlam's codex jumps back in time to pick a fight with Venom and Dylan Brock.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: When bonded to Eddie Brock or merged with his alternate self, Bedlam has four arms that greatly increase his offensive capabilities.
• Rage Breaking Point: Despite Eddie's best efforts to keep his Hair-Trigger Temper under control, Chasm (Ben Reilly) literally ripping out Eddie's previous 30 years of Character Development and then discovering he no longer has the Venom symbiote causes him to snap and transform into the blood-red berserker during the Dark Web tie-in issues.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: When fighting Venom in Issue #7, Bedlam mocks his opponent for needing a host to unleash its power.
• Red Is Violent: He's solid red, and the most violent of the Kings in Black — being Eddie Brock's nigh bottomless wellspring of rage made flesh.
• Resurrective Immortality: Even if his avatar is fatally wounded — no small feat given he lacks a host to make him vulnerable — he can simply reform it or remote pilot another symbiote.
• Sapient Eat Sapient: He devours a Techno-Demon — a demon transformed into a Technarch by the Transmode Virus — in Venom #17, flipping the script since the demon was planning on consuming his life force after infecting him. After attacking Dylan, he spends his time in Baywater snacking on civilians and members of the Hell Hounds who piss him off.
• Spikes of Villainy: Bedlam has spikes running down his back and arms, and is a bloodthirsty and violent King in Black.
• To Serve Man: Venom (Vol. 5) #20 reveals that Bedlam set up shop in Baywater after wounding Dylan and took over the Hell Hounds, eating anyone who stood up to him and/or piqued his appetite. He also tries to eat Doctor Doom, and happily eats two of Kang's chrono-clones.
• Unwitting Pawn: After getting his memories ripped out, Madeline and Chasm throw him at the X-Men as a distraction while they do their own thing.

Bob

Bob

First Appearance: Venom Vol. 1 #10

The CEO of the Ararat Corporation, Bob was actually a colony of robotic alien spiders that had been stranded on Earth after a failed attempt to wipe out humanity with a massive flood. Attaining enormous influence within the governments and militaries of the world, Bob created a clone of the Venom symbiote and ultimately succeeded in having the original absorb it despite interference from the Suit — a benevolent colony of the same species of robotic spiders sent to stop him, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and S.H.I.E.L.D. However, for unknown reasons Bob's plans failed to come to fruition, and neither he or the Ararat Corporation were seen again.

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• Bad Boss: He fed a Prison Rape-victim and a mentally-ill elderly man to the Venom symbiote's clone just to see which it would kill first, treats his copies of Vic and Frankie as expendable pawns, and later unleashed said clone symbiote on a lab full of employees — having deliberately supplied them with redacted misinformation regarding it.
• Been There, Shaped History: Bob has been around since Biblical times, and has his fingers in a number of pies — with the implication being that he helped bake them in the first place. The otherwise stoic Nick Fury is shocked when Bob reveals he has seniority within S.H.I.E.L.D. and threatens to have the super-spy locked up in his own prison if he continues to interfere with the Ararat Corporation's plot to take over the world.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Bob is the CEO of the Ararat Corporation, which created a clone of the Venom symbiote intended to wipe out humanity.
• Fat Bastard: Bob's human avatars are a pair of obese bald men with moustaches, and he is an unrepentant asshole.
• Jerkass: Bob treats Vic and Frankie as expendable pawns, and is arrogant and sadistic.
• Diplomatic Impunity: Bob possesses seemingly global diplomatic immunity; being able to drop a nuke in the Northwest Territories — destroying a town and killing its inhabitants — without fear of reprisal from the Canadian government, and cowed Nick Fury into submission by threatening to have him thrown in the Vault if he continued to interfere in the Ararat Corporation's plan to wipe out humanity.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Bob's goal was to wipe out all life on Earth, having been manipulated by an evil entity into trying to do so with the Biblical Great Flood and not gotten the memo that he'd been tricked.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Bob alternates between arrogant smugness and gleeful excitement at the drop of a hat, particularly when observing the symbiote clone's sadism.
• Robotic Reveal: Unlike the Suit, who is missing eyes, Bob appears to be fully human. However, his bodies are actually constructs created by spider-like alien robots — as revealed when he abruptly disgorges several spider-robots to alter his appearance.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Despite the attempts by the Suit, S.H.I.E.L.D., and the Fantastic Four to stop him, Bob succeeded in accomplishing his goal of having the Venom symbiote assimilate its clone. Why his plan never came into fruition, however, was never explained and he hasn't been seen since.

Carnage

Carnage

Alter Ego: Cletus Kasady

Notable Aliases: The Red Slayer, Friendly Neighborhood Carnage, Poison Carnage, Prophet of the Void

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #344 (March 1991)

"I'm chaos, Mistuh Kurtz, chaos—and the rest of the world won't admit that its just like me. And because of that the world is worthless, its dirt on my heel—its a planet full of mannequins filled with blood and they may as well be torn up and burst and stamped on because what else are they good for—apart from making noise and being nice and making more stupid little mannequins that sit still for lies and TV and kissy-kissy garbage."

A psychopathic serial killer imprisoned for eleven consecutive life sentences, Cletus Kasady met Eddie Brock when the latter, separated from the Venom symbiote by the toxic touch of the supervillain Styx, became his cellmate. Learning of Brock's grudge against Spider-Man, Kasady tried to convert him to his nihilistic philosophy, mocking Eddie over his claims to have once been the supervillain Venom. Repeatedly rebuked, Kasady decided to murder his cellmate, but before he could the Venom symbiote entered the cell and rebonded to Eddie. Venom broke free, leaving the terrified and jealous Kasady behind. Sensing his desire for the power Eddie possessed, a scrap of the symbiote left behind dripped onto Cletus' hand and bonded with him, transforming him into the monstrous Carnage. As Carnage, Kasady proved stronger than Spider-Man and Venom combined, and his symbiote was not only less susceptible to sonics than its progenitor but infinitely more difficult to remove, having bonded to his bloodstream.

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For more information on him, please refer to his page, and the adjoining symbiote page.

Codex

Codex

Alter Ego: Dylan Brock

First Appearance: Venom Vol. 4, #25

Conceived by She-Venom, the Dylan Brock of Earth-1051 was born as a human-symbiote hybrid. Dylan was originally a kind and gentle child, but everything changed for the worst when he abruptly fell under the sway of the dark god Knull. Tearing off a piece of his mother's symbiote, Dylan used his powers to grow it into his own symbiote and adopted the alias Codex, conquering the world and killing or enslaving almost everyone who stood against him.

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• Alternate Identity Amnesia: At the end of "Venom: Beyond", Earth-616 Dylan breaks Knull's hold on Codex and he reverts back to his original self, all memories of his time as Knull's acolyte seemingly erased.
• Alternate Self: Codex is an alternate-universe version of Dylan who effectively shows what would come to pass if Dylan honored his pledge to Knull from Web of Venom: The Good Son. A possible alternate version of Codex controlled by the Carnage symbiote appears in the final issue of Carnage: Black, White & Blood.^note Ryan Stegman, the writer, was asked if the story was canon to Earth-616 due to discrepancies between it and the ending of Venom (Donny Cates) and responded that he wasn't sure but hadn't intended it to be set in Earth-616.
• Antagonistic Offspring: The leader of the freedom-fighters opposing Codex's reign are Codex's own parents — Anne Weying and the Venom symbiote as Agent Venom.
• Arm Cannon: At some point, Dylan learned the arm-cannon trick from Venom: The End, and is shown using it to fight the Symbiote X-Men in Venom #29.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: He was brainwashed by Knull at a young age and effectively became the dark god's avatar. Once Earth-616 Dylan breaks Knull's hold on him, he reverts back to his original persona before falling into a coma.
• Chained by Fashion: Codex has a pair of looped chains accessorizing his belt.
• Chest Insignia: Codex's emblem is a red dragon similar to Knull's, but with a straight tail and lacking the separate "legs". In his younger years, his symbiote is shown sporting a red spider on its chest and back.
• Depending on the Artist: Ryan Stegman clarified that Codex's mask covers his entire face, but some artists — like Juan Gedeon — have drawn it as a half-mask that only covers the lower part of his face.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Like his Earth-616 counterpart, Codex is half human and half symbiote. Unlike Earth-616 Dylan, Codex has fully embraced his monstrous side and turned to evil.
• Hive Queen: Established as the new center of a symbiote hive on Earth.
• Evil Overlord: Codex rules over the Earth of the universe that Venom, Dylan, and Virus are warped to in Venom #26 with an iron fist, having supplanted most of humanity with symbiotes like the Venom-Avengers.
• A God Am I: Much like Dark Carnage, he boasts to Venom that he is a god chosen by Knull to free him from his prison.
• Maniac Tongue: A variant cover of Venom #27 shows that Virus has a long, pointed tongue that lolls out of his mouth.
• Monstrous Humanoid: Codex has grey skin, platinum-blond hair, pointed ears, fangs, claws, and glowing red eyes.
• Powered Armor: Codex is clad in a suit of black-and-red powered armor modeled after Knull's.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Codex has glowing red eyes and grey skin, wears black-and-red armor, and is the dictator of a version of Earth conquered by symbiotes.
• Slouch of Villainy: Codex is introduced lounging on his throne when the Venom-Avengers drag Virus in for sentencing.
• The Symbiote: Unlike his Earth-616 counterpart, this Dylan is capable of bonding to symbiotes; and stole a piece of the Venom symbiote that he used to create an army.
• Transformation of the Possessed: After being brainwashed by Knull, Dylan's hair turns platinum-blond, his skin turns grey, his eyes turn white or red, his ears become pointed, and his teeth turn into fangs — giving him a striking resemblance to Knull himself. After Knull's hold on him is broken, he reverts back to his original appearance.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: According to his mom, for the first nine-to-twelve years of his life, Dylan was a sweet kid... but then Knull corrupted him into a monster.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Codex's hair variously colored as white, platinum blond, and grey; and he is the ruthless dictator of the Hive.

Crime Master III

Crime Master III

Alter Ego: Bennett Brant

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #11; Venom Vol. 2, #1 (as the Crime Master)

"An ode to Bennett Brand and his little sis, Betty Brant. To the family. A family that was stripped away from me. But don't feel too badly—crime is my family now."

Introduced as a shadowy crime lord and Jack O'Lantern's boss, the Crime Master seeks to usurp control of the criminal underworld from the Kingpin, only to be opposed by Agent Venom. Blackmailing Flash into helping him acquire the Toxin symbiote, the Crime Master set up a team of super villains called the Savage Six and kidnapped Betty Brant. He revealed himself as Bennett Brant, her older brother who had been assumed dead for years.

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• Abduction Is Love: He kidnapped the boy who became Jack O'Lantern and raised him as an assassin.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: He wore a pinstriped suit underneath his trench coat.
• Big Bad: He was the main antagonist of Rick Remender's half of Venom Vol. 2, before being killed by his own sister.
• Brother–Sister Incest/Villainous Incest: His feelings for Betty weren't very brotherly, that's for sure.
• Coat, Hat, Mask: His outfit included a fedora, a black mask with white eyes and stripes, and a dark brown trench coat.
• Cool Mask: A black mask with white eyes, a V-shaped strip over his nose, and two diagonal stripes parallel to the V going over his cheeks.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: Prior to his return as the new Crime Master, Bennett's last appearance was in a 1964 story that ended with his apparent death.
• Faking the Dead: For years Bennett was assumed to have been killed by loan-shark Blackie Gaxton.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: He went from a successful lawyer with gambling problems to a criminal mastermind. Also counts as Face–Heel Turn and Took a Level in Jerkass.
• Grave-Marking Scene: Betty visits his presumably empty grave in 1990's Web of Spider-Man #63
• In the Back: He was shot from behind by his own sister.
• Legacy Character: He succeeded the Lewis family as the Crime Master, and was succeeded himself by an unknown individual who purchased the moniker from Hobgoblin. Additionally, Remender's run retconned things by revealing that the Crime Master identity was not created by Nick Lewis, but instead has existed for centuries, and has been used by people all over the globe.
• The Master: Of crime.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: He was opposed to Flash dating Betty out of a twisted form of brotherly affection.
• Villain Team-Up: He created his own rip-off of the Sinister Six - the Savage Six - by recruiting Richard Deacon (the Human Fly), Roland Burroughs (Death Adder), Gregory Nettles (Megatak), and turning Eddie Brock into Toxin.

Demon-Venom

Demon-Venom

First Appearance: Venom Vol. 2, #23

An unnamed demon that possessed Flash Thompson while he was investigating the Department of Occult Armaments and was exposed to one of their Possession Engines by Damon Hellstrom, who intended to turn the symbiote into one of his Monsters of Evil. This attempt backfired when the Hell Mark activated and suppressed the demon; preventing it from being exorcised despite begging to be removed due to Mephisto decreeing that possessing one who was marked was forbidden. It struck up a rapport with the symbiote, taking over Flash during his battle with the U-Foes and later on while he slept, terrorizing his friends and enemies alike until Flash moved to Philadelphia. The symbiote, realizing the demon was slowly taking over Flash, expelled the Hell Mark into its long-devoured clone and regurgitated it, freeing Flash from any infernal obligations but at the same time marking Andi Benton, who bonded with the possessed clone to become Mania.

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• Alternate Self: Flash has a dream of what would come to pass if the demon took him over and/or he was chosen for the Descent, with Demon-Venom perched on a headless statue overlooking a Planet Heck version of Philly.
• Call-Back: The demon took Flash's body out for joyrides while he was asleep, just like the symbiote used to do to Peter.
• Chest Insignia: One sign that the demon was possessing Venom was the white spider emblem on Venom's chest morphing into the Hell Mark pentagram.
• Demon Lords and Archdevils:
  • It seems to be a fairly high-ranking demon, though nowhere near as powerful as Mephisto.
  • In a nightmare/vision Flash has of a possible future wherein the demon takes him over and/or he becomes Mephisto's replacement, Demon-Venom is seen ruling over Philadelphia, which has been turned into a literal hellscape populated by demons.
• Demonic Possession: After being suppressed by the Hell Mark, the demon starts corroding Flash's sanity and taking him over while he sleeps.
• Enemy Within: It proves to be one to both Flash and the symbiote, who doesn't take kindly to the competition and kicks it out.
• Expy: A What If? story from 2008 featured a version of Venom◊ who was given demonic powers by Mephisto.
• Horned Humanoid: When taking over Flash, it manifested a pair of long, backwards-curved horns.
• Horror Hunger: After being summoned and possessing Flash, the demon was hungry.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: The demon wants nothing more than to be removed from Flash, but can't due to the Hell Mark.
• Mind Rape: The demon has the ability to look into enemies' minds and remotely control several individuals at the same time. He only demonstrated it during his battle with the U-Foes and hasn't used it again since.
• Oh, Crap!: When the demon realized Venom bore the Hell Mark, it panicked and begged to be exorcized.
• Our Demons Are Different: This one's actual appearance is unknown, as it only manifests through the symbiote's shapeshifting.
• Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: The demon was stuffed into Venom by Daimon Hellstrom, partly to turn the symbiote into one of his Monsters of Evil, partly to make Venom a more legitimate candidate for the Descent, and partly just to see what would happen. The first part backfired due to Flash possessing the Hell Mark.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: The Demon Lord Venom seemingly had a red spider-emblem, although it could have just been the sky.
• Restraining Bolt: The Hell Mark prevents the demon from taking over Flash while he's conscious, but also prevents it from being exorcized.
• Spanner in the Works: Unwittingly fouled up both the symbiote's attempt to get demonic powers and Mephisto's nomination of Venom as a potential successor for the Descent. Both have been passed on to its clone, Mania.
• Split-Personality Takeover: The symbiote reveals the demon was working towards this, and Flash's visions, backed up by his confrontation with Hellstrom, imply this would have happened if he'd been picked for the Descent.
• To Serve Man: The first thing the demon did was eat one of the Department of Occult Armaments' acolytes, but its feast was interrupted when the Hell Mark activated and suppressed it.
• Transformation of the Possessed: When the demon takes over, Venom sprouts a pair of horns and occasionally wings in addition to the symbiote's trademark set of fanged jaws.
• Villain Team-Up: Following his black-out fighting the U-Foes, Flash wonders whether the symbiote and demon are teaming up to circumvent their respective handicaps and take him over.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Whether or not the demon was passed onto Mania alongside the Hell Mark and what the consequences of that would be were going to be dealt with in the "Descent" arc of Venom Vol. 3, which was cancelled before it even began.
• Winged Humanoid: When it first possessed Flash, it manifested a pair of small wings from the symbiote's biomass.

The Evangelist

The Evangelist

First Appearance: Venom Vol. 2, #13

"We've done this dance before. I know all your weak spots, son. And there's a truckload. Can't beat me if you beat yourself. I know what you are."

A demon created by H'elian's Mirror Cauldron to embody Flash's fears and flaws, the Evangelist took the form of a tall, skinny preacher in a black suit, carrying a demonic Bible full of razor-sharp pages.

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• Badass Long Coat: Wears one as part of his preacher getup.
• Break Them by Talking: Gives Flash a stern, mocking lecture, leaving him in a Heroic BSoD.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: He easily takes out Venom with a few words during their first match, and later gave Red Hulk a Torso with a View with a sheet of paper, killing him.
• Evil Counterpart: He's the manifestation of Flash's fears and insecurities.
• More than Mind Control: Seized control of the symbiote and used it to taunt Flash during his Breaking Speech.
• Our Demons Are Different: He's the manifestation of Flash Thompson's inner demons and takes the form of a stereotypical 19th-century Bible-thumping preacher.
• Quirky Mini Boss Squad: The Evangelist was conjured alongside Ichor, Encephalon, and X-666 to oppose Agent Venom, Ghost Rider, Red Hulk, and X-23.
• Paper Master: His demonic Bible can shoot razor-sharp pages like a Gatling gun fires bullets.
• Sinister Minister: His entire shtick is "creepy, evil priest".
• Translator Buddy: He's able to understand Encephalon, and serves as its interpreter.
• Underestimating Badassery: Flash doesn't have a good first impression of his opponent, declaring, "I ain't big on church, pops. And you look so... weak".
• We Hardly Knew Ye: After he kills Red Hulk, Agent Venom strangles the Evangelist to death.
• White Hair, Black Heart: He has snow-white hair and is a demonic preacher.

The Grendel

The Grendel

First Appearance: Venom Vol 4 #1

A powerful symbiote dragon created by Knull, the Grendel and its ilk swept across the cosmos devouring gods and annihilating civilizations. Indwelled by Knull, the Grendel symbiote attacked Earth alongside a red symbiote dragon (later known as Grendel's Mother or Big Mother) and was defeated by Thor, severing the dark god's connection to his creations.

Imprisoned in a glacier, the Grendel symbiote was discovered by S.H.I.E.L.D. in the 1960s and used to create a team of symbiote-augmented supersoldiers. When this backfired, the Grendel symbiote and its offshoots were locked away, with some samples being appropriated by the Weapon V program. Decades later, Knull awakened and indwelled the Grendel symbiote again, sending it on a rampage. It was defeated by Venom, who - with the help of Tyrannosaurus, one of its offshoots — trapped it in a blast furnace and tried to immolate it. A surviving piece was stolen by a cult worshipping Knull, which bonded it to the corpse of Cletus Kasady, reanimating him as Dark Carnage. Seeking to restore the Grendel symbiote's deific power, Dark Carnage began hunting everyone who had ever bonded to a symbiote before going on a rampage across Manhattan.

While Cletus Kasady was killed by Venom, he was successful in freeing Knull when Venom absorbed the Grendel symbiote into his own. This backfired, as while bonded to Cletus the Grendel symbiote had been imprinted with the persona of the original Carnage symbiote, which attempted to take over Eddie.

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See Marvel Comics: Symbiotes

Haze Mancer

Haze Mancer

First Appearance: X-Men: Blue Annual Vol. 1, #1

Possessing an inexplicable Western flair, the extraterrestrial poacher cum arms-dealer Haze Mancer specializes in symbiotes, who he routinely abducts and sells, using aggression-enhancing chemical baths to turn the hapless creatures into tools of war all in the name of profit.

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• Ambiguous Situation: It isn't shown what happened to him after the Poisons busted him out of jail.
• Arms Dealer: He's an arms-dealer who specializes in capturing symbiotes from Klyntar and weaponizing them.
• Badass Longcoat: Haze Mancer, a master arms-dealer who deals in symbiotes, sports a duster coat to go along with his wide-brimmed hat, giving him a Western look.
• The Corrupter: He marinates the symbiotes he captures in chemicals designed to corrupt them and speed up the bonding process.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Haze Mancer claims to have once captured and weaponized the Venom symbiote, but it doesn't remember this encounter.

Jack O'Lantern V & VI

Jack O'Lantern V

Alter Ego: "Jack"

First Appearance: Venom Vol. 2, #1

"Still, I wondered how long it would take, right? To earn a true arch-enemy you gotta hold a awfully personal grudge. And, guess what? I've got one. With you."

The fifth person to assume the mantle of the Jack O'Lantern after supposedly killing the other surviving ones, this Jack served as The Dragon to the Crime Master and has established himself as Agent Venom's arch-enemy.

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• Abduction Is Love: Was abducted by the Crime Master as a child on Halloween and became his loyal accomplice.
• Adorable Evil Minions: Has a number of creepy-but-cute puppet and doll-like Mecha-Mooks who "wuv" to commit atrocities.
• Anti-Hero Team: He's a member of the Astonishing Avengers in AXIS, and a group condemned to hunt down the Red Skull in Secret Wars. He and everyone else besides Magneto are immediately killed after being dumped in the Deadlands.
  Mr. Sinister: Hmmm, just like the pumpkin pie my granny used to make!
• Arch-Enemy: Agent Venom's self-proclaimed one, and Mania's as well.
• Ax-Crazy: It's unknown whether he's doped up on Goblin formula, but he's certainly just as crazy as any of the Goblins.
• Boom, Headshot!: How he ultimately dies, being shot in the head by Deadpool.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Even after being arrested he continues to plague Venom by remotely hypnotizing a security guard into taking on his identity.
• Calling Card: Jack has a habit of removing his victims' brains and leaving a lit candle in their hollowed out heads.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Jack is on the receiving end of one when he picks a fight with the original Venom, Eddie Brock, at the beginning of Venomverse.
• Demon of Human Origin: In Spirits of Ghost Rider: Mother of Demons he's revealed to have been sent to Hell after his death and turned into a demon.
• The Dragon: Served as this to the Crime Master before his death.
• Enemy Mine:
  • When forced to team up with Agent Venom, Jack happily spent the duration of the trip repeatedly sledgehammering Flash's Berserk Buttons.
    Jack: I'd never poke fun about your drunk, dead, pig-cop dad. That would be very un-bro-like of me.
  • Magneto somehow convinced him to help in the fight against Red Onslaught.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He viewed the Crime Master as his father.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Jack is just as bad as any of the Goblins, if not worse.
• Facial Horror: He's missing his nose and most of his teeth, and his head is covered in severe burn scars. Eating a live grenade, courtesy of Agent Venom, will do that to you. He's revealed to have undergone reconstructive surgery following his fight with Venom in the same issue he's killed in.
• Faux Affably Evil: He's generally cheerful and even downright friendly towards Flash at times, but that just serves to underline how much of a sadistic psychopath he is.
• Flying Broomstick: Has taken up the Green Goblin's old broomstick glider, even using it to Goomba Stomp Venom in their first fight.
• Grave Robbing: In revenge for Agent Venom killing the Crime Master, Jack waits until Father's Day, exhumes Flash's father's corpse, replaces his brain with a candle, and hides him in the sewers. He then lures Flash there and mocks him over a PA system before blowing up the room.
• Heel–Face Turn: He's caught up in Doctor Doom's and the Scarlet Witch's Inversion Spell, which leads to him being deputized as an "Astounding Avenger" by Steve Rogers.
  Fan Edit!Steve: Jack O'Lantern◊: Most likely to be killed during this mission.
  Fan Edit!Jack O'Lantern: Wait, what'd you just say?
• Human Jack-O-Lantern: Known to leave his victims like this, very on brand for a Jack-O-Lantern villain.
• Hypno Fool: Jack's robots remotely hypnotize a security guard into taking up his identity and persona. After being subdued by Venom and Mania, the guard lapses into a coma.
• It's Personal: After the Crime Master is killed, Jack's rivalry with Venom became even more intense.
• Jagged Mouth: The mouth of his brainwashed replacement's helmet was intended to invoke the classic serrated-mouth jack o'lantern look.
• Kill and Replace: Claims he did this to the others who had born the moniker "Jack O'Lantern".
• Legacy Character: Is the fifth Jack O'Lantern, and boasts that he killed his surviving predecessors. After his death, an unnamed criminal takes up the identity and gets an eye gouged out for his trouble.
• Let's Duet: Joins in on Flash singing Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird while attacking him at the same time.
  Agent Venom: I'm free as a bird now.
  Jack O'Lantern: And this bird you'll never change. [attacks him] And this bird you can not change.
• Living Prop: He's inverted at the beginning of AXIS, but spends the rest of the event quietly filling out crowd scenes, presumably in-between performing acts of heroism so selfless they would leave Flash's mouth agape were he not busy being in outer space.
• Make Way for the New Villains: He boasts about murdering all of his surviving predecessors, which would be Daniel Berkhart, Maguire Beck, Steven Levins's brother, and the resurrected or imposter Jason Macendale from Secret War. Steven Levins, the second Jack O'Lantern, had previously been killed by the Punisher, then Ghost Rider.
• Murder, Inc.: He's a member of the League of Assassins in Elektra and M.O.D.O.K. Assassin.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: His real name is unknown and everyone calls him by his supervillain moniker.
• Playing with Fire: He has flamethrowers installed into his suit, his helmet is wreathed in flames, and he's not adverse to using the exhaust from his broomstick glider as a makeshift flamethrower.
• Practically Joker: A criminal with a sadistic sense of humor who gets a kick out of trolling his archenemy, who has a disfigured face, and who survived a fall into a vat of toxic chemicals.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: In Edge of Venomverse #1 he picks a fight with Eddie Brock, who beats the stuffing with him and leaves him with severe injuries. Also now he opposes Ghost Rider in Hell.
• Secondary Color Nemesis: Fittingly his pumpkin head is orange while his outfit is green.
• Serial Killer: Jack was trained as an assassin by the Crime Master, and turned to this in his spare time.
• Sinister Scythe: His weapon of choice is a razor-sharp sickle. His brainwashed temporary replacement also used a miniature scythe.
• The Sociopath: Even as a child he mutilated animals.
• Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: Refers to himself as a bogeyman in conduction with his Halloween-themed getup.
• Troll: Jack happily antagonizes Flash for the sake of making him angry. This backfires when Venom tries to eat him, and it's only Jack reminding Flash that the Crime-Master will kill his friends and family that gets the symbiote back under control.
• Weaponized Exhaust: Uses his glider as a makeshift flamethrower when fighting Venom.
• Whole Costume Reference: His outfit is based off the Headless Horseman, to a greater degree than any Jack O'Lantern prior.
• Wreathed in Flames: His pumpkin-shaped helmet is wreathed in flames, but that doesn't seem to bother him.

Jack O'Lantern VI

Alter Ego: Owen Ward

First Appearance: Venom Vol. 4 #1

An unnamed criminal who runs afoul of Venom after a botched arms deal.

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• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Owen Ward is a coward at heart, and when cornered by Venom after shooting a cop he begs for mercy. Unfortunately, Venom was in Knull's thrall at the time and gouged his eye out while snarling that "God is coming!" After getting the Dreamstone beaten out of him during the War of the Realms, he begs Venom for mercy. Fortunately for him, Venom decides he's Not Worth Killing.
• Eye Scream: Venom gouged one of his eyes out in their first encounter, leaving him terrified of being eaten. He acquires an eye-patch, and while in-costume one of his eyes is snuffed out.
• Heel–Face Turn: While he initially picks a fight with the Gold Goblin, Norman Osborn convinces Owen to give up on being a supervillain and rebrand himself as the heroic Flaming Pumpkin. This doesn't last, as Owen is murdered by the Queen Goblin.
• Hidden Depths: He displays a totally unexpected amount of medical knowledge (correctly identifying his wound as a linear greenstick fracture just from a glance at the X-ray and MRI results) while hospitalized in Gold Goblin #2.
• Legacy Character: He's an unnamed thief who found a stash of his predecessor's gear and thought it would be a good idea to take up the identity. After being beaten twice by Venom, promises he'll give up the identity... though Gold Goblin reveals that he lied.
• Magic Enhancement: During the War of the Realms he's given a Dreamstone by one of Malekith's War Witches, using it to turn his flying broomstick into a demonic Bat Glider, arm himself with a flaming scythe, and otherwise augment himself with a variety of firey superpowers.
• Redemption Equals Death: Norman Osborn managed to get Owen to agree to stay on the straight and narrow, and even arranged for him to start seeing a therapist named Doctor Bromme. Unfortunately, Bromme turned out to be a disguised Queen Goblin, and she manipulated Owen into blowing himself up with a black Pumpkin Bomb during a staged confrontation with Norman.
• Sinister Scythe: While augmented by a dark elf Dreamstone, he manifests a flaming scythe to take advantage of Venom's weakness to fire.
• Sucksessor: He is a self-described nobody who just happened to stumble across a stash of the Crime-Master's Jack O'Lantern's gear, and is so pathetic that he's only a threat to Venom when augmented by a Dreamstone.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: He only agreed to help the dark elf witch in order to get a shot at revenge on Venom, and openly mocks her.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: While Owen is actually fairly timid and not particularly good in a fight, getting a Dreamstone causes him to act just as Ax-Crazy as his precursor did.

Jorge Valdez

Jorge Valdez

First Appearance: Amazing Spider-Man Presents: Anti-Venom - New Ways To Live #1

The leader of the Baja-Moreno Quintas, a Mexican drug cartel based out of Rio Camundo. His gang's New York branch was attacked by Anti-Venom and the Punisher, leading to Valdez taking Anti-Venom's companion Jenna Cole hostage and taunting Eddie over her relapse into drug use. He was killed when Anti-Venom smashed a jeep onto him, then ran over his head.

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• Ax-Crazy: Jorge Valdez was a raving Blood Knight who challenged the Punisher and Anti-Venom to come down and try to pick a fight with him.
• Bullying a Dragon: Jorge declared his intent to rape Jenna to Anti-Venom's face, openly mocked the Punisher, and when the Punisher dumped Eddie off at one of the cartel's bases, Jorge made sure to inform Eddie that Jenna had relapsed into drug use and was "his girl" now.
• The Cartel: Valdez is the leader of the Quintas, a cocaine and heroin-smuggling cartel based out of Rio Camundo.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Anti-Venom crushes Jorge with the same jeep he tried to run him over with, puts his boot on his mouth, and runs over his head.
• Dirty Old Man: He kept a bunch of teenage-to-twentysomething girls as his personal harem, and added Jenna Cole to it just to spite Eddie Brock.
• Nerves of Steel: He had the guts to taunt Anti-Venom and the Punisher to their faces, and when Eddie was in full Lethal Protector mode, Valdez didn't flinch and kept trying to kill him.
• Oh, Crap!: When a ricocheting shield takes out a number of men in the Quitas's Staten Island base, Jorge looks terrified at the thought of Captain America coming after him.

Killer Thrill

Killer Thrill

First Appearance: Drax Vol. 1 #6

"Take this guy, er... girl. Whatever. Take this thing, for example, Dragon-Poo. Can I call you Dragon-Poo? Hm. Would I have to capitalize that if I were writing? Anyway, this goof right here is weak. No matter how tough or scary it looks, it's all mush and peas on the inside. It's our job to show things like this that they ain't so big and scary when the inside peas are on the outside. Are you taking notes? Everything is weak. Everything bleeds, and we make 'em bleed!"

An alien of indeterminate origin, Killer Thrill's father had her constantly fight and imperil herself to hone her psychic powers, which she put to good use as a bounty hunter after she murdered her parents while they were hugging her. Becoming a notoriously Ax-Crazy bounty hunter, she was hired by the Collector to obtain a particular symbiote for his collection and traced it to Earth, where it had bonded to the vigilante Deadpool. Losing her left arm in the altercation, she obtained a prosthetic fashioned from the limb of a Flora colossus — which she later lost to Drax the Destroyer. Obtaining a symbiote of her own, she clashed with the young X-Men and the symbiote who had eaten her arm — now called Venom — before being consumed by a Poison.

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• Alien Blood: She has bright blue blood, as revealed when Venompool cut her arm off.
• Anime Hair: A pretty crazy hairstyle that's also pink.
• An Arm and a Leg: Picking a fight with Venompool resulted in her left arm becoming a symbiote snack. She replaced it with the limb of a Flora Colossus (Groot's species), but it was destroyed by Drax. Bonding to a symbiote allows her to replicate it using its biomass.
• Ax-Crazy: As her codename suggests, she is a thrill-seeking, maniacal sadist who delights in violence.
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: She was already bad, but being captured by the Hujah made her infinitely worse.
• Blood Knight: She greatly enjoys combat, at least when she's winning, and with reason: her powers are activated by adrenaline.
• Boldly Coming: She casually remarks to the Young X-Men that she uses her symbiote as a sex-toy, and hits on Deadpool and Iceman.
• Bounty Hunter: When she's not acting as a Space Pirate, Killer Thrill is an unscrupulous bounty hunter with no qualms about causing massive amounts of collateral damage.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: If her reaction to Venompool eating Coldwar is any indication, her team-ups with other bounty hunters tend to go south.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: While she and Guzz got a couple of decent blows in during their final battle against Venompool, they were soundly defeated and barely escaped with their lives.
• Eaten Alive: She and her symbiote were consumed by a Poison, becoming Poison Killer Thrill.
• Freudian Excuse: Played with; she's a Tyke Bomb whose partner left her to be taken captive by other aliens who tortured and experimented on her, but it's also repeatedly implied that Killer Thrill was always screwed up, as Training from Hell aside her parents were inferred to have been otherwise normal (Killer Thrill offhandedly mentions that she murdered them "While they were hugging me!") and the reason why Ora abandoned her is because she found out that Killer Thrill was murdering innocent people (including children) behind her back.
• Green-Skinned Space Babe: She is an attractive (if you can get past the insanity) female alien with blue skin and pink hair.
• Green Thumb: Her Flora Colossus arm prosthetic allowed her to form branches that act as spears.
• Interplay of Sex and Violence: Combat and bloodshed is a major turn-on for her, to the extent that she constantly flirts with her opponents and considers torture to be a form of foreplay.
• Killed Offscreen: She's consumed by a Poison off-screen, and Poison Killer Thrill later perishes off-panel when the Poison Queen is killed.
• Major Injury Underreaction: When her arm was lopped off and eaten, all she did was complain that Venompool was being mean.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Killer Thrill will gleefully render entire planets extinct on a whim.
• Psychic Powers: She has adrenaline-activated psychokinesis and telepathy that enables her to either Mind Rape or mind control people.
• Psychopathic Manchild: She is extremely childish and immature in her actions.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Her first appearance had her facing off against Drax the Destroyer before showing up in the chronologically-earlier Deadpool: Back in Black hunting for the Venom symbiote shortly after it was abandoned by Spider-Man. In Poison X, she's moved from one Venom to another, bedeviling Eddie Brock and the Young X-Men, coming complete with a new upgrade to even things out.
• The Symbiote: Likely inspired by her run-in with Venom, Killer Thrill buys a symbiote from Haze Mancer to make up for her lost Flora colossus prosthetic.
• Thrill Seeker: Partially as a result of her psychic powers being adrenaline-activated, partially due to insanity, she's a thrill-seeking mass-murderer.
• Too Kinky to Torture: When Venompool declares his intent to eat her brains, she gleefully quips that if he weren't a mark she'd take him up on that offer. She's also kinky enough to use her symbiote as a sex toy.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: She sold her teammate Guzz to the Collector as a consolation prize, and even offered to wipe out the rest of his species to make him more of a prize on her way home.

Knull

Knull

God of the Symbiotes

First Appearance: Thor: God of Thunder Vol. 1 #6 (unnamed); Venom Vol. 4 #3

A malevolent and ancient deity who created the symbiotes, Knull seeks to destroy the gods and corrupt their creations in order to return the universe to the primordial void.

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• Adaptational Wimp:
  • The version of Knull seen in Spider-Man Unlimited is far weaker than his comics-canon counterpart, even becoming a loyal follower of Adriana Soria in the hopes that she'll restore his powers.
  • The Supreme Octopus — a gestalt of Otto Octavius and Victor von Doom — of Earth-8968 claims that he easily vaporized Knull when the dark god came to conquer the Earth.
• Admiring the Abomination: He remarks that Venom's berserk form looks beautiful.
  Knull: [after seeing Venom's berserk form] Oh. look at you. Beautiful.
• Alternate Self:
  • Spider-Man Unlimited: Knull first makes his presence known by corrupting Venom into "Ancient Venom", and in the game's story takes over Riot in a bid to free himself from Klyntar. After being freed in a greatly-weakened state, Knull swears fealty to the Spider-Queen (Adriana Soria) in the hope that she'll be able to restore his powers.
  • Earth-1051: Imprisoned in Klyntar, Knull was able to corrupt Dylan Brock into his apostle, Codex. Codex conquered Earth in Knull's name, but was unable to find a way to free his master before Knull's hold over him was severed by the Dylan Brock of Earth-616.
  • Earth-2099: Shares the same history as his Earth-616 counterpart and was thought dead after a showdown with Venom (Eddie Brock), but was discovered to be Not Quite Dead and somewhere on Earth in the year 2099 by the new Venom (Alea Bell).
  • Earth-17628: Knull was a primordial god of darkness who created the symbiotes All-Black, Scorn, Mania, and Scream to serve as living weapons and armor in his war against the Celestials. When most of the Celestials were dead, Knull callously discarded the symbiotes — attempting to kill them when they refused to be cast aside — and returned to the depths of space.
  • Marvel: Contest of Champions: Knull awakens and attempts to conquer Battleworld, but is thwarted by the Summoner, the Summoned Symbiote, and Eddie Brock — who is transformed into Anti-Venom by Mister Negative.
  • Heroes Reborn 2021: Knull attempts to conquer Earth, but is defeated and petrified by Zarda the Power Princess.
  • Earth-8968: Knull attempted to conquer the Earth, but was easily vanquished by the Supreme Octopus.
  • A variant of Knull appears in Death of the Venomverse as Carnage's final target.
• Ambiguously Related: It was revealed in "Symbiote Spider-Man: King in Black" that Mr. E who was said to come from the "Shadowverse" is an early creation of his and the Shadowverse is another name for The Living Abysse. It's not clear if other beings said to originate from there such as Shadow Man and Warlord Kaa are also creations of his.
• Ancient Evil: He is billions of years old, roaming the cosmos and devouring entire civilizations. Grendel, a symbiote-dragon under his control, terrorized Earth during the early medieval period; attacking the Danes and fighting Thor before being sealed away.
• Archnemesis Dad: To the symbiotes; the more heroic symbiotes such as Venom greatly dislike him for understandable reasons.
  Venom Symbiote: [impersonating Eddie] I met my god. He's a @#$%^.
• Arc Welding:
  • His connection to Thor and Gorr is unexpected to say the least. To be more specific, Knull is the unnamed black god that had been seemingly killed by another gold-armored god and was encountered by Gorr when the latter claimed the Godslayer, and his recounting of his origins in issue 4 partly retells those events from his point of view. Additionally, Gorr's homeworld is revealed to be the planet shown in the Venom symbiote's flashback in Venom: Dark Origins, otherwise a largely ignored comic.
  • The severed head of the Celestial that he killed ended up becoming the mining city and space-station Knowhere.
  • Web of Venom: Carnage Born indicates that Knull might be behind Cletus Kasady's Joker Immunity, though Donny Cates established on Twitter that the symbiote-worshiping cult was making up details to hype Carnage as Knull's apostle.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 5 #3 reveals that he created the Exolon parasites that gave Wraith and the other Nameless their powers, with Web of Venom: Wraith clarifying that the Exolon are imperfect symbiotes that Knull discarded in the Exoteric Latitude.
  • Symbiote Spider-Man: King in Black reveals that Mr. E, Captain Universe's Starter Villain was an early creation of his, Foreshadowing his later involvement in the story.
  • King in Black #4 implies that Knull, like the Chaos King before him, draws his power from and owes his existence to Oblivion, the Abstract Entity embodying the primordial void that existed before the creation of the universe.
  • King in Black #4 reveals that the antithetical "God of Light" Wraith's father discovered is actually the Enigma Force. The Enigma Force was born spontaneously as a response to Knull's existence, but it initially spread itself too thin trying to amass armies like him. Instead it learned to focus all its power through one host, Captain Universe.
  • Defenders (Vol. 6) has Dr. Strange speculate that Knull is an incarnation of the Anti-All, a Draconic Abomination made of living darkness that originated in the Below-Place and terrorized the Third Cosmos.
  • Venom (Vol. 5) reveals that Knull's role as the King in Black was meant to be using his command of the living abyss to maintain the Multiverse from within, opposite the Beyonders — who are supposed to maintain it from the Beyond using the Energy of Concordance, aka the Enigma Force. Knull, however, politely declined the job offer and instead used his King in Black powers to try to destroy the very thing he was meant to protect.
• Battle Aura: Knull can wreathe himself and his sword in an aura of fiery purple or red energy.
• Bequeathed Power: Eddie Brock killing him at the end of King in Black makes him the new King in Black and gives him a measure of Knull's power—though his mortal body can't properly handle the strain and he has to learn how to use it.
• BFS: In theory, he could just use his powers without having to swing around obnoxiously humongous swords... but his weapon of choice is a sword of living abyss that — in his hands — is massive.
• Big Bad: Knull is the primary antagonistic force of the Rex arc of Venom (Donny Cates), Silver Surfer: Black, and the entirety of King in Black.
• Black Eyes of Crazy: When he's not drawn with solid red eyes, Knull is most-often depicted with black sclerae, red irises, and no pupils.
• Black Eyes of Evil: After Knull kills the Sentry and assimilates the Void, his eyes turn solid black with black Magical Eye Streamers... at least in the main comics. In the tie-ins he retains his usual Red Eyes, Take Warning.
• Black Knight: He is clad in black medieval-style symbiote-armor, and wielded a symbiote-sword.
• Black Speech: He and the symbiotes he controls speak in an ancient symbiote dialect that Eddie describes as sounding like shards of glass being driven into his brain.
• Black Swords Are Better: The symbiote-sword he manifested from his shadow later became known as All-Black the Necrosword, and is capable of killing deities as powerful as the Celestials — though it's more often depicted as being red or red-and-black when Knull wielded it than all-black like when Gorr and subsequent wielders used it.
• Blood Knight: During his one-god deicide he revelled in combat and destruction, and was the original Butcher of Gods.
• Bring It: After one of his symbiotes takes over Mary Jane Watson from Earth-65, Knull — seeing through her eyes — is intrigued by Ghost-Spider's artificial symbiote and has "MJarnage dunk Gwen into a pool of symbiote ooze to connect her to the Hive-Mind. When Gwen declares that she'll never bow to him and will find a way to free MJ from his control, Knull challenges her to prove it and releases her rather than claim her for the Hive.
• Brought Down to Badass: The Return of the Valkyries tie-in for King in Black has Jane Foster, Dani Moon, Hildegard, and the then-unnamed Rūna strip Knull of a vast amount of his power by severing All-Black's connection to the Headless Celestial — the corrupted, undead remnants of the first Celestial killed by Knull. Despite this massive setback, Knull is able to manage a Curb Stomp Cushion fight against All-Father Thor in King in Black #3, and would have won more handily had Dylan Brock not distracted him. In the final issue, Eddie delivers a Curb-Stomp Battle only with the combined power of the Enigma Force, Mjolnir, and the Power Cosmic — all three of which are super-effective against Knull on their own — and even after being stripped of his symbiote, Knull survives being blasted point-blank with a beam of cosmic energy and being flown into the heart of the sun, with Eddie finishing him off by vaporizing his body with the Uni-Power.
• The Brute: He's perhaps the most direct cosmic villain in Marvel. If he can't beat something to death, he'll corrupt it with symbiotes. And if that doesn't work, he'll find something else that can kill his target and corrupt that with symbiotes, or failing that, accumulate more strength by corrupting stronger beings into his fold until his usual tactic of beating his enemy to death becomes viable again. And given how powerful he is, just beating something to death usually works.
• Casting a Shadow: Formed the symbiotes from his own shadow, and seems to have vast control over the "Living Abyss" he hails from.
• Chest Insignia: His symbiote-armor has red dragons on its chest and back. Cates and Stegman confirmed on Twitter that Knull's dragon-emblems inspired Venom's spider insignia.
• Civilization Destroyer: He's spent billions of years traveling the cosmos and devouring entire civilizations using his army of corrupted symbiotes.
• Comes Great Responsibility: Defied. As explained by the Eventuality in Venom (2021) #18, Knull was chosen as the King in Black by the Celestials, and his war against them was one of defiance against the responsibility toward black magic that comes with his station, taking the power but refusing the responsibility that comes with it.
  The Eventuality: The Beyonders got the easy job. Kings in pristine white gloves, keeping their hands clean. Our hands get dirty — get bloody. Our hearts get torn and broken. Being a King in Black hurts, Eddie. And in a time before time — a space before space — Knull couldn't hack that. When the Celestials found him, they weren't coming into his void to attack him — they were coming to recruit him. They were coming to give him a job. Knull… Well, let's just say he burned his draft card. A god of the void is a god of nothing, after all…
  Eddie Brock: … so there's nothing he ever had to be responsible for.
• Complete Immortality: When asked if King Thanos from Thanos Wins had killed Knull during his successful crusade to wipe out all life, Donny Cates replied that Knull cannot be killed. This is proven at least partially incorrect at the conclusion of King in Black, when the Captain Universe-empowered Eddie Brock destroys his physical body in the Sun.
• Cool Sword: Knull wielded a sword made of living abyss, the first symbiote, which he called All-Black. After All-Black was stolen by Gorr, Knull seemingly created a replacement symbiote-sword, presumably with the same properties as All-Black, and wielded it until he was overthrown.
• The Corrupter: His presence fills symbiotes with bloodlust, and he tries to purge the Venom symbiote of the compassion it had acquired during its time on Earth. In Web of Venom: The Good Son, he gets revenge on Eddie foiling his plans by corrupting his half-symbiote son Dylan.
• Costume Evolution: Knull's original "costume" is a suit of symbiote-armor with a red dragon emblem on its chest and back, the dragon's tail being curled to the left. When in combat situations, such as when fighting the golden-armored gods in Thor: God of Thunder and Venom (Vol. 4) #4, or the Silver Surfer in Silver Surfer: Black, he transforms it to sport a draconic Rage Helm and wing-like projections on its back. In King in Black, when he arrives on Earth his armor has changed to a more sleek appearance with spikes on the pauldrons, a shorter waistcloth, and a straight-tailed dragon emblem. When gearing up to fight the Silver Surfer, Knull changes its appearance again to sport even bulkier pauldrons and heavy vambraces.
• Dark Is Evil: He is a deranged counterpart to Venom’s Dark Is Not Evil and his realm is a hellish red and black world.
• Demiurge Archetype: Knull is a primordial god of darkness who came into being in the primordial Void before the universe was created, claims to be the incarnation of said primordial Void, and was enraged when the Celestials intruded into what he saw as his domain to create the universe. He created the symbiotes and their ilk to wage war against the Celestials and their creations, first seeking to destroy and later to corrupt all of existence. To drive the point home, Carlton Drake calls him the "Klyntar Demiurge" in Venom (Vol. 5) #3.
• Diminishing Villain Threat: Appearances of him (usually by alternates) after his event have him being vanquished far more easily to prop up a book's main hero or villain. Perhaps most amusingly, a version of him at the height of his power is slain by Carnage in Death of the Venomverse due to combination of his wayward spawn's preparations and a cheap shot in the back.
• Draconic Abomination: Knull is capable of spontaneously creating wyvern-like symbiote-dragons, two of which — Grendel (no relation to the dark elf Grendell) and Big Mother — wound up on Earth. The Grendel was used to create an avatar he used to confront Eddie Brock, while Big Mother eventually adopted a humanoid form. He could also wreathe his avatar in it to become a humanoid dragon made of living darkness. Defenders implies that Knull is an incarnation of the Anti-All, an ancient draconic entity made of living darkness.
• Draconic Humanoid: By wreathing his avatar in the Grendel symbiote-dragon, Knull transforms into a towering hybrid of his humanoid and its draconic forms.
• Dragon Knight: Knull is usually clad in a suit of black symbiote-armor with red dragon emblems, which is capable of manifesting a draconic helmet. King in Black #1 reveals he can also manifest black-and-red draconic wings from his armor and use them to fly.
• Dragon Rider: Knull frequently employs his symbiote dragons as mounts, using them to chase down foes or travel across the cosmos.
• Early-Bird Cameo: First appeared as an unnamed corpse in an issue of Thor: God of Thunder that told the origins of Gorr the God-Butcher five years before his actual debut.
• Exotic Eye Designs: Knull's eyes are drawn as black with red spirals for pupils in Venom #4.
• Expy: According to Donny Cates, Knull was inspired by Gorr the God Butcher and Morlun.
• Evil Counterpart: To Captain Universe, Knull being the Darkness to Captain Universe’s light. Venom (Vol. 5) #18 reveals that the King in Black was supposed to be the dark counterpart to the Beyonders, but Knull rejected the job offer and instead tried to destroy the universe he'd been charged with protecting.
• Faux Affably Evil: Knull may be an Omnicidal Maniac, but he tends to be composed and regal in his bearing... until something makes him angry; whereupon he flies into a rage, manifesting a fanged maw and slavering tongue. Examples of this include him addressing the Venom symbiote as his child in Venom; accepting Ghost-Spider's challenge in Gwenom vs. Carnage; and his interaction with Wraith in Web of Venom: Wraith, where he apologizes for not noticing Zak-Del, is more confused than anything by Zak-Del's accusation of having stolen his soul, doesn't attack until Zak-Del tries to shoot him, and after stripping Zak-Del of his Exolon would have left him there had Zak-Del not attacked him again. He is endlessly kind to his symbiote spawn, treating them like wayward children he needs to "free" of other influences, but at the same time he "comforts" the Exolon bonded to Zak-Del by telling it that it was not abandoned out of hate, but that it was "trash" from the process of creating symbiotes, seemingly not caring that it was an insult.
• Fertile Blood: Scream: Curse of Carnage reveals that the symbiote dragon that became known as Grendel's Mother/Big Mother was spawned from Knull's blood, unlike the Grendel who was spawned from All-Black.
• Fighting a Shadow: When attacked by a berserk Venom, Knull remarks that there's no point in trying to harm him since he's nothing more than an avatar manifested using the Grendel symbiote-dragon's living abyss. His true body is sealed away in Klyntar, the so-called Planet of the Symbiotes. Knull also manifests multiple avatars during King in Black to investigate targets of note, such as the Black Knight and Scream.
• Flash Step: When Zak-Del tries to quick-draw him in Web of Venom: Wraith, Knull vanishes into a motion-blur and then grabs him by the throat.
• Galactic Conqueror: Knull spent almost 14 billion years conquering the universe with his army of symbiotes, before a run-in with Thor knocked him out of commission and his symbiote-army betrayed him.
• Game Face: Knull's face is humanoid in appearance while he's calm, save for six openings in his cheeks. When he's angry or bloodthirsty, however, his mouth transforms into a fanged maw with a long, prehensile tongue. When the Silver Surfer conjures a star right in his face in Silver Surfer: Black #5, Knull's enraged face resembles a symbiote's — lacking a nose, lips, or cheeks.
• God Job: It's revealed in Venom (Vol. 5) that Knull's position as the King in Black was meant to safeguard the universe from within using the living abyss. However, Knull — unwilling to deal with the responsibilities — opted to use the power to destroy the universe instead.
• God of Darkness: Knull is the creator god of the Klyntar and one of the oldest, most powerful and evil Gods of Darkness in existence. Throughout the Cosmos, Knull has been known by numerous names, such as the God of the Void, Abyss, Everblack and Lord of the Anti-Light. Knull was born in the Primordial Chaos, the nothingness between the end of the Sixth Cosmos and beginning of the Seventh Cosmos, and he plans to return the universe back to how it was. Thanks to his birthplace he has vast control over the Darkness and the very Void itself. He has created a number of entities and species of Living Shadows, like Mister E, the Exolons, and most famously the Symbiotes/Klyntar. His control over the Darkness is so vast that others with shadow powers are affected by his mere presence, such as Cloak and the Void.
• God of Evil: Knull is a primordial god of darkness so evil that even the symbiotes he's not brainwashing hate him, and in Thor: God of Thunder the few gods who remember him remark that even Gorr doesn't compare.
• Goth Spirals: Knull's emblem is a jagged red spiral on a black background, inspired by the Spiral of Carcosa from True Detective. The symbiotes under his control have this spiral in place of their eyespots, and symbiote hosts under his influence have black eyes with red spirals in place of their irises and pupils.
• Greater-Scope Villain:
  • He was the dark god from whose unconscious body Gorr recovered All-Black the Necrosword. The sword itself was forged from his own shadow, in the fires of a slain Celestial's energy, in a campaign to kill all gods for bringing light into his abyssal void. The forging process is why symbiotes are weak to sonics and fire, they fear the instinctual memory of the forge's fire and the sound of the hammer's strikes.
  • Knull created the symbiotes and the Exolon, among other entities of living darkness, making him the impetus behind all of the Marvel Universe's symbiote-related woes, as well as Wraith (Zak-Del) and the other Nameless.
• Gruesome Grandparent: Being the creator of the symbiotes, he considers himself Dylan Brock's true father, intending to turn him to his side. The gruesome part is an understatement.
• Hated by All: Being that he is an omnicidal psychopath desiring the extermination of all life, the other deities express nothing but fear towards Knull — with the Volstagg of Earth-14412 mocking Gorr for not knowing who Knull is and for thinking he measures up to his precursor. It takes being brainwashed by Knull to avoid hating him and most other symbiotes loathe him. Only the vilest of villains, like Carnage, willingly align with his interests in any way... and even then Carnage was planning to double-cross and usurp him.
• He's Back!:
  • Absolute Carnage ends its main story with Venom killing Dark Carnage... which ends up reawakening Knull at long last. Knull celebrates by shattering Klyntar into its constituent symbiotes, asserting dominion over them, and resuming his conquest of the cosmos.
  • Venom 2099 ends with the shocking revelation that not only is Knull still alive despite the Venom symbiote assuming him to have been killed, but he's somewhere on Earth.
• Holding Back the Phlebotinum:
  • In Silver Surfer: Black, Norrin Radd notes that he stands zero chances against Knull, especially in his weakened state, but both times they fight Knull holds back out of a desire to claim Norrin as his "Void Knight". Both times he gets frustrated by Norrin landing a blow on him, then swiftly overpowers the Surfer.
  • In King in Black, Knull could have easily destroyed the Earth and slaughtered its heroes like he had countless other planets, but he doesn't because he wants to get his hands on Dylan Brock and add the heroes who pique his interest to his army. This gives Earth's heroes time to regroup and strike back against him, which results in Knull losing his advantage, being severely weakened, and ultimately having his physical body destroyed.
• Humanity Is Special: He came to Earth because it was particularly filled with light and found the humans protecting their children behind closed doors at his presence. It was there he was confronted by Thor, whose divine lightning severed his connection to the symbiotes' hive mind. This allowed his symbiotes to adopt noble traits from their hosts and grow heroic, turning against him and sealing him away.
• Humanoid Abomination: He is a powerful and monstrous deity older than the universe, taking on the form of a masculine humanoid entity with pale skin, eyes with black sclerae and red spiral-shaped irises, white hair, and — when angry — a gaping maw full of fangs. He created the symbiotes from what he calls the "living abyss" and was worshipped by them as a malevolent deity of darkness, madness, and death; infecting them with insanity, speaking in an ancient language that inflicts Sensory Abuse on humans who hear it, and traveling the cosmos to conquer other planets and slay or enslave their gods.
• Hurl It into the Sun: Eddie finishes Knull off after destroying his symbiote and Necrosword by flying him into the Sun and obliterating him with the Uni-Power.
• Kame Hame Hadoken: In Silver Surfer: Black, Knull incapacitates the Silver Surfer by firing a massive beam of fiery purple energy from his hands.
• Karmic Death: How he's dealt with once and for all by Eddie. Using the power of the Enigma Force, plus Mjolnir and Silver Surfer's board, not only does Eddie beat the tar out of Knull like he's nothing, he makes him suffer the same way he did before finally flying him into the Sun and vaporizing his body with the Uni-Power. When Knull tries to come back by taking over Dylan's body, Eddie rips the living abyss out of Dylan and destroys it.
• Kill the God: He hates the Celestials and other deities, and created the symbiotes in order to carry out a genocide against them and corrupt their creations. The few gods he did spare were bonded to symbiotes and enslaved.
• Leaking Can of Evil: Even after being sealed at the core of Klyntar, Knull is still able to exert influence over some symbiotes — remote-piloting the Grendel, attempting to corrupt Venom and bend it to his will, and successfully corrupting the Scorn and Hybrid symbiotes.
• Living Weapon: He manifested the first symbiote — All-Black — as a sword made of living darkness, and should it be lost or destroyed he can simply re-manifest it from another symbiote.
• Maker of Monsters: Knull created the symbiotes billions of years in the past to facilitate his conquest of the universe. He also created the Exolon, which Web of Venom: Wraith reveals to be imperfect symbiotes he deemed failures and dumped in the Exoteric Latitude. King in Black #1 also has him claim that the Void is one of his servants as well, though whether this means it's one of his creations or not is unknown.
• Malignant Plot Tumor: Over the course of Donny Cates' runs on Venom, Guardians of the Galaxy, and the King in Black event, it gradually becomes clear that almost everything connected to darkness, from most symbiotic entities (including those not originally created as Klyntar) to the Void are connected to Knull. King in Black #4, however, lessens this as it states that while Knull is the God of the Abyss, the primordial darkness he claims to be the embodiment of is in fact much older than even he is.
• Mind Hive: While Knull himself is an individual, he was the nexus of the symbiotes' hive-mind before Thor fried his connection to it. He retains control over the Grendel symbiote, tried to take over Venom, and seeks to reassert his rulership over his creations.
• Mind Rape: He corrupts symbiotes under his influence, driving them insane with bloodlust; and can forcibly seize control of them — causing their eyespots to transform into a jagged red spiral, and protruding red veins and porous holes to appear all over their bodies.
• Monster Progenitor: Knull is the divine progenitor of the symbiotes — pulling All-Black from his shadow, and spawning the first symbiote from his suit of symbiote-armor.
• More Dakka: When fighting the Silver Surfer, Knull manifests multi-barrelled artillery from the Symbiote Throneworld's surface and fires volleys of purple energy projectiles at him.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: When angered, Knull's mouth distorts into a fanged maw with a prehensile tongue — which he passed down to his "children".
• Multiple-Choice Past: Knull originated in the primordial Void that existed before the universe and calls himself the Abyss made flesh, with multiple adaptations interpreting that claim literally. In King in Black, however, Jean Grey notes that he's not the Void itself — just empowered by and possessing dominion over it; while in Defenders Doctor Strange speculates that Knull is an incarnation of Anti-All, a primordial draconic avatar of the Void that existed in the Third Cosmos.
• Nothing but Skin and Bones: Without his symbiote-armor, Knull is most-often depicted as an emaciated entity with too-long arms and legs.
• Not Quite Dead: At the end of King in Black, Eddie rips Knull's symbiote off, flies him into the Sun, and vaporizes his body with the Uni-Power. Knull's consciousness tries to take over Dylan Brock's body using the living abyss inside him, but Eddie uses the Uni-Power to rip Dylan's symbiote essence out and destroy it — seemingly killing him for good. Despite all that, Thor and Venom imply that King in Black isn't the last we've seen of him. After all, darkness never dies and there's only so much of it one can throw into the Sun before the star turns black...
• Not So Invincible After All: Knull is presented as being unstoppably powerful, but in King in Black Thor burns a hole through one of his hands — albeit indirectly — and smashes his lower jaw off with Mjolnir. However, Knull quickly regenerates from both attacks — temporarily forming a prosthetic lower jaw with living abyss.
• Oh, Crap!: When Eddie is resurrected by the God of Light, Knull is unimpressed and mockingly asks his ancient nemesis if it choosing a man he's killed twice is supposed to scare him. Eddie grabbing Thor's Mjolnir and the Silver Surfer's board — thereby adding their powers to his own on top of the Enigma Force — causes Knull to turn tail and flee.
• Omnicidal Maniac: He was outraged when the Celestials filled the universe with planets, stars, etc. and set about conquering and destroying what they had created.
• One-Man Army: Knull is powerful enough to decapitate a Celestial with a single strike, and singlehandedly slaughter entire armies of gods. King in Black reveals that even the Sentry is no match for him, and gets casually ripped in half.
• Physical God: Knull is the "God of the Symbiotes", and lives up to the name — having created the symbiotes and Exolon to carry out a genocide against the other gods for millennia.
• Planet Destroyer: Knull is stated in Silver Surfer: Black and Guardians of the Galaxy to be capable of casually destroying planets and even stars Galactus-style, though he prefers to smother them in living abyss.
• The Poorly Chosen One: Venom (Vol. 5) #18 reveals that Knull was chosen by the Celestials to help maintain the Earth-616 (and presumably the other universes where he exists as well) as the King in Black, but objected to the responsibilities being placed upon him. Knull then "burned his draft card" by killing the Celestial who was trying to recruit him and went on to do the exact opposite of what the position of King in Black was supposed to entail. As a result, the cosmos designated him a whetstone to hone his successor, Eddie Brock, the true King in Black of Earth-616 (and presumably the other universes where Knull was freed from Klyntar).
• Power of the Void: Knull was born in the primordial void that existed before the creation of the seventh iteration of the universe, and possesses the ability to create symbiotic creatures out of living darkness. When perched on the palm of a Celestial, he created the first symbiote — All-Black the Necrosword — from his shadow and used it to kill the alien god; and later used this same "living abyss" to create the other symbiotes.
• Predecessor Villain: Knull was the creator and first wielder of All-Black the Necrosword, Gorr obtaining it from him after he was seemingly killed in battle, and fittingly Knull is shown to be able to do more powerful versions of all the things Gorr was shown doing. In Thor: God of Thunder, the Volstagg of the distant future even mocked Gorr for being oblivious regarding the identity of the being whose legacy he was continuing.
  Volstagg: I asked... if you knew where that weapon of yours came from. But you don't even know the name of the god you stole it from, do you? To you it's still just a... a sharp stick for poking things. You're blind to its true —
• Psychic Dreams for Everyone: His awakening causes symbiotes and their hosts to have recurring nightmares of his conquests and rampages. The Guardians of the Galaxy tie-ins for King in Black reveal that when he was unleashed a number of ill omens occurred across the universe.
• Puny Earthlings: Of course, to him, most things are puny. He dismisses humans as uselessly fragile, and doesn't even acknowledge Eddie's questions until he angers him. Knull is, however, somewhat Intrigued by Humanity and stated that he had never come across anything like humans while being mildly impressed with Eddie Brock's fortitude.
• Rage Helm: The helmet of Knull's symbiote-armor resembles a fanged dragon-head when manifested, though it's unknown if it's like other symbiote "masks" in that the jaws are fully-functional.
• Refusal of the Call: According to Ewing's Venom run, the Celestials weren't actually attacking Knull, they were trying to give him a job looking after the Multiverse. Needless to say, attacking them was considered "burning the draft card"; the Eventuality noting that Knull voiced the same objections Eddie did upon learning of the King in Black's true purpose — that it's not right or fair, that he's not the right person for the job, and that someone more qualified who can handle the responsibility and actually wants the job should be chosen instead.
• Reincarnation: Defenders (Vol. 6) #5 implies that Knull — and presumably other primordial dark entities — is an incarnation of the dark Draconic Abomination called Anti-All, who terrorized the Third Cosmos before being slain by Lifebringer One, with shards containing its essence being scattered across the nascent Multiverse.
• Remote Body: He can use his total control of symbiotes to project his consciousness into them, using symbiote-dragons to raze and consume planets.
• The Sacred Darkness: Zig-zagged. According to the Eventuality in Venom (Vol. 5) #18, the power and position of the King in Black isn't inherently evil and the Onyx Kings are meant to maintain the universes of the Multiverse from within using the Living Abyss, as counterparts to the Beyonders. However, when Knull—and by extension his various multiversal incarnations—was chosen as the King in Black, he embraced the power but wanted nothing to do with the responsibilities it came with, attempting to use his power over the Void to corrupt and destroy the Multiverse instead.
• Satanic Archetype: Knull is a powerful deity who started a war with the godlike Celestials, created a species of parasitic eldritch beings who warped their hosts into monstrosities, and even had his mind sealed away inside a symbiote-dragon. Spider-Man even refers to him as "Cosmic Satan" in Absolute Carnage: Immortal Hulk.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Twofold, his mind was sealed away in the body of a symbiote dragon he'd been projecting it into, while his body was sealed underneath a planet's mass worth of his symbiotes. Turns out the word Klyntar is symbiote for cage. This turns out to be a Leaking Can of Evil, as even while sealed Knull is still able to exert his influence over some symbiotes — including the Grendel, Venom, and Scorn.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Knull created the first symbiote — All-Black the Necrosword — from his shadow, and can seemingly do the same with any symbiote.
• Super-Toughness: Knull is durable enough to withstand a terminal-velocity fall from space, being blasted by energy beams from the likes of Celestials and Ego the Living Planet, and being bathed in stellar plasma. If he wasn't so inherently tough, his reckless fighting style would have gotten him killed eons ago. Even after being stripped of his symbiote and beaten to a pulp by the Captain Universe-powered Eddie Brock, Knull survives being flown into the heart of the Sun and is only finished off when Eddie disintegrates his body with the Uni-Power.
• Supernatural Floating Hair: In Silver Surfer: Black he's shown with his hair undulating around him as though underwater.
• Time Abyss: He is older than the universe itself, and according to King in Black came into being in the Abyss resulting from the destruction of the sixth iteration of the Multiverse. Of the other primordial dark entities, only the Black Winter and One Below All, Oblivion, the Griever at the End of All Things, and Anti-All are older than he is. It isn't known how old the Chaos King, Nyx, and the Røkkva are in relation to Knull.
• To Serve Man: Some of his comments indicate that he ate some of the gods he killed, and he used the symbiotes he created and indwelled to do so.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • In Venom (Vol. 4) #6, after Venom and Tyrannosaurus destabilize the Grendel symbiote-dragon and manage to injure his avatar — causing his real body pain — Knull incredulously asks if Eddie is a god before launching into a furious tirade and commanding Venom to submit to the will of his god.
    Knull: You... you think me undone... You... you have no idea what I am! I am your god! And you will obey me!
  • In Silver Surfer: Black #2, after the Silver Surfer breaks free of his control and flies away, Knull lets out a scream of rage and turns the Symbiote Throneworld into a flurry of arms trying to grab him, before regaining his composure.
  • In Silver Surfer: Black #5, the Silver Surfer conjuring a star right in Knull's face results in him letting out a scream of rage and pain, his face distorted to resemble that of a symbiote — with no nose and a cheek-less, fanged maw.
  • And finally in King In Black #5 Knull loses all composure as Eddie — empowered by the Enigma Force, Mjolnir, and the Silver Surfer's Surfboard — beats the crap out of him with his newly acquired powers, stripping him of his symbiote, destroying his necrosword, humiliating him before finishing him off by flying him into the core of the sun and disintegrating him.
• Villain Respect: Knull is mildly impressed when Eddie requests to be shown more of the symbiotes' backstory, having expected his feeble mortal mind to shatter from the eldritch truth. In Silver Surfer: Black he's impressed by the time-displaced Norrin Radd's legacy of planetary destruction, and becomes fixated on claiming the Surfer as his "Void Knight".
• The Warlord: Knull first sought to destroy the nascent universe, but after discovering he could give life to the primordial void he decided to corrupt and conquer it instead — creating an army of enslaved gods and smothering whole worlds in his living abyss.
• Weakened by the Light: Knull's only vulnerability is "the Light" — a force brought into the universe by the Celestials, and particularly potent in the divine power wielded by gods. Web of Venom: Wraith has Zak-Del inform Eddie that Knull has a direct counterpart in a God of Light ultimately revealed to be the Enigma Force.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Knull has long white tendril-hair, matching his deathly-pale skin.
• Winged Humanoid: Knull is capable of manifesting symbiote-dragon wings from his armor, as seen throughout King in Black.
• Worf Had the Flu: Return of the Valkyries has Jane Foster, the then-unnamed Rūna, Dani Moonstar, Hildegard, Brunnhilde, and the other Valkyries perform a ritual that severs Knull's connection to the undead Celestial whose head he'd used to forge All-Black, which the narration states was the source of a significant amount of his power. Despite this handicap, Knull puts up a Curb Stomp Cushion against Thor — who at this time had most of the Power of the All-Father and remnants of the Power Cosmic. Eddie Brock, empowered by the Enigma Force, Mjolnir, and the Silver Surfer's Surfboard, inflicts a humiliating Curb-Stomp Battle against Knull, but Knull having been severely weakened raises the question of whether Eddie's victory would've been so one-sided or even possible at all had that not occurred.

Krobaa

Krobaa

First Appearance: Venom: Seed of Darkness #-1

"Such... great... horror. A terrible abundance of sorrow. What monstrous Gods would create a race with so much buried greatness—yet curse them with souls born wounded?"

While experimenting with dimensional and intergalactic travel, quack scientist Nigel Donlevy brought the symbiote-like alien Krobaa to Earth. A member of a benevolent empire, Krobaa merged with Donlevy (intending to do so only temporarily) to learn about the new planet he had been brought to, and its people. Unfortunately, the darkness within Donlevy (Alter Ego the human ID) drove Krobaa insane, and he went on rampage through a nearby town and industrial park.

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• Ambiguous Situation: Whether Krobaa was a symbiote of the same sort as Venom has never been made clear, though parallels between them certainly exist.
• Blob Monster: Krobaa was an amorphous blob of black goo, though he became slightly humanoid after taking over Donlevy.
• Foreshadowing: An initially benevolent black blob from another world which was corrupted by exposure to humans, who it could bond to physically and mentally. Subtle. The resemblance is further strengthened by Guardians of the Galaxy asserting that symbiotes are inherently good, and only become evil due to external factors like imperfect hosts.
• Episode Zero: The Beginning: His issue was designated "Venom #-1".
• Humanity Is Insane: Merging with a human causes Krobaa to lose it, and after returning to normal, he kills himself.
  Nigel Donlevy: But he knew nothing of the primal beast that lurks within the human subconscious, the inner demon that Freud called the ID. He was overwhelmed, nearly driven mad—until your strobe light shocked him out of it. And then... I could feel his revulsion... his pity. Considering himself infected, he committed suicide rather than risk unleashing a plague of madness on the universe... our madness.
• The Symbiote: Krobaa was a sentient amorphous entity made of living darkness which could bond to a living host — though as with Dreadface, there's no official word that Krobaa was a member of the same species as Venom.
• A Villain Named "Z__rg": The story was a throwback to the Marvel Monsters era, so of course this naming convention was used.
• Weakened by the Light: To the point that a camera could disorient him.

Kulan Gath

Kulan Gath

First Appearance: Conan the Barbarian #14; Spider-Man Red Sonja #3 (as Venom)

An evil sorcerer from the Hyborian Age, Kulan opposed Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja, attempting to summon and control Shuma-Gorath. Kulan resurfaced in modern-day Manhattan, coming into conflict with Spider-Man due his wife Mary-Jane being possessed by Red Sonja. In one of these attempts Kulan enthralled several villains, including the Hobgoblin, Vermin, and Venom. In order to accrue additional power, Kulan stole the Venom symbiote and bonded to it, but the alien's attempts to abandon him distracted him long enough for Sonja to destroy his amulet.

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• Blood Magic: Kulan Gath's bread and butter is blood magic, which lets him strip the Venom symbiote from Eddie Brock after Venom tries to eat him.
• Evil Sorcerer: Kulan Gath is an evil sorcerer who gets his powers from Shuma-Gorath and other eldritch gods. In Savage Avengers he boasts that he was the Hyborian Age's Sorcerer Supreme.
• Grand Theft Me: Kulan is able to possess whoever wears the amulet that serves as his phylactery.
• Legacy Character: Savage Avengers reveals that the Kulan Gath fought by the Savage Avengers is a former slave who murdered the original Kulan Gath and usurped his identity and powers.
• More than Mind Control: His spell to transform New York into a medieval city bends the Venom symbiote, and through it Eddie Brock, to his will; and does the same with numerous other supervillains like the Hobgoblin and Lizard.
• Our Liches Are Different: Kulan Gath is a powerful sorcerer who stored his soul in a mystical amulet, enabling him to be resurrected several times.
• Reality Warper: In the Spider-Man/Red Sonja crossover, he turns a significant portion of Manhattan into a medieval — or rather, Hyborean — city and transforms its citizens to suit that new reality.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Began as an enemy of Conan and Red Sonja, he became an enemy of Venom, and nowadays he's an enemy of the Savage Avengers.
• Soul Jar: He used an amulet, later made into a necklace as a phylactery.

Lord Ogre

Lord Ogre

First Appearance: Venom Vol. 2, #36

"You come looking for Lord Ogre... and you'll find him. But this is a careful-what-you-wish for scenario, see?"

Philadelphia's resident crime lord, who takes an exception to Agent Venom taking a bite out of his profits and places a bounty on his head. This sets off a chain reaction that leads to Andrea Benton becoming Mania and swearing revenge for the death of her father.

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• Ambiguously Brown: He has brown skin but his ethnicity isn't disclosed before he is killed.
• Badass Boast: When Mania cuts down his personal bodyguards, Ogre sneers at her and calls her a child wearing a mask.
• Bald of Evil: He's bald and a really nasty piece of work.
• Bullying a Dragon: When he meets Mania for the first time, he sneers at her and calls her a little girl hiding behind a mask, knowing full well she could eat him. He also does the same to Agent Venom, although with the added precaution of a buttload of high-calibre firepower.
• Create Your Own Hero: The bounty he places on Agent Venom attracts Jack O'Lantern, who kills Andi's father and tries to kill her. Flash accidentally turns her into Mania trying to protect her, and Andi swears revenge on Lord Ogre.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: He mocks Venom and Mania, both of whom are more than capable of eating him alive, to their faces.
• The Don: He's Philadelphia's number one crime lord, involved in everything from prostitution to drug running to human trafficking.
• Eaten Alive: He's partially-devoured by demons summoned by Master Mayhem.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The guy calls himself "Lord Ogre" and while he's not an actual ogre, he can be just as brutal.
• Oh, Crap!: When Mania is one claws-bredth away from killing him, he reveals he's rigged a biological weapon to go off if he dies. To his horror, she decides to call his bluff, reasoning her symbiote would protect her from the fallout.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: He's never seen without them, to the point where they appear to be fused to his face.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism: Installed a biological weapon powerful enough to devastate most of Philadelphia into his chest and rigged it to a dead man's switch, thinking it'd be enough to scare off assassins.
• Starter Villain: Served as one for Mania, as while he was a ruthless and cunning crime lord, he was only human and grossly outclassed by the likes of Crossbones and Master Mayhem.
• Taking You with Me: He installed a dead man's switch and a biological bomb so powerful he claims it would wipe out half of Philly into his chest, thinking it would prevent Mania from killing him.
• Tattooed Crook: He has a number of tattoos on his face.

The Maker

The Maker

Alter Ego: Reed Richards

First Appearance: Ultimate Fantastic Four Vol. 1 #1

The Ultimate universe incarnation of Reed Richards, he is every bit the pragmatic, sociopathic Mad Scientist that the regular Reed fears he could become. Reed takes an interest in Eddie and his symbiote on behalf of an organisation known as Project Oversight.

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For more on him, see The Maker

Mercurio

Mercurio

First Appearance: Thor Vol. 1, #204

When a freak space warp manifested near Gramos it altered the planet's polarity, making it so that only the extremes of the electromagnetic wavelengths could penetrate its atmosphere. As many Gramosians began to go mad and die due to this phenomenon, Mercurio volunteered to try and find a solution to the problem by venturing to Earth, the electromagnetic fields of which he decided to steal using power siphoned from Donald Blake's transformations into the Mighty Thor. While Mercurio eventually succeeded in finding alternative means of saving his homeworld, his adventures gave him a thirst for conquest that led him to become a ruthless warlord intent on establishing a galaxy-spanning Gramosian empire.

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• The Corrupter: He takes the Venom symbiote from Flash and bonds to it, corrupting it.
• I Have Your Wife: He's taken Pik Rollo's child hostage, forcing her to do his bidding.
• Space Pirates: He's a Gramosian space pirate who travels the galaxy enslaving species and disrupting planetary stability.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: According to Pik Rollo, his goal is to harvest energy for his homeworld, but his people are too pacifistic to go along with his extreme methods.
• You Don't Look Like You: Mercurio's appearance is completely different from his original appearance as the 4D Man in Thor.

Meridius

Meridius

Alter Ego: Eddie Brock

First Appearance: Venom (Vol. 5) #1 (November, 2021)

A future King in Black with a grudge against Eddie Brock.

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• Abusive Parents: He has no problem putting Dylan, his own son, through sheer hell to get what he wants. In fact, he's become so warped and twisted he doesn't see Dylan as his son in the first place.
• Big Bad: Meridius is the primary antagonist of Venom (Vol. 5), masterminding Eddie Brock's death and torturing Dylan Brock, the Venom symbiote, and his temporal counterparts/past selves.
• Blood Knight: While he projects a veneer of civility, Meridius revels in the opportunity to engage in senseless bloodshed while taking over the "Ringo" symbiote — and then kills it purely to spite Eddie.
• The Chessmaster: With a little tutelage from Kang the Conqueror, Meridius becomes a genius strategist and rigs a complicated time-loop to both ensure his own existence by systematically manipulating and breaking his past selves, and push the Venom symbiote to new levels of power so he can claim it for himself to escape his destiny of becoming the Eventuality.
• Didn't See That Coming: Despite being a time traveller, he's surprised by the events with Bedlam's Child, since it happened in a splinter timeline to his, showing there are things he didn't plan for.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Upon noticing Dylan's squalid living conditions, Meridius is disgusted and thinks to himself that — while he sees Dylan as nothing more than a pawn — Eddie especially deserves to die for abandoning his son to gallivant around the cosmos playing superhero.
• Evil Feels Good: He massacres a bunch of alien refugees Eddie had been trying to rescue just to destress from having to put up with Tyro's whining, and is revealed to have gleefully committed genocide on the Symbiote Hive to create the Garden of Time, noting that he's looking forward to gaslighting and torturing his temporal counterparts into insanity to ensure his own existence.
• Evil Is Petty: Takes over a symbiote and kills a bunch of refugees as stress relief, before delivering an ominous warning to Eddie for no other reason than to scare him a little.
• Evil Versus Evil: He's at war with some other, mysterious being. Issue #10 suggests this enemy could be the seventh future version of Venom, the one after him, while his attempt to claim Hellnir in Thor #28 suggests that it's Carnage.
• Fallen Hero: He was Eddie Brock, a long time ago. Eddie wonders in issue #18 if Meridius isn't simply a logical end result of how he treated the symbiotes upon becoming the King in Black, but Eventuality states he isn't. #29 reveals how he came to be and set up the time loop: As Eddie Brock he arrived in the Garden of Time, was tortured by Meridius into becoming Finnegan after trying and failing to escape the time loop, transformed into Bedlam as a result of Chasm erasing his memories, transformed into Wilde when his rage cooled while squatting in the ruins of the Renegades' bar, transformed into Tyro out of despair at Eddie ignoring his warnings, and was reborn as Meridius with help from Kang the Conqueror. Renouncing all attachments to his past, Meridius backstabbed Kang and then goaded him into helping commit genocide on the Symbiote Hive to create the Garden of Time—a trap and prison for his past selves to insure his own existence.
• False Friend:
  • Meridius pretends to be an ally of Eddie and the other Kings in Black in issue #5, but has such a hard time concealing his disdain for them that Eddie is disgusted and dismisses him as a jerk.
  • Tries it again when pretending to be Eddie in a team-up with Thor, but some of his normal attitude shines through, and Thor spots something amiss with his behavior.
  • #29 reveals that Kang the Conqueror helped him when he was Tyro... only for Meridius to turn on him the moment he decided Kang needed him more than he needed Kang. Kang, however, is more than pleased that the student has surpassed the teacher.
• Faux Affably Evil: Meridius is utterly contemptuous of everyone other than himself — especially Eddie Brock — but disguises his hatred behind a veneer of civility and courteousness. There are times where this mask accidentally or deliberately slips, such as when he snaps at Tyro or confronts Eddie while controlling "Ringo".
• Game Face: Since his body is comprised of symbiote matter, he's capable of sporting the trademark fangs and prehensile tongue when he so desires.
• Horned Humanoid: He typically appears as a masculine humanoid entity with jet-black skin, a white chest emblem and eyes, and multiple horns on his head.
• I Hate Past Me: Issue #10 reveals him to be Eddie Brock's future self, as well as the future selves of the other Kings in Black gathered at the Garden of Time — all of whom he treats with utter contempt.
• I Have Many Names: Issue #5 reveals that "Meridius" is just one of many aliases and guises he's taken over the milennia, one he intends to discard once he's gotten his hands on the Venom symbiote. Later issues reveal that Finnegan, Bedlam, Wilde, and Tyro are all past aliases he's taken, and that his real name is Eddie Brock.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: #29 shows that when he was Tyro he still wanted to save his son... but then an encounter with the Eventuality and realizing his fate as the King in Black terrified him enough to turn to Kang the Conqueror for help. Kang built up Tyro's confidence in exchange for being supplied with symbiote soldiers, teaching him how to master his time-travel powers... and when Tyro witnessed the Venom symbiote's ultimate form he came back to himself as Meridius—a callous, aloof sociopath who renounced everyone and everything Eddie Brock fought for and cared about. Determined to take the Venom symbiote's power for himself and use it to escape his own fate, he then goads Kang into helping him commit genocide on the Symbiote Hive, shapes its remains into the Garden of Time, and kicks the time-loop that created himself into motion.
• Kick the Dog: On first meeting Eddie, he claims the symbiotes in his garden are sleeping, though Eddie's suspicious since he can't sense any minds in there. Later on, he reveals he actually ate their brains.
• Manipulative Bastard: Meridius uses his time travel powers to manipulate Eddie Brock, Dylan Brock, the Venom symbiote, the Life Foundation, Alchemax, the Friends of Humanity, the Beyond Corporation, and other groups via the "Absent Throne" consortium, seeking to force the Venom symbiote to mutate and evolve before merging with it. When he meets with Eddie face-to-face, he manipulates him into believing he's an ally, and is revealed to have been trying to gaslight the other stranded Kings in Black into serving him.
• Mental Time Travel: As a King in Black, Meridius is capable of using the Symbiote Hive-Mind to time travel by projecting his consciousness into any symbiote that's ever existed. He uses this to set up a complex series of events to bring about Eddie Brock's death and the Venom symbiote's corruption and metamorphosis.
• Physical God: Like Eddie, he is a King in Black — making him a god of the symbiotes. And unlike Eddie he's had millennia to master his powers, declaring himself a Time Master.
• Puny Earthlings: While impersonating Eddie Brock in issue #5, Meridius inwardly overwrites Dylan Brock's speech bubbles with disdainful substitutions conveying just how contemptuous of humans he is.
• The Sociopath: Meridius is cunning and charismatic, but sees everyone around him — even the other Kings in Black — as pawns in a game of 4D chess he's playing with an unknown opponent — though he possesses a special hatred for Eddie Brock and goes out of his way to torment and troll him out of pure spite while using time-travel to ensure Dylan Brock witnesses Eddie's death. In issue #5, he reveals he's been trying to gaslight the other Kings in Black into serving him, and when he impersonates Eddie he fills in Dylan's speech bubbles with contemptuous notes.
• That Man Is Dead: In Venom (Vol. 5) #29, Meridius renounces all connections to his past self, dismissing Eddie Brock as "[a] caterpillar of a man" and cementing his turn to evil by gleefully committing genocide against the Symbiote Hive so he can shape their corpses into the Garden of Time.
• Tragic Monster: Meridius started out as Eddie Brock, wanting to escape the time loop he'd trapped himself in and return to his son, but due to the machinations of his own future self was gradually worn down until as Tyro he decided the only way to do so was to join the winning side and become Meridius. #29 reveals the circumstances of his ultimate downfall. Even as Tyro he still missed his son Dylan and wanted to keep him safe, but—terrified after learning of the true nature of the King in Black—he sought Kang the Conqueror's help to escape his fate. While Kang was able to help Tyro regain his confidence and sense of self, upon witnessing the Venom symbiote's apotheosis while attempting to check on Dylan, Tyro began coveting that power for himself and cast aside the remnants of his humanity to become the arrogant evil god Meridius: dismissing his own son as a brat only fit to be used as a pawn in his schemes, backstabbing Kang—who as Tyro he'd considered his only friend, committing genocide on the symbiotes to create the Garden of Time, and looking forward to breaking his past selves.
• Villain Takes an Interest: Meridius is attempting to force the Venom symbiote through a series of metamorphoses so that he can merge with it, and to this end has become the Man Behind the Man for the Life Foundation, Alchemax, the Friends of Humanity, and other villainous groups interested in symbiotes.
• You Can't Fight Fate: The Eventuality reveals no matter how hard Meridius tries to avoid becoming him, he will lose, but this doesn't stop him from trying—seeking to use the powers unlocked by the Venom symbiote bonding with Dylan Brock to unchain himself from destiny.

Pyre

Pyre

Alter Ego: Gray Russell

First Appearance: Venom: Funeral Pyre #1

"Turn me into a monster! Cripple me! It can't get much worse... Come on! Let's finish it!"

Gray Russell is a Californian reporter who becomes embroiled in the activities of the JADOO street gang when looking for a story. He got a message out to Venom telling him about how he'll have to kill some gang members as part of an initiation, but Venom was unable to help him and he killed the gang members in question — in the end, Gray gave himself superpowers, but hated Venom for not stopping him from doing so.

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• Amazing Technicolor Population: The machine that gives Pyre his abilities also turns his skin red.
• Continuity Nod: When Eddie, who had since become Anti-Venom, and the Punisher "team up" again in New Ways to Live, Castle repeatedly sneers that he hasn't changed since they last parted ways.
• Distinguishing Mark: A pink birthmark on the neck, which Venom uses to identify him.
• Immune to Bullets: They melt before they can reach him.
• Intrepid Reporter: Why Venom was so intent on helping him.
  Venom: We're all on the same side here. But you're blowing our quiet little rescue—of a fellow journalist undercover in a local gang.
• Man of Kryptonite: Pyre's mere presence causes Venom excruciating pain.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Punisher's interference really screwed Gray over. Except for the part where Frank tried to nullify Pyre's powers, and only succeeded in making them stronger.
• Not Quite Dead: As Venom and the Punisher leave the scene, coughs emanates from the rubble; Pyre's survival is confirmed in Civil War: Battle Damage Report.
• Rage Against the Reflection: While fighting Venom, Pyre catches sight of his reflection, and becomes even more enraged.

Scorpion/Venom III/Virus

Scorpion/Venom III/Virus

Alter Ego: Macdonald "Mac" Gargan

First Appearance: Amazing Spider-Man #19; Amazing Spider-Man #20 ^note As Scorpion; Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #10 ^note As Venom; Venom Vol. 4 #25 ^note As Virus

A fellow member of Spider-Man's Rogues Gallery, Mac Gargan as the Scorpion could in some ways be considered a precursor to Venom: an Evil Counterpart to Spidey who mainly held the edge with superior strength. Unlike Eddie, who in spite of his shakier performance when fighting people other than Spidey still had a respectable win-loss record and reputation, Mac was the epitome of a Super Loser and C-list fodder. After the Venom symbiote split with Eddie and briefly bonded with Angelo Fortunato, it eventually offered its power to Mac, who eagerly accepted it in the hopes of becoming "A-list" and finally killing Spider-Man.

After a stint as Venom defined by an increasing dependence on the symbiote, a feud with Brock-as-Anti-Venom, and increasingly cannibalistic tendencies, Mac and the Venom symbiote were separated by the US military following a failed siege on Asgard as a part of the Dark Avengers. Resuming his mantle as the Scorpion, Mac has since become a recurring foe of Venom's; having, among other things, tried to both kill and reclaim the Venom symbiote — which, post-Flash Thompson and Klyntar cleansing, wants nothing to do with Mac and ironically fears that he will corrupt it; joining the Anti-Symbiote Task Force in order to bond to the Venom symbiote's newborn offspring; and has talking trash about Venom in the Bar with No Name. Left a paraplegic during the events of Absolute Carnage, Gargan swore revenge on Venom and cobbled together a suit of War Machine armor jury-rigged with anti-symbiote weaponry, calling himself "Virus".

For info about his stint as Venom himself, see the Venom: Main Hosts page. For more on his general super-villain career, see Mac Gargan.

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Sin-Eater I & III

Sin Eater I

Alter Ego: Emil Gregg

First Appearance: Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #107

"I am the held breath awakened, reborn again unto the city. Lust, Gluttony, and Greed abound in this seething cesspool of lies and sin. The lies have many voices. The sins, many faces. I take form, and will. I know what must be done. I am the dark at the end of the light."

A man who contacted Eddie Brock claiming to be the Sin-Eater serial killer, but was seemingly exposed as a compulsive confessor. In the wake of Carnage's morality (or lack thereof) being altered by the events of AXIS, he was found to have died in a shantytown. A sin-eating demon that appeared at around the same time claimed to be Emil's ghost, dismissing Stan Carter as an imposter; and put the symbiote serial killer in his crosshairs after Cletus interfered with his mission to wipe out the press.

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• Anatomy of the Soul: After killing his victims, he sucks what he claims is all of the sin out of their souls, it taking the form of monstrous green apparitions.
• Back from the Dead: His corpse is discovered in a homeless camp, but he comes back as a sin-eating demon, and later as a minion for Carnage and Knull.
• Big Bad Ensemble: He and his neighbor Stan Carter independently acted as the Sin-Eater during The Death of Jean DeWolff. Since Stan was a detective working the case and had actual superhuman (or very nearly so) abilities he was seen as the primary threat and the true Sin-Eater, with Emil being regarded as just some lunatic driven to copy him by the sound of Stan's arguments with himself emanating from the adjoining apartment.
  Emil: It was the voices. I had to do it. Couldn't resist voices in the night. It was the voices... they said when and where. I didn't want to at first. I didn't think I had. But the people died. So it must have been me, right?
• Curtain Camouflage: He hides behind the curtains of Alice Gleason's apartment, but his shoes give him away. Not that it matters.
• Detect Evil: Apparently how he finds his victims. He states that Alice Gleason reeks of "sin, vainglory, selfishness and hubris".
• Dramatic Unmask: When the mask comes off, it's revealed that all that's underneath it is a skull.
  Chris Rollins: Oh, God... what are you?
• Evil Overlooker: On the cover◊ of Axis: Carnage #3
• Face Framed in Shadow: Was almost always shown only in the shadows in Dark Origin.
• Healing Factor: He regrows his skeletal head within seconds of Carnage destroying it.
• Jack the Ripoff: When Carter is brought up, this guy claims to be the true Sin-Eater, asserting that "the imposter" is still dead. Alice later realizes that Emil Greg was the original after all and Eddie Brock was right all along.
• Malevolent Masked Men: Follows the Sin-Eater tradition of wearing a ski mask.
• Nightmare Face: The last thing◊ Chris Rollins sees before he dies.
• No Body Left Behind: After Gregg is resurrected by Carnage and Knull, Eddie beats his reanimated corpse into dust.
• Only a Flesh Wound: Appeared to have been shot to death by the mother of one Engelschwert's victims in Sinner Takes All, but years later was revealed to have survived... only to die alone in a shantytown.
• Our Demons Are Different: Cletus starts seeing him as the◊ Devil◊.
• Phlebotinum Overload: Absorbing all of Carnage's repressed evil gave him a power and size boost... and quickly overwhelmed him, causing him to explode and be reduced to a withered corpse.
• Room Full of Crazy: The walls of his lair are covered in religious graffiti and stuff pertaining to the original Sin-Eater case.
• Serial Killer: He was a religious psychopath who targets those with "sin".
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Sin-Eaters love shotguns.
• Skull for a Head: As a demon he's very Ghost Rider-esque, though instead of being Wreathed in Flames he has a Sickly Green Glow. When he's wearing his mask, however, he appears to have skin and eyes.
• Token Motivational Nemesis: He contacted Eddie Brock and confessed to being the Sin-Eater. Spider-Man catching Stan Carter wearing the trademark green balaclava seemingly discredited Eddie and led to his humiliation, but it turns out he was right all along.
• Unknown Rival:
  Carnage: I'm coming for you, Alice! And you too, Green Ski Mask Guy!
• Would Hurt a Child: Once resurrected by Knull, he kidnaps a bunch of kids in order to sacrifice them to Knull as a gift.
• Your Head A-Splode: Carnage makes the Sin-Eater shoot himself in the head, and leaves before he notices it reassembling.

Sin Eater III

Alter Ego: Michael G. Engelschwert

First Appearance: Venom: Sinner Takes All #1

Venom: Hear those voices yet, Sin-Muncher? Hear them going tweet tweet tweet?

Sin Eater: All I hear is the voice of the Lord... and it is the sound of sweet thunder!

A Gulf War veteran, the mentally fractured Michael G. Engelschwert was left homeless after the conflict and came to reside in a shelter, where he frequently bunked with Emil Gregg, the unstable man who had confessed to being the serial killer known as the Sin-Eater to Eddie Brock. Emil's nonstop religious rants wormed their way into Mike's mind, and he took up the mantle of the Sin-Eater, being even deadlier than his predecessor Stan Carter.

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• Ax-Crazy: More so than Stan Carter, who had a Mask of Sanity.
• Badass Longcoat: Allowing for easy firearm concealment.
• Badass Normal: Has no special powers or gear, just lots and lots of guns.
• Big Bad Ensemble: With Kirsten's mother in Sinner Takes All.
• Church Militant: He's even a former soldier.
• Crazy Homeless People: With exposure to other mentally ill vagrants making him worse.
• Disney Villain Death: Is tackled out a window after activating his explosive vest.
• Evil Overlooker: On the cover◊ of Sinner Takes All #1.
• Evil Versus Evil: Exterminates a group of militants, and gets into a fight with and is fatally shot by a crazy woman who has a grudge against Venom.
• Faking the Dead: He switches clothes with a hostage, and tricks Venom into killing the captive.
• Felony Misdemeanor: Makes it clear he's targeting Ann simply because she's a lawyer◊.
• Frame-Up: Leaves Sin-Eater gear under Emil's cot, which leads to him being arrested, and later killed by the mother an officer Mike had earlier murdered.
• Goggles Do Nothing: He sometimes wears red ones.
• The Heavy: While he and Kristen's mother share the villain role in Sinner Takes All, the latter only becomes involved halfway through the series, whereas Mike is the main threat, and there from start to finish.
• Irony: Crazy old Emil Gregg was driven to try and become the Sin Eater by Stan Carter's conversations with himself, which he could hear through the walls of the apartment building they both lived in. Later, crazy old Michael Engelschwert was driven to become the Sin-Eater by Emil Gregg's conversations with himself, which he could hear in the homeless shelter they both lived in.
• It's Personal: Nearly kills Eddie's ex-wife, Ann. Venom is also just plain happy to take on the Sin-Eater, even if it isn't Stan Carter or Emil Gregg.
  Venom: Here's one for you—'Exclusive! Sin-Eater Revealed!' Eddie Brock, Alter Ego—Venom!"
• Jack the Ripoff: Of Stan Carter, the second Sin-Eater.
• Mad Bomber: Wears an explosive vest, and attempts to blow up the New York Stock Exchange.
• Make Way for the New Villains: Is introduced blowing away the man responsible for the Carnage Unleashed! game from the storyline of the same name.
• Malevolent Masked Men: A reddish-pink balaclava, as opposed to the green one (which he does have on the covers) worn by Stan Carter.
• Mysterious Middle Initial: What could it stand for?
• One-Man Army: In the Gulf War, and against the authorities, up to and including SWAT teams.
• Real Men Wear Pink: His mask is kind of... pinkish.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Why he became indigent.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: His main weapon is a shotgun.
• Sole Survivor: He was the only survivor of a Black Hawk crash in the Gulf War. After the airplane went down, he managed to slaughter an entire troop of enemy soldiers by himself before being found.
• Talkative Loon: Speaks almost entirely in Bible quotes.
• Taking You with Me: Dying from being shot, Mike decides to blow himself and everyone else present up. Mixed with a bizarre instance of Pet the Dog:
  Mike: ... But I can save you all! I am about to enter the kingdom, and I can take you all with me!
• Throw Down the Bomblet: Nearly kills Venom with tons of thermite and white phosphorus grenades.
• Walking Arsenal: Including anti-tank weaponry.

Symbiote Slayers

Symbiote Slayers

First Appearance: Venom Vol. 2, #32

"C-can't stop us. The adaptation matrix is in our bloodstream. The lethality equation... changing us!"

Four biomechanical alien parasites, the Symbiote Slayers were discovered by Vector, who had them implanted in an unnamed man who later escaped. Driven to cannibalism by them, their host came into conflict with Agent Venom, who attempted to get the man to surrender in order for a cure to be found.

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• Body Horror: When they enter combat mode, the results are not pretty.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: And your flesh, and your sanity. It's hard not to feel sorry for their victims.
• Eaten Alive: Their original host and one of the Symbiote Slayers were eaten by Toxin. They attempted to return the favor, but were stopped by Venom.
• Eating Machine: They're carnivorous cybernetic organisms.
• Expy: They're quite similar to the Stalkers from the earlier Venom miniseries Nights of Vengeance.
• Healing Factor: They can repair minor damage to their hosts.
• Mechanical Lifeforms: They appear to be biomechanical.
• Mechanical Monster: They are a cybernetic equivalent of the symbiotes.
• No Name Given: The hosts are all anonymous.
• "Not So Different" Remark: When trying to get the symbiote slayers' original host to calm down, Agent Venom says he knows what it's like to play host to a ravenous extraterrestrial predator and that if he can control the Venom symbiote than the Symbiote Slayers' host can control them. It worked... until Toxin showed up and ate the Symbiote Slayers' host to prove a point to Agent Venom.
• Puppeteer Parasite: They take over their host in much the same way symbiotes do.
• Reluctant Monster: Their original host didn't want to kill and eat people. The metal monsters attached to his back made him do it.
• Robo Speak: They communicate in this manner, and judging by the font they use Machine Monotone and Computer Voice apply as well.
• Robot Me: They have a lot in common with the symbiotes.
• Sole Survivor: One of them was revealed to have survived, but nothing's come of it since.
• Starfish Robots: When not bonded to a host they are a mass of segmented tendrils with blades poking out.
• To Serve Man: They have a taste for human flesh.
• Would Hurt a Child: They attack the high school where Flash works looking for Venom.
• Unwilling Roboticisation: Its safe to say their hosts didn't volunteer to be turned into ravenous cyborg zombies.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: One of the symbiote slayers escaped, and hasn't been seen or heard from since. Cullen Bunn intended to resolve the various plot holes in Venom Vol. 3, but it was cancelled before it was even started.

Tel-Kar

Tel-Kar

First Appearance: Venom: First Host #1

A Kree soldier who fought during the The Kree/Skrull War, Tel-Kar was the Venom symbiote's self-proclaimed first host. Initially a noble soldier, Tel-Kar was betrayed and turned over to the Skrull. Years of being tortured left him vengeful and cruel — obsessed with reclaiming his symbiote and committing genocide against the Skrull.

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• Beat Them at Their Own Game: He took a leaf out of the Skrull playbook by using his symbiote's shapeshifting abilities to disguise himself as one of them.
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Tel-Kar loyally served the Kree Empire during the Kree/Skrull War, and for his trouble was branded a traitor by Ronan the Accuser and turned over to the Skrull Empire, who spent years torturing him. While he can conjure a facade of his old noble self, he's become bitter, cruel, and genocidally vengeful.
• Collapsible Helmet: Due to his helmet being formed of the symbiote's biomass, he can retract and reform it at will.
• Fallen Hero: Tel-Kar was a supersolder during the Kree-Skrull War who sacrificed everything for his people, and was repaid with betrayal, imprisonment, and torture. This left him angry, embittered, and genocidal.
• Lobotomy: In the final issue of Venom: First Host, the Sleeper symbiote bonds to Tel-Kar and lobotomizes him as payback for what he did to the Venom symbiote.
• Retcon: The 2018 Venom: First Host miniseries establishes him as the Venom symbiote's first host, despite Venom: Space Knight having already established the symbiote's original host as a genocidal maniac who used it to wipe out his homeworld. First Host explains this by revealing that the symbiote's memories of Tel-Kar were suppressed until they reunited, and that the genocidal alien from Space Knight was its second host.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: He wants to carry out a genocide against the Skrull as revenge for the Kree-Skrull War, and can't understand why the other Kree don't want to help him. After Venom and Sleeper stop him, he decides to wipe out humanity with the last sample of the Skrull bioweapon.
• Super-Soldier: He was a Kree soldier and veteran of the Kree-Skrull war, using the symbiote's shapeshifting abilities to spy on the Skrull.
• Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: Tel-Kar sets himself up as an ally to Eddie Brock by helping saving him from a Skrull, only to blackmail him into relinquishing the Venom symbiote by threatening the Venom symbiote's latest offspring.
• Would Hurt a Child: He issues Venom the ultimatum of the symbiote returning to him, threatening to bond to and corrupt its latest offspring if it refuses.

The Xenophage

The Xenophage

First Appearance: Venom: The Hunted #1

"I must say that my sojourn on your little blue planet has been a quite a little gastronomic adventure-and comparatively trouble-free! Why, up until now, the local authorities didn't even know I existed!"

A monstrous yet highly intelligent race of extraterrestrials, the Xenophages prey on symbiotes, and presumably originate from the same galaxy as them. In the aftermath of Planet of the Symbiotes, an unnamed member of the species travels to Earth to devour the surviving invaders, bringing him into conflict with Scream (who he captures) and Venom (who is blamed for his killing spree).

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• Always a Bigger Fish: He's assumed to have eaten all of the surviving invaders (and their hosts) left over from Planet of the Symbiotes.
• Aliens Speaking English: No explanation is given for his fluent English.
• Brain Food: Goes for the brain first, which is why Venom is blamed for all the deaths.
• Combat Tentacles: His entire lower half is composed of these.
• Cool Starship: It's Bigger on the Inside, can shrink down to the size of a football without harming the occupants, travel to other dimensions, and track symbiotes anywhere.
• The Dreaded: Instinctively feared by symbiotes.
• Feed It a Bomb: Venom creates a fake head containing a grenade, and tricks the Xenophage into biting it.
• Feel No Pain: "My exoskeleton is not equipped with pain receptors... unlike your face!"
• Food Chain of Evil: A symbiote predator.
• Hungry Menace: While obviously sentient, he doesn't care about anything but his next meal.
• Hammerspace: Where he tucked away Scream.
• Lean and Mean: His bottom half is nothing but tentacles, while his abdomen is skeletal with Creepily Long Arms.
• Lightning Bruiser: Very agile, despite his size.
• Meaningful Name: Roughly translated, it means "alien devourer".
• Monster of the Week: The villain of Venom: The Hunted.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: The Xenophage sports a gristly maw lined with enormous fangs, just like his snacks.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Nothing could lay a scratch on his exoskeleton.
• No Name Given: His actual name (if he had one) is unrevealed, so he's just called "the Xenophage" or simply "the Phage".
• The Paralyzer: He can temporarily disable symbiotes with his spit, turning them into dead weight for their hosts. Eddie compares getting doused to being put in a straitjacket.
• Starfish Aliens: A gangly monster with an ornate golden face and mandibles, a body made up mostly of fur and tentacles, and the ability to perfectly emulate inanimate objects down to the finest detail.
• Super Spit: It's an incendiary neurotoxin that paralyzes symbiotes, and enhances their taste.
• Tentacle Rope: Scream is entangled in them for most of the story.
• To Serve Man: While he feeds on symbiotes, he is able to sustain himself on humans, and presumably other beings.
• Traintop Battle: The final battle takes place on top of a subway train.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Able to flawlessly mimic a cabinet, complete with fine China.
• Would Hurt a Child: Attempts to eat some kids who try to help Venom and Scream.
  Scream: What do you want with those kids? I thought you only ate symbiote brains!
  Xenophage: It's what I prefer, but any cerebral cortex will do in a pinch! In fact, I could do with a snack just about now...

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