It was a great tragedy a few weeks ago when contract negotiations broke down between Disney and Sony and the latter corporation withdrew Spider-Man from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While it is a shame that everybody’s favorite web-slinging super-teen won’t be rubbing shoulders with Earth’s mightiest heroes anymore, there is a lucrative opportunity for Sony to introduce Spidey into their own cinematic universe.
The plan is to integrate Tom Holland’s Peter Parker into the same universe populated by Tom Hardy’s Venom. They’re a compelling pair in the comics. So, here are 10 Things We Hope To See In Sony’s Inevitable Spider-Man/Venom Team-Up.
Banter
Spider-Man is famously one of the most talkative characters in the Marvel Comics universe. When he’s taking down a villain, he’ll launch quips at them and engage in lighthearted banter while he’s fighting them. The MCU has nailed this so far, with moments like Spidey asking Bucky about his metal arm or making fun of the ATM robbers wearing Avengers masks.
Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock already has an ongoing rapport with the Venom symbiote, so it’ll be fun to see Peter Parker thrown into the mix, getting in on the banter. Getting Spidey and Venom’s dialogue right will be key in this on-screen team-up.
Spidey rejects the symbiotes at first
In the comics, the reason why some incarnations of the Venom character really hate Spider-Man and refuse to make peace with him or be his friend is that the symbiotes have been around for millions of years and Peter Parker is the only lifeform they ever came across that resisted their charms.
Unlike Tobey Maguire’s version of Peter, Tom Holland’s version is exactly the kind of effortlessly good-hearted Peter Parker that would be able to reject the symbiotes’ advances. So, it would be fun (and true to the character) to include this in any potential big-screen team-up involving Spidey and Venom.
Peter Parker in the symbiote suit
Having said that, it would be great to see Peter Parker in the symbiote suit. Spidey’s symbiote suit has a bad reputation, thanks to Spider-Man 3 totally botching it and using the symbiotes to turn Peter into a tangoing emo.
However, the team behind Tom Holland’s Spider-Man stories hasn’t steered us wrong yet, taking tricky premises like Peter leaving New York or setting a sequel in a post-apocalyptic world and pulled it off, so there’s no doubt that they could do the symbiote suit and Spidey’s adventures in it justice on the big screen. The wrongs of Spider-Man 3 deserve to be righted.
Eddie Brock profiling Peter Parker
Assuming that Sony’s Marvel Universe will pick up from Spider-Man: Far From Home’s big plot twist, a way to get Eddie Brock and Peter Parker together has conveniently presented itself. Spider-Man’s secret identity has just been revealed to the world and he’s a shy, mild-mannered teenage kid from Queens.
For a journalist like Eddie Brock, that would be quite the scoop. So, it would be fun to see Eddie profile Peter and build a relationship with him that way, occasionally fighting alongside him as Venom, arguing with Venom about whether or not to kill him. It would be a great way to establish their relationship and also explore it.
Spider-Man and Venom making a truce
“Lethal Protector,” easily the most popular Venom storyline from the comics, begins with Spider-Man and Venom making a truce: they’ll leave each other alone along as Venom doesn’t commit any crimes. This leads into a storyline where the father of one of Venom’s victims gets together a superpowered posse to kill him, leaving Venom with no choice but to spring back into action.
If the Spidey/Venom team-up movie ended with the pair making this pact to stay out of each other’s business, setting up a big-screen adaptation of “Lethal Protector” – the storyline that controversially turned Venom from a villain into an antihero – as a future Venom movie.
Symbiotes attached to Flash Thompson
This will depend on whether or not Spidey’s supporting characters are able to follow him over from the MCU. The Flash Thompson introduced into Jon Watts’ movies is a lot different than the beefcake jock from the comics. However, one characteristic is faithful to the source material: he mercilessly bullies Peter Parker, yet he idolizes Spider-Man, without realizing they’re one and the same.
Now that Peter’s identity has been revealed, among many other things, Flash will be insanely jealous of his powers. In the comics, Flash became paired with symbiotes and became Agent Venom. The new Flash has been shown to have a rich dad. Maybe his dad can have a stake in Carlton Drake’s company and get his hands on some symbiotes to give a jealous Flash superpowers.
A buddy cop tone
The tone of any Spider-Man/Venom team-up should be like that of a buddy cop movie, with a pair of mismatched protagonists with differing ideologies butting heads with one another and having to learn to unite and work towards a shared goal.
Spider-Man and Venom’s relationship – if they’re introduced as a partnership fighting a common enemy and not as a black-and-white hero/villain dynamic – should be that of a bickering detective duo, similar to Riggs and Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon franchise or Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin in Midnight Run, a lot like the Marvel Studios team are doing with their upcoming Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
Battling Carnage together
Carnage has been set up for an appearance in the Venom sequel, and fighting Carnage is a great way to team up Venom and Spider-Man, but if there’s a lesson to be learned from Batman v Superman, it’s that Sony should focus on nailing Venom 2 and integrating Spidey into that universe with another solo movie before rushing into the team-up. Carnage is the ultimate Venom villain, so Venom 2 shouldn’t waste him.
What it can do is show him as a villain too powerful for Venom to defeat. He can win at the end of Venom 2. Then, Spider-Man will find that he can’t defeat Carnage alone either. This will force Spidey and Venom to reluctantly team up. Villains with multi-movie arcs are practically missing from today’s superhero movie landscape and they need a comeback.
Eddie Brock being just as irresponsible as Peter Parker
Whenever Peter Parker has been teamed up with an adult before, whether it’s Iron Man or Nick Fury (or so we thought) or Happy Hogan, it’s always been about Peter’s immaturity. The adult is always more responsible than him and that’s where their dynamic comes from.
What can make his relationship with Eddie Brock different is that, despite Eddie being twice Peter’s age, he’s similarly irresponsible, similarly unprepared to have superpowers, and his life is similarly in complete disarray. Eddie isn’t really ready to be anyone’s mentor, so it’ll be a fun twist to see him take the mentor role in a Spider-Man movie.
Spidey fighting Venom
Any big-screen team-up of Spider-Man and Venom – even if it eventually ends with the two uniting forces against an even greater villain – should have them squaring off in physical combat. We’ve seen them fight on the big screen before, but the monstrosity played by Topher Grace in Spider-Man 3 didn’t really feel like Venom.
If Tom Holland’s Spidey and Tom Hardy’s Venom go toe to toe in a fight in a Sony-verse team-up, we’d have an emotional investment with each of them. We know that Hardy’s Eddie Brock doesn’t want to kill anyone and Holland’s Peter Parker is, deep down, just a frightened kid. It’ll add an interesting layer to the spectacle.
