Venom

Venom
The first and most famous Venom, Eddie Brock, is a reporter for the Daily Globe before it comes to light that he has fabricated a story revealing the identity of the Sin-Eater. Shortly after the story was published, Spider-Man catches the real Sin-Eater, disgracing Brock as a news reporter and costing him his job and then his wife. Now writing for cheap gossip magazines, Brock centers his frustration on utter loathing of Spider-Man, which only escalates when it is revealed that Brock has cancer. In response to this news, Brock begins working out, bringing his body to levels of amazing athletic performance.[15] Still unable to cope with his misfortune, Brock contemplates suicide and goes to a church to pray for forgiveness. Meanwhile, the Symbiote, having recovered and needing another human host in order to survive, finds itself psychically attracted to Brock for both his increased adrenaline and mutual hatred for Spider-Man.

In The Amazing Spider-Man #298, they formed into the first version of the dark, villainous creature known as Venom. Venom first appeared at the end of issue #299, which led into the first Venom story in issue #300. The name Venom originally applied to Brock, rather than the Symbiote—which Brock refers to as his "Other". Over the years, as the Symbiote gained more intelligence and moved to additional human hosts, the name began to apply to the Symbiote as well as its hosts. As Venom, Brock fights Spider-Man many times, winning on several occasions. Venom repeatedly tries to kill Peter Parker/Spider-Man—both when the latter was in and out of costume. Thus Parker is forced to abandon his "black costume," which the Symbiote had been mimicking, after Venom confronts Parker's wife Mary Jane.[16]

Even incarceration in The Vault, a prison for super villains, doesn't stop Venom from escaping to torment Spider-Man and his family.[17] [18] The Symbiote is finally rendered comatose after being subdued by Styx's plague virus, and Eddie Brock is subsequently placed in Ryker's Island Prison.[19] When the Symbiote recovers and returns to free Brock, it leaves a spawn to bond with Brock's psychotic serial-killer cellmate Cletus Kasady, the beginning of Carnage.[20] Meanwhile, Venom and Spider-Man fight on a deserted island, and Spider-Man strands Venom there after faking his own death.[21] Soon after, however, Spider-Man brings Venom back to New York in order to stop Carnage's killing spree.[22] After being incarcerated once again, Venom is used to create five new Symbiotes, which are all paired with human hosts.[23]

As well as helping Eddie Brock to seek continued revenge against Spider-Man, the Symbiote also aids Brock in a sporadic career as a vigilante. He and the Symbiote occasionally share a desire to protect innocent people from harm, even if it means working side-by-side with the hated Spider-Man. This is especially true when Venom combats the entity he believes to be his spawn, Carnage. When Spider-Man helps Venom save Brock's ex-wife Ann Weying, the two make a temporary truce, though this falls apart after Weying's suicide.[24] [25]

The symbiote is temporarily stolen by U.S. Senator Steward Ward—who hopes to better understand his own alien infection by researching the symbiote—before it returns to Brock.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-25" style="line-height: 1em; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; ">[26] Now, however, it dominates its host, Brock, rather than vice versa.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-26" style="line-height: 1em; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; ">[27] Eventually, Eddie Brock and the Symbiote go their separate ways as the Symbiote grows tired of having a diseased host and Eddie rejects its growing bloodlust, leading him to sell the Symbiote at a super villain auction.