Venom: The fallen-away Catholic who gets possessed by evil

When I was growing up in the early 1990s, American television was going through an animation renaissance. From the art deco-influenced Batman: The Animated Series to Disney’s gothic Gargoyles and Marvel’s dazzling X-Men, the cartoons of the 90s managed to be both wildly entertaining and thematically deep. Unlike the Hanna-Barbera cartoons of yesteryear (delightful though they were), this new batch of animated series were delved eagerly into surprisingly mature themes in the midst of what was otherwise kid-friendly storytelling. One such series was Spider-Man, which premiered in 1994 and introduced the titular wall-crawler and his menagerie of foes to a new generation of fans.

Of all the villains that our hero faced, one fan favorite was Venom, a toothy and muscle-bound villain (and later anti-hero) with a vendetta against Spider-Man that was more personal than the web-slinger’s usual adversaries. In the three-part episode The Alien Costume, a sentient extraterrestrial called a symbiote is brought to earth, where its black goo-like body attaches itself to Peter Parker, who has coincidentally just decided to hang up his costume for good. The symbiote’s biology merges with him, and Spidey awakens dangling from a building in a new black-and-white costume.

Spider-Man soon discovers that this sentient costume has granted him even greater strength than before, which he soon puts to use against some hapless criminal elements. But when he realizes that the alien is slowly trying to take control of his mind and will, Spider-Man retreats into the bell tower of a church, where the ringing of the bells drives the sound-sensitive alien away. Believing the threat to be over at last, Spidey leaves the wounded extraterrestrial writhing within the church.

And this is where the alien finds Eddie Brock.

An unscrupulous journalist for the same newspaper where Peter Parker works, the Daily Bugle, Brock is down on his luck and out of a job after being caught framing Spider-Man for crimes he didn’t commit. When the symbiote comes across Brock in the church, it also finds in him a much more willing — and vengeful — host. The two bond, and the super-villain known as Venom is born.

While the Alien Costume series of episodes is remarkable for many reasons, it unfortunately dials down on some aspects of Venom’s character that Catholic readers would find especially intriguing. In the comic version, for example, Eddie Brock narrates the origins of Venom as follows:

“…And I decided to end it all. But I was raised Catholic, and suicide is a mortal sin. So I wandered from church to shadowed church, praying for forgiveness. Then, at Our Lady of Saints, something . . . odd happened. A shadow moved. Caressed me. I was joined. But this was a shadow filled with light. It clarified my anguish, focused my purpose, its hatred for you [Spider-Man] matched my own. It knew who you were. And it had power. Oh, such power! We found the woman first [i.e., Mary Jane Watson, Peter Parker/Spider-Man’s girlfriend]. Later we found your empty apartment. You were running from us. But this was a shadow filled with light. It clarified my anguish, focused my purpose. Its hatred for you matched my own.” – Source: Tom DeFalco, Spider-Man: The Ultimate Guide, Dorling Kindersley: New York, NY (2001), page 120.

Perhaps deemed too dark for the target audience of the animated series, Brock’s monologue here is arresting in its portrayal of the inner logic of a troubled mind.

It also represents a frightening reversal of the proper Catholic response to suffering.

Unlike the triumphant Jungian shadow-self portrayal of Venom in director Ruben Fleischer’s recent film starring Tom Hardy (something I wrote about over at the Catholic Business Journal), the Venom of the original comics reads as something resembling an experience of demonic possession. We can even detect shades of this theme in Topher Grace’s portrayal of Brock in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, where Brock kneels in a church and tearfully prays to God for the death of Peter Parker.

I’m a big fan the antiheroic portrayal of Venom in his newest film incarnation, but I also wonder if audiences have missed out on an important lesson in the transition away from Eddie Brock’s spiritual sickness. Over and above his immediate hatred for both Spider-Man and Peter Parker, what seems to plague Eddie the most is his belief that he should avoid suffering at all cost. He lies, cheats, plants evidence, and fabricates stories all for the ultimate purpose of maximizing his own comfort — his own sensual pleasure, if you will. While this works out for him in the short term, in the long term it leads him farther and farther down a long road to chaos. In the end, one can argue that he is particularly vulnerable to the symbiote’s “possession” only because he has already made a living Hell of his life.

Furthermore, Brock’s rage at his own suffering and his dishonest attempts to negate it are the opposite of Spider-Man’s famous creed: “With great power comes great responsibility.” We see Peter Parker embrace his cross by committing himself daily to the common good. Time and again he puts himself in danger to protect the innocent in the face of nigh-insurmountable odds, all the while being libeled and scolded by the powers that be. Then, at the end of each day, he humbly returns home to rest before recommitting himself to his tasks, knowing full well that order and peace are possible only when we freely chose to make personal sacrifices.

Perhaps Venom’s popularity can be explained by the familiarity of his temptations. All too often we may find ourselves relating more easily to the selfishness and wrath of Eddie Brock than to the virtuous self-sacrifice of Spider-Man. But when we do, we can meditate on these words from Blessed Sebastian Valfre:

“When it is all over you will not regret having suffered; rather you will regret having suffered so little, and suffered that little so badly.”