Venom and Eddie Brock’s queerest moments: ‘Watch the teeth’
Venom is a very queer-coded anti-hero. (YouTube/ShortClips/Sony Pictures)
The official trailer for Venom: The Last Dance has been released and, with it, a reminder that the maniacal symbiote is pretty queer-coded.
In the trailer, which dropped on Monday (3 June), Eddie Brock and his alien parasite, both played by Tom Hardy, conclude the Sony Pictures trilogy in a madcap action-thriller, which is due to arrive in cinemas on 25 October.
Not only have the previous two films been as queer as their comic source material, but the new instalment’s tagline is “till death do they part,” which is about as queer-coded as you can get.
Here are just a few more examples of Eddie and Venom being the bizarre LGBTQ+ power couple we know and love.
Venom tells Eddie it loves him
Ask any avid Venom fan and they will tell you that the sinister symbiote and his host have shown affection for each other so many times over the decades that it’s difficult to pinpoint every moment.
None were so tragically beautiful, however, as the touching scene between Venom and Eddie during the sixth issue of the comic book Venom, where the alien tells its host that it loves him.
Following an intense battle with Knull – the god of darkness and the creator of the symbiotes – and a symbiotic dragon known as the Grendel, Venom and Eddie are locked in a blast furnace along with the fire-breathing monster in order to destroy it.
Try as it might to protect Eddie and itself, Venom has undergo the greatest sacrifice to destroy the Grendel and protect its host. In the final panel, Eddie lies on the floor in pain as the symbiote spews from his mouth and on to the ground, where it dies.
But not before saying: “I’m sorry, Eddie… I should have told you… I love you, Eddie.”
The entirety of 2021’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage
The sequel to the 2018 Venom – mauled by some critics but which grossed more than $856 million (about £670 million), Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) is many things: wild, unhinged and, to some, terrible – but still queer-coded.
Even before its release, the film was described by director Andy Serkis as a “love affair” that features a “coming out party” for Venom.
“The film is a love story but not the love story you might think,” Serkis said. “It’s very much about the extraordinary relationship between symbiote and host.”
Indeed, the theming was incredibly queer, reflecting the chaos of Eddie and Venom’s relationship in the comics.
In a blog post on community column website, The Bubble, Magali O’Brien wrote that Venom’s experiences in the film are “intensely queer-coded” and that Eddie speaks to many LGBTQ+ people “who know the struggle of being kept a secret”.
The time Venom and Eddie were intimate
Yes, you read that right. Venom and Eddie have bonded in more ways than one. The pair consummated their physical relationship in a 2019 issue of Marvel Comics Presents.
Following a brief story about Eddie’s need to stay awake after the parasite begins to hunger for brains yet again, the pair bicker over whether the symbiote can be trusted to let its host sleep.
The mood begins to shift after Venom delves into Eddie’s dreams, saying it can “feel every dirty curve of Eddie’s intentions”.
It then offers to show him “beautiful horrors” and “terror and desire intertwined” and asks Eddie if he want his heartbeat to “go faster.”
The comic panel then fades to black as Eddie says: “Watch the teeth.” We’ll let you decide what happens from there.
Venom re-bonds with Eddie in the queerest way possible
Venom and Eddie’s more-than-platonic relationship isn’t a modern twist. The pair have been coyly showing their true feelings for each other as far back as 1996, in issue three of Venom: The Hunger.
During a period in which the symbiote went rogue and began eating innocent civilians, Eddie used his mental link to find the creature to try tame it – or kill it, if necessary.
After an intense battle, Eddie manages to subdue Venom with sound emitters and, quite literally, the power of love.
In order to stop the alien, Eddie uses a canister of a neurotransmitter called phenethylamine to subdue it and re-bond.
“I’d never heard of phenethylamine before,” Eddie says. “Turns out it’s one of the neuro-chemicals that govern emotion. Your brain makes more of it when you’re in love.”
After giving Venom the love it needs to re-bond with him, Eddie embraces its body and says: “Shh… It’s OK, I won’t let it happen again. I promise.”
Venom: The Last Dance is due to be released on 25 October.
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