WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Venom: Let There Be Carnage, now playing in theaters.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage has proven that the Sony Spider-Man Universe is still alive and well, with fans loving Eddie (Tom Hardy) and Venom's latest outing. What makes the movie so engaging is the inclusion of long-time Spider-Man villain Cletus Kasady, aka Carnage (Woody Harrelson). During the film, he wrecks all sorts of havoc across San Francisco and cooks up an insane plan to get revenge on everyone that has wronged him and his loved ones. That being said, while he's a genuinely deadly foe to face, his character suffers from a problem that has been seen in early comic book movies and early Marvel Cinematic Universe entries.
Venom 2 ends with a violent no-holds-barred battle between Venom and Carnage, ending with the Carnage symbiote and Cletus being devoured by Venom. While his fate works for the story, it leaves a void that future sequels will now have to fill. Without Venom's arch-nemesis, there are few villains for the symbiote to face. This issue was shown in most of the early Spider-Man films, with enemies like the Green Goblin and Doc Ock not surviving their first outings. This trend continued even in Iron Man and Thor: The Dark World with Iron Monger and Malekith.
Without consistent or stronger enemies to lean on, there's no real challenge for the hero to face. So while defeating the enemy shows how strong they are in comparison, it also stagnates the hero because they have nothing to overcome. As a result, they can't grow or get stronger so that they can be prepared for whatever new threat comes their way. Luckily, there is a way Sony could get ahead of this problem before it gets out of hand, allowing for longer-lasting enemies in the future.
Venom doesn't have as many rogues as Spider-Man, but he makes up for what he lacks in quantity with deadlier villains. A great example of this is Knull, the God of the symbiotes. His presence is on par with Thanos in the MCU, and his ability to control all symbiotes makes him a major threat to Eddie and Venom. Leading up to his appearance by having acolytes attack and warn of his return could be a great way to tease his eventual arrival. Moreover, it could allow him to appear on more than one occasion, as he did in the comics, to test the lethal protectors.
In the meantime, more symbiotes or even lower-tier Spider-Man villains could appear to fill in the gap left by Carnage. With symbiote enemies coming to warn of Knull, audiences could meet even more characters like Scream and the other Life Foundation symbiotes. More enemies could also appear from Ravencroft, the same place that Shriek (Naomie Harris) was being kept. With so much untapped potential, these characters could appear multiple times and help maintain their enemies rather than kill them.
Venom is a unique character that needs constant opposition to grow stronger both physically and symbiotically. With characters like Carnage consistently being killed, Eddie and Venom will never grow. By having the threat of Knull or other foes constantly appearing to test the duo, Venom could always have a challenge. Not to mention other properties like Morbius could also include more enemies that may crossover in the future. As a result, the Sony Spider-Man Universe could easily avoid the same issue that plagued early MCU films by always having more threats in its back pocket.
Check out Carnage's rampage in Venom: Let There Be Carnage, playing exclusively in theaters.