The Best Venom Cameos, Easter Eggs and Marvel References

SPOILER WARNING: This article contains massive spoilers for Venom, which is in theaters now.

After lingering in Hollywood limbo for years, Venom has finally swung its way to the big screen, even if it's not exactly getting rave reviews. The Ruben Fleischer-directed film is the first entry in Sony Pictures' proposed series of Spider-Man-adjacent movies that don't star Spider-Man, but even without that friendly neighborhood superhero, Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock still some serious symbiote web-shooting and wall-crawling on his own.

Even if it doesn't seem too connected to Marvel Studios' all-encompassing Marvel Cinematic Universe, Venom is still a Marvel movie, in a looser sense of the term. And like any Marvel movie, Venom is packed with numerous nods to Marvel history. From comics to film and TV, here's every Marvel lore deep cut and lightning-fast reference we caught in Venom.

John Jameson

Even though J. Jonah Jameson hasn't been seen in Sony and MArvel's Spider-Man reboot continuity, his son, John Jameson, makes a quick cameo near the beginning of Venom. Portrayed by Chris O'Hara, Jameson is one of the astronauts on the shuttle that brings Venom and the other symbiotes to Earth. However, it's unclear if Jameson survives long after the shuttle's crash landing.

Like his cinematic counterpart, Marvel Comics' John Jonah Jameson III was also an astronaut. Years after debuting in Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's Amazing Spider-Man #1, Jameson found a glowing red gem on the Moon that turned him into the cosmic canine hero Man-Wolf. Jameson also appeared in 2004's Spider-Man 2 as Mary Jane's astronaut fiancé, but he, sadly, did not become a werewolf.

The Daily Globe

While Venom doesn't dwell on Eddie Brock's life story, Michelle Williams' Anne Weying mentions that he used to write for The Daily Globe in New York City before being disgraced and chased out of town. In the comics, Brock used to be a reporter for that newspaper, too. There, Brock wrote a series of articles about someone who claimed to be a serial killer called the Sin-Eater. However, Spider-Man unmasked the real Sin-Eater and inadvertently destroyed Brock's journalistic career.

When he's looking for work in the movie, Brock contacts Barney Bushkin. In comics, Buskin was the editor of The Daily Globe and one of J. Jonah Jameson's personal rivals. Before he hired Brock, he even hired Peter Parker for a very brief stint as a photographer for the paper.

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The Scream Symbiote

In Venom, the Life Foundation brings five symbiotes back to Earth. While one of those aliens never appears, the rest are Venom, the villain Riot, an unnamed blue symbiote and another symbiote with Scream's distinct yellow color scheme.

Created by David Michelinie and Ron Lim in Venom: Lethal Protector #4, Scream was a synthetic symbiote who tangled with Spider-Man and Venom on a few occasions in the 1990s. While several early reports pegged Michelle Lee's Venom character as the symbiote Scream, her Malaysian paramedic only ever bonds with Riot. The only creature that the Scream symbiote clearly bonds with on-screen is a rabbit. It most likely bonded with one of the Life Foundation's human test subjects, too, but the film leaves Scream's final fate somewhat ambiguous.

The Life Foundation

Led by Riz Ahmed's Carlton Drake, the Life Foundation is an organization dedicated to taking humanity into space. While Venom's Drake eventually merges with the Riot symbiote, a more human Carlton Drake gave the Life Foundation a less optimistic mission in comics. The Marvel Universe's Life Foundation was a survivalist group that sold high-priced doomsday bunkers that could withstand nuclear blasts.

Created by David Michelinie and Erik Larsen in Amazing Spider-Man #329, the Life Foundation had numerous run-ins with Venom and Spider-Man in comics. Using a sample from Venom, the organization created five synthetic symbiotes, including Scream and Riot. While the organization sent moderate advanced robot drones after Eddie Brock in Venom, the mysterious group sent an impossibly advanced Tri-Sentinel after Spider-Man in comics.

Venom's Hunger

For most of his comic book history, Venom has talked about eating brains and various other organs on a regular basis. In Venom, he actually does it. While Venom bites the heads off of a few bad guys, all of the symbiotes take this a step further by slowly consuming the organs of anyone they have a failed bond with. Fortunately, the Venom symbiote said that he'd be happy with some tater tots and chocolate towards the end of the movie.

In a 1995 miniseries titled Venom: The Hunger, Len Kaminski and Ted Halsted explained Venom's cannibalistic impulses and his sweet tooth. That comic explained that symbiotes need a chemical called phenethylamine. While it's available in brains, the symbiotes can also absorb it by eating teeth-rotting amounts of chocolate.

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Under the Mask

After Spider-Man destroyed his career in the Marvel Universe, Eddie Brock started lifting weights to relieve stress. As David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane's Amazing Spider-Man #300 revealed, that plan failed spectacularly. Instead of relaxing, Brock obsessed over Spider-Man as he developed a massive bulky frame and "Olympic-level" strength. Venom briefly nods to this by showing a quick shot of a set of weights during the fight in Brock's apartment.

Shortly after that fight, Brock wonders if the Venom symbiote is a brain tumor. While it's played for laughs on screen, that moment could be a nod to Brock's very serious battle with cancer in comics. Until a touch from the Spidey villain Mr. Negative seemingly healed him, Brock suffered severe symptoms when he and the symbiote were separated in the mid-2000s.

Stan Lee and Venom's Creators

Like any Marvel movie, Venom features a cameo from Stan Lee, the co-creator of Spider-Man and many of Marvel's other iconic heroes. Even though he didn't have a role in creating Venom, Stan Lee speaks with Eddie Brock at the end of the movie, seemingly aware of his status as Venom. In a nod towards Venom's actual co-creators, Todd McFarlane and David Michelinie, Anne Weying works for a law firm called Michelinie & McFarlane.

Earlier on in the movie, the name of Brock's apartment building, Schueller, briefly appears on screen as a tribute to Randy Schueller. In 1982, Schueller was a young Marvel fan who suggested the idea of giving Spider-Man a black costume. As Schueller told CBR in 2007, Marvel editor Jim Shooter liked the idea and paid him $220 for the concept. Years later, that costume debuted Secret Wars #8 as the alien symbiote that would eventually become Venom.

Lethal Protector

Before Venom premiered, director Ruben Fleischer was remarkably open about the comics that inspired the film. While the move tells an original story, it borrows several elements from Venom: Lethal Protector, by David Michelinie, Mark Bagley, Ron Lim and Sam DeLarosa. That 1993 miniseries features Venom returning to his hometown, San Francisco, and dealing with the Life Foundation. The comic was also Venom's first ongoing starring role and really established Venom as a solo hero.

Fleischer identified the "Planet of the Symbiotes" as the movie's other main source material. That 1995 Michelinie-penned storyline revolves around Spider-Man and Venom trying to stop a symbiote invasion force from conquering Earth. In Venom, Riot essentially tries to start a similar symbiote invasion. The movie also took some direct lines of dialogue from comics, including the line "Eyes! Lungs! Pancreas! So many snacks, so little time!" from Amazing Spider-Man #374, by Michelinie and Bagley.

Venom's Other Hosts

While Eddie Brock and Peter Parker are Venom's most famous hosts, they're not the only characters who have bonded with the symbiote. Like her cinematic counterpart, Anne Weying briefly merged with the symbiote to become She-Venom in Venom: Sinner Takes All #2, by Larry Hama and Greg Luzniak.

Before Anne got the symbiote in the movie, Venom also briefly bonded with a dog. This could be a reference to Ivan, a sleigh dog that bonded with a clone of the Venom symbiote in 2003. In Daniel Way and Francisco Herrera's Venom #1, Ivan met the symbiote in a story that was largely inspired by John Carpenter's chilly sci-fi masterpiece, The Thing.

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Spider-Man Shout-Outs

Venom also has a few nods to the symbiote's other most famous on-screen appearances. Spider-Man: The Animated Series introduced the idea of John Jameson finding the symbiote in space and bringing it back to Earth, which also happens in the film. During the movie's final fight scene, Venom is briefly given highlights by red and blue lights that mirror distinct red and blue accents he always had in that cartoon.

Of course, Venom also appeared in Spider-Man 3, where Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker briefly bonded with the symbiote. When Peter had the symbiote, he infamously had slicked hair, an all-black wardrobe and some questionable dance moves. While Tom Hardy's Venom never picked up those moves, he also had similar, slicked hair and picked up an all-black wardrobe in the final moments of the movie.

Carnage

Of course, Venom saved its biggest Easter egg for last. During the film's post-credits sequence, Eddie Brock met Woody Harrelson's Cletus Kasady, who talks about his plans to spread "carnage." In the Marvel Universe, Kasady bonds with a symbiote to become the villain Carnage.

When he debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #344, by David Michelinie and Erik Larsen, Kasady was Eddie Brock's cellmate at Ryker's Island prison. After the Venom symbiote reproduced, Kasady bonded with the new symbiote to become one of Spider-Man's deadliest foes. In both comics and film, Kasady had a fascination with blood, and he used it to write messages on the wall in both. Even though he didn't suit up as Carnage in Venom, this moment clearly sets up the fan-favorite villain stage for a potential sequel.

Directed by Reuben Fleischer, Venom is in theaters now and stars Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, Scott Haze, Reid Scott, Jenny Slate, Sope Aluko, Scott Deckert, Marcella Bragio, Michelle Lee and Woody Harrelson.