As soon as Spider-Man donned that black, alien costume back in Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, fans knew that this was the start of a new era for the wall-crawler. What no one could foresee, however, was that from those humble beginnings would arise one of the greatest villains in Marvel comics history. The costume, by itself, first appeared in 1984, in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man #252, and it would slowly emerge that the black suit was actually a sentient alien symbiote. Finally, four years later, Eddie Brock -- the new host for the alien costume -- would emerge on the final page of ASM #299, and Venom was born.

Since those early days, Venom has gone from strength the strength as a villain-turned-anti-hero, not only in the pages of Spider-Man but in the wider Marvel Universe. His iconic black and white design, giant physique and truly deadly streak made him a force to be reckoned with. Of course, his giant, jagged teeth, long slithering tongue and oily black skin also helped to add a touch of gross horror to Spider-Man comics. Venom has endured for the last 30 years due to being cool and powerful, but also because he’s scary, intimidating and just plain icky. Here are the 15 grossest things about Venom’s costume!

15 IT EATS PEOPLE

One of the biggest parts of Venom’s appeal is in his ability to drag Spider-Man comics into the dark and gritty alleyways of the horror genre. While it’s since been established that the symbiote race -- known as Klyntar -- isn’t naturally violent, the Venom symbiote was tested on and dosed with chemicals that increased its aggression, leading it to such horrific acts as, well, eating people.

It’s always played as a weak moment for the symbiote host, but when Venom eats people he sure does put those giant teeth to work. Whether it’s ripping whole arms off people or munching down on a torso or two, while Venom has never been a serial killer like Carnage, it’s clear that when pushed to it, the symbiote isn’t afraid to get some gristle between its teeth.

14 IT HAS A PREHENSILE TONGUE

There’s no reason to have a tongue that size if you’re not going to put it to good use. With the ability to wrap itself around its enemies and grasp weapons -- as well as pull its next meal closer to its doom -- Venom’s tongue is one of the grossest parts of its body just when looking at it. Add in the fact that it acts like it has a mind of its own and it’s downright terrifying.

Artists over the years, when choosing to exaggerate Venom’s features, always seem to focus on the tongue and the teeth, and with good reason. They’re the parts that most separate the character from its nemesis Spider-Man, by feeding into (pun intended) its base, animalistic urges. You can tell if Venom’s back to being evil when you see that long, slippery horror extend from its jaw.

13 IT SHOOTS GOO AT (AND INSIDE) ENEMIES

It’s one thing to come across Venom in a fight, but it’s another thing entirely when the symbiote fires off pieces of itself towards you, like little bullets made of black goo. Not only can Venom control these pieces of itself, but it can send them into its enemies' mouths and smother them from the inside out.

Most recently, the Venom symbiote was used by a low level thug known as Lee Price, who overpowered the symbiote mentally and forced it to do his bidding. He shot black goo at his cohorts and transformed them into his “inklings,” and did the same to Black Cat and a number of other high profile criminal gang members throughout New York. This sort of projected mind-control led to him taking over the criminal underground for a short time.

12 IT HAS POISONOUS FANGS

Of course Venom has poisonous fangs, because it’s surely not scary enough! When the symbiote first merged with Eddie Brock and became Venom, Brock soon established his own brand onto their newly merged form, sprouting a maniacal grin and tongue in order to make him as horrifically different to his enemy Spider-Man as possible.

Part of this newfound power was to live up to its new name Venom, and ensure that his sharp bite also produced a venomous poison that seeps into its victim’s blood. When Venom unleashed this power on Sandman, it caused him to lose his form, unable to reconstitute the sand that makes his body, and the poison from Venom nearly killed him. With that and the terrifying tongue, let’s just say you’d want to avoid the mouth area of Venom at all costs.

11 IT CAN INVADE YOUR MIND

A curse of a symbiotic bond, when the Venom suit attaches itself to you, it’s a part of you inside and out. It first became clear that this was a consequence of the costume after Spider-Man began acting erratically and losing control of his emotions. It took all of his might to separate himself from the symbiote, partly because of this invasion of his thoughts.

Over the years, as the symbiote has bonded with hosts, it’s been hard to determine where the suit ends and the host begins, the most prominent case being Eddie Brock. Through years of exposure, having the symbiote in his mind for that long has caused irreparable damage to Brock’s psyche, to the point where he doesn’t feel complete without it on his body and in his mind.

10 IT HAS PARASITIC INHERITANCE

As Venom’s popularity has grown over the years, the symbiote’s list of former hosts has only grown to match. Which is good for Venom, because it’s able to call upon the powers of any of its previous hosts whenever it needs them, becoming more experienced and therefore more formidable with every new host.

The prime example of this is Peter Parker himself. Being among the first hosts that the Klyntar ever had, Venom took a lot of its physical traits from Spider-Man, becoming a sort of dark reflection of the friendly neighbourhood wall-crawler. As Eddie Brock became more comfortable in his new skin, he was able to accentuate the scarier parts of the symbiote, but to this day it’s retained an overall look of Spider-Man, if a little more twisted.

9 IT “BREATHES” FOR YOU

We’ve focused on a lot of the negatives here ,but there are certainly advantages to being symbiotically linked to Venom. Flash Thompson, for example, used the costume to become the superhero Agent Venom, and discovered that he had superhuman strength, stamina and durability. Another advantage -- albeit a gross one -- is that the suit can effectively “breathe” for you.

Part of being a superhero is throwing yourself into dangerous situations, and by wearing the Venom suit, you’re not only giving yourself a regenerative healing factor, but you’re able to withstand extremely inhospitable environments such as being underwater, in space or surrounded by toxic gas. Luckily, the suit filters out anything bad and provides you with clean, breathable air. Handy for those long space journeys or fights with toxic sea creatures. Still pretty creepy, though.

8 IT CONTROLS YOUR BODY WHILE YOU SLEEP

When Spider-Man returned from Battleworld in 1984’s Amazing Spider-Man issues, he returned with a black suit, and fans lost their minds. For those reading at the time, superheroes entered the event Secret Wars in one month, and returned the next, all changed in some ways. It wasn’t until the event played out in full over the coming months that we found out what happened.

For Spidey, though, it was already too late. He’d already been showing signs of greater fatigue and irritability, and it was because the black suit was actually the symbiote that would come to be known as Venom, and he was controlling Peter’s body while he slept. The suit was “driving” Pete’s body around in a sort of autopilot, swinging through the city while Spidey was none the wiser.

7 IT CAN ABSORB BULLETS

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After everything we’ve already learned about Venom, this one seems like a no-brainer, but there’s still something unsettling about being able to absorb bullets. Other heroes like Superman or Wonder Woman, bullets bounce off, but with Venom, they go in, they just don’t come back out, unless it actively make the choice to spit them out (as shown above).

The symbiote suit’s viscous nature allows it to absorb blunt force as well as projectiles extremely well, adding to the superhuman enhancement of the host. Plus, there’s potentially nothing more terrifying than a monster made of black goo and teeth, coming to eat you after finding out it’s impervious to your bullets. When you've given it your best shot and all you have are chewed-up, spit-out bullets, you're gonna have a bad time.

6 IT CREATES ITS OWN WEBBING

This is another result of it basically being a black goo monster, but to be fair this was gross when Spider-Man could do it, too. Being able to produce webbing from your body that you wrap people up in, swing around the city with and support buildings and falling debris up in seems so icky when you give it even a moment's thought. It’s bodily fluids, people!

Thankfully, Spider-Man went back to using the mechanical web shooters, but for Venom it’s black goo web fluid all the way. It’s established that the webbing is indeed an extension of his body, and that it, like the goo he shoots at enemies, retains a level of sentience. After about three hours not being in contact with the host body it dries up and shrivels, which makes it sound like dead skin.

5 IT CAN HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT

This skill is most commonly used by Eddie Brock, whenever he would convert the symbiote suit to mimic his own clothing, but the actual camouflage skill is much broader than that. Over the years we’ve seen the suit (or not, as the case may be) hide in plain sight by mimicking its surroundings, blending seamlessly into the background like a creepy ninja.

What’s even creepier is that the Venom symbiote can even mimic other people, transforming into almost anyone in order to really hide from its enemies. Following the symbiote’s “cleansing” after merging with the Klyntar hive mind, this skill has been enhanced so that it can adopt a humanoid form, independently of its host, for a maximum of 12 hours. The only thing creepier than a host inside that thing is there not being one in there.

4 IT CAN REPLICATE ITSELF

Different from when Venom-spawned Carnage (who in turn spawned Toxin -- it’s a weird family tree), it’s been shown that, under extreme circumstances, it can replicate itself seemingly infinitely. This was seen in the dark, alternate future of Peter Parker’s life called Spider-Man: Reign, that takes place in a grim version of New York City, 30 years in the future.

It transpires that Venom has been hiding for the last few decades since Spider-Man’s disappearance, preparing for his return by replicating himself thousands of times to form a symbiote army. He explains to the newly returned Peter that he was “lonely,” and was genuinely bitter and hurt that Spider-Man had abandoned him all those years previously. When Spidey blows up the army, he seemingly kills Venom along with it.

3 IT CAN POISON YOUR THOUGHTS

When an alien parasite forcibly finds its way into your brain, it’s a high likelihood that it’s not going to be a pleasant experience, and that’s no more true than with the Venom symbiote, who can not only invade your mind, but slowly poison your thoughts, as if it is spilling its black goo throughout your brain.

The first victim of this was Peter Parker, who not only had the suit controlling him while he slept, but whose mood started to be tainted, along with his attitude (as seen in all its cringe-worthy glory in the movie Spider-Man 3). It affects Eddie Brock even worse, since his bond with the symbiote is so complete that his brain can undergo withdrawal if it’s kept apart from the Venom suit for too long.

2 IT SPAWNED CARNAGE, AMONG OTHERS

It’s true in any media, but especially in comics: when something works, keep doing it. That’s possibly why there are over a dozen different symbiotes running around the Marvel Universe at this point, because Venom is just that popular. This year it's especially ubiquitous, given that it's the 30th anniversary of the character. Not surprisingly, there are more events starring the Klyntar anti-hero than ever before.

The most prominent of these is Carnage, the first spawn of Venom crafted from the symbiote’s own mass. Then there was The Life Foundation, a society actively preparing for the nuclear apocalypse, which involved them capturing Venom and forcibly spawning 5 more symbiotes to protect their future utopia: Agony, Phage, Riot, Lasher and Scream. There was also Mania, who bonded with a clone of the Venom symbiote, and Toxin, the son of Carnage.

1 IT CAN STRETCH AND MORPH ITS FORM LIKE LIQUID

Ever since Spider-Man first found the alien symbiote floating as black goo in its prison, we’ve known that Venom’s form has been fluid. From the violent teeth of Eddie Brock to the hulking form of Mac Gargan, to the utilitarian soldier of Flash Thompson, Venom’s size and shape has adapted to suit the host and suit the mission.

Beyond that, though, the symbiote has been able to manipulate its matter to form weapons, tools and even -- in the Scorpion’s case -- a prehensile tail in order to protect its host and attack its foes. We’ve seen the arms changed into bat wings, or hooks for climbing. The body has formed a shield, and under Flash Thompson’s leadership, Agent Venom regularly formed axes or spikes from the symbiote.