Topher Grace Venom
Tuesday, August 26th, 2008
It’s always interesting to see how characters transition from one fictional medium to another. In the case of Topher Grace that transition comes with his recent, villainous portrayal of the creature known as Venom in Spider-Man 3.
Grace’s Venom is an evil creature. There’s no doubt about it. He says it himself; he likes to be bad. He doesn’t care who gets hurt so long as he has revenge on Peter Parker, the one who did him wrong. This Venom, or Eddie Brock, or whatever, just likes being mean, and he loves the power the suit he’s been given gives him.
The comic book Venom is a bit different. Though he started out somewhat similar, Venom is also choosier; he wants Spider-Man but he won’t go through people he perceives as ‘innocent’ to get to him. Venom will save police officers, children and anybody else he sees as good while slaughtering others deemed vile and corrupt. Even the pettiest of thieves caught committing a crime face possible death. In that sense the comic book Eddie Brock is a bit more psychotic; he thinks he’s a hero, and can act heroically, but is a bit too dark at his core.
On the plus side, though, he does actually team up with Spider-Man in the comics numerous times. Which is nice. But Eddie Brock has since lost the symbiote and there’s a new Venom in town, so, hey. Whole new ball game.