Infamous Marvel villain is turning over a new leaf

Probably one of the wall crawler's most notable enemies, the Venom was considered as something kids' nightmares are made of.

Just take a look at those teeth, that tongue and the slime. I still remember seeing a poster of him in SM North when I was like five, and he scared the crap out of me that I tried not looking at him again, thinking he was either a teaser for some horror movie or a minion of the devil himself.

A few years later, I find myself fond of this black, sentient alien goo, amazed by his badass-ness, heft, super strength and... well, gooey powers. I'm kinda surprised that Spider Man, who happens to be wimpy Peter Parker, manages to come out on top 90% of the time that they face off. I mean, how could this fighting machine lose to a guy whose powers were given by a radioactive bug? Even a bug repellent can beat that webhead.

Alas, all good things must come to an end. Just when I was starting to like Venom, Marvel decides to nerf him.

People who aren't familiar with the Marvel Universe might mistake this new Venom for Deadpool, Agent Zero or the Punisher hiding his face like some bank robber.

As Marvel's Rick Remender and Steven Wacker revealed in IGN, Venom is now an American covert agent.

And according to Wacker, Venom's going to get a lot of help from Uncle Sam.

"He's got advanced technology, he's got the armed forces behind him, but it's just straight-up U.S. armed forces. This is their program to deal with international threats."

So no more Piranha Plant-like teeth or flailing of gooey extremities?

In addition to this new look, Venom is going to have a new host. Back when I was still watching the Spider Man animated series on Studio 23, Eddie Brock was the guy donning the alien symbiote. The same goes for Spider Man 3. But when I looked it up, it turns out that Venom was handed down to another Marvel villain, Mac Gargan a.k.a. the Scorpion. And then, some organization takes it away from Gargan and finds its way to Flash Thompson.

With his background in the military, Thompson definitely has the experience to be an effective covert agent. The thing that worries me is his missing legs, which he lost when he served in Iraq. Brock and Venom, at their full strength, still find their asses kicked not only by Spider Man, but by other beings in the Marvel Universe as well. So what can we expect from Thompson? Objectively, not much.

However, as Kandou Erik said, the symbiote suit has shown that it has the ability to grow larger than its host and could give Thompson the legs for the job. And if that happens, this new Venom might just spice up the Marvel Universe. Considering Thompson's history of bullying Parker, and Spider Man's occasional run-ins with the law, the government might task Venom to go after Spider Man and renew their rivalry. And that, for all its geekiness, sounds sweet!

But I'm just wondering, if Marvel was looking for some powerless dude to don the Venom suit, why didn't they just ask the Punisher? Sure, the guy loves going freelance, and he's dead, but I'm pretty sure Marvel can pull some strings to resurrect good, ol' Frank Castle and offer him to become a superhuman. I mean, Frank was a badass even without the powers. Just imagine what he can do with powers. Besides, he managed to get by without support from the government. Heck, he has lots of guns, ammos and rides. Wouldn't that be better than using taxes to fund a legless guy in the first place? This, after killing Human Torch? Aside from making money, what is Marvel up to?

How the reemergence of Venom affects the whole Marvel Universe remains to be seen. Until then we have to wait for Amazing Spider-Man #654.1 (hitting stores in February 2011) and Venom #1 (March 2011) to see how Thompson fares in the symbiote suit.