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In the new movie with Tom Hardy, is Venom considered to be a villain? From the movie, it doesn't appear so. This is more true since Eddie Brock tells him you can eat only bad people.

But recently I saw Spider Man fighting with him in another film. So is he a villain or not?

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    Can I ask what you are hoping the answers to this question to contain? In the real world are people divided into villains and heroes? Or are people just people with varying motivations and aims? For example the writers of Infinity War clearly show that Thanos believes himself to be a hero.... the only one willing to do what is necessary. The core question you have "is he (Venom) a villain or not" .... I'm curious how this might be definitively answered, it seems like it might be too opinion based.
    – iandotkelly ♦
    Commented Dec 9, 2018 at 23:59
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    @iandotkelly but this is not a real world, but a story, that can have a hero protagonist, antihero protagonist or even villain protagonist and it can be called as such by the viewer. It is the viewer who judged if someone is a hero or villain. More reading here: movies.stackexchange.com/questions/75918/…
    – Yasskier
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 0:15
  • @iandotkelly it's not enough that one believes he is hero as with Thanos,it must be justified. This was an aside comment :) for more relevant to question I posted comment on an answer.
    – jdoe
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 1:05
  • Just saying, Venom and movies with spiderman are currently occuring in different universes. So in the place that Venom movie took place, there may not be any spiderman(s)
    – Vishwa
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 8:15

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The term "villain" is relative because these are different storylines.

The villain in one story can be the protagonist in another story.

Venom, as a character in the Spider-Man franchise, is usually an antagonist. Since the protagonist (Spider-Man) is a hero, that usually means Venom falls into the "villain" category. Occasionally Venom and Spider-Man team up against other villains, but in films like Spider-Man 3 (2007) he's an antagonist.

The Venom (2018) movie takes place in its own universe and storyline. Spider-Man isn't in the story. In this movie, Eddie Brock is the protagonist. By extension, the Venom character is also a protagonist, and is not the villain of this movie. Venom isn't virtuous or conventionally heroic, so he could be called an "anti-hero" instead.

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  • There could be "villain protagonist" (though I agree it's rather anti-hero in this case).
    – Mithoron
    Commented Dec 12, 2018 at 19:45
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Speaking just from the movie's perspective, as that is what you asked, I'd say Venom is the protagonist, or good guy. Carlton Drake, and as an extension, Riot, is the antagonist, or bad guy, as his motives are clearly not wholesome.

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  • Yes I agree totally in that movie, what confused me was seeing him fight with spider man - normally spidermans enemies are considered villains... that's why....
    – jdoe
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 1:01
  • which spiderman movie are you talking?
    – J M
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 5:34
  • @asHK I think OP is talking about Raimi's spiderman triology and about the third installment.
    – Vishwa
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 8:12
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    In the Spiderman movie, Venom first attaches himself to Spiderman and then Eddie Brock, who works at the Daily Bugle in New York. In the Venom movie, Brock has been fired from a newspaper in New York and moves to California, where he becomes the first human to form a symbiotic bond with the space alien. As such, you really can't compare the two Venoms, because their origins are different.
    – Johnny Bones
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 13:31
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I would say Venom is another of countless "Anti-Hero" characters we see now in the movies. TVTropes defines them as:

An Archetypal Character who is almost as common in modern fiction as the Ideal Hero, an antihero is a protagonist who has the opposite of most of the traditional attributes of a hero. They may be bewildered, ineffectual, deluded, or merely apathetic. More often an antihero is just an amoral misfit. While heroes are typically conventional, anti-heroes, depending on the circumstances, may be preconventional (in a "good" society), postconventional (if the government is "evil") or even unconventional.

Let's not forget, this guy eats people that commit petty crimes!

So, in his own movie, he fights worse villains but yea, I would see why Spiderman would stop him from devouring another criminal.

Like the Punisher in the comics, he doesn't always see eye to eye with Spidey or other traditional heroes.

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    But Venom is eating to survive. We eat to survive. The only reason he eats "bad people" is because his human host draws a line and says, "only eat the bad guys". Otherwise he would just be eating "whoever" when he needs the energy.
    – elbrant
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 15:16
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    Most living things eat a variety of foods, right? Although I will say that I like my lobster without the shell. ;)
    – elbrant
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 15:22
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    ok, but if people were on your menu and you were on this strange planet with 6 billion of them... isn't it kind of like grabbing a bag of chips from the cupboard? Fast, easy, and plentiful? Not saying that I would want a people eating alien to invade earth, but the storyline was that they were coming to earth because there was a plentiful food source.
    – elbrant
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 15:27
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    Ok, I would say we're getting into Futurama "Poppler" rules. I think when you have a sentient species, capable of communication, forming societies and complex relationships and you have the ability to eat something else, you could make that effort
    – m1gp0z
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 15:30
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    Yes, because he needs one to survive our environment. But the entire movie indicates that Brock doesn't actually have control over Venom. If you want to keep the banter up, we should probably move this over to chat.
    – elbrant
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 15:44
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On the behalf of story perspective related to Venom, it's described that it is an alien which can't outlive in atmosphere of earth without companion.

So, eventually Venom always searches for a person who's in search of power or influenced by it or even finds leverage. It takes control over that person and bounds with it. If it's successfully connected to that person meaning that now both can leverage upon each other.

In such a way, Venom offers Tom Hardy cure to his cancer and also a support from him to live in his body for survival of it's own. So it's like Tom is the driver and venom itself is a car.

So what you can consider venom is that it's a vigilante which is under influence of it's host.

If host is willing to act good guy meaning that Venom will also drive thought that scenario (In this movie), and if it's hosted by some bad or evil guys it'll be evil. (Why? Because they're psychologically connected !)

*See the Spiderman 3 for such reference when Eddie connected to symbiote feeling hatrated towards Spiderman and venom beacoms villan.

So Venom is neutral in such behaviour and totally depends upon it's host carrying it. It just finds leverage or weakness of host to make deal with.

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