I've compared the "three Venoms" that have become mainstreamed andcosidered the sole reasons why I even like Venom at all to see how these characters hold up to what I originally liked about the 1st (real) Venom. These are the core reasons, as there are others that I don't bother to explore (such as the fact that Venom can play both the roles of a villain or something-of-a-hero, and the fact that I like the "bizarro" theme Venom has when compared to Spider-Man). So I guess the main reasons I ever liked Venom has always been:
Venom has an awesome character design, visually.
Venom is unique in that he's actually a human host bonded to an alien.
Venom's obsessive single-minded vendetta against Spider-Man; hate and vindictiveness at its purest.
1 The Visual Look
Venom (Eddie Brock)
As much as I hate agreeing with the Venom a-holes haters, I will admit that 50% of the reason people like, or initially like, Venom is purely the aesthetics. He has a awesome color scheme and spider pattern that already looked killer when Spider-Woman (Julia Carpenter) debuted it, and while Spidey carried on her look, it was Eddie that commanded it. Adding to the wicked look the fearsome jaws full of teeth, and you have one of the coolest character designs in all of comics.
Venom (MacDonald Gargan)
When Marvel took out the original host and replaced him with the original Scorpion, one thing I wanted to stay consistent is that they gave this new Venom his own look, and stayed with it. That didn't happen. Originally, Gargan-Venom looked like the 1st Venom, but with his own subtle style. They gave this newer Venom an interesting feature where you could see Gargan's eyes "through" the Venom mask (the eyes within the mask's eyes effect), which I'll admit, I did'nt like a bit. They restyled the spider symbol on his chest and back, so the signature spider emblem was now his own. And that was all it took to give us a new looking Venom disambiguous to the 1st. Then later, artists started to draw new Venom exactly like old Venom, which sucked because visually, the two Venoms were purely interchangeable. Even worse, Venom's shape became horribly exaggerated.
Anti-Venom
The look finally,finally grew on me. I'm no fan of white. I've always favored the darker colors. Most of my favorite costumed characters pimp black. So the anti-black coloring here took me aback. The concept was simple enough. They reversed the color scheme of Venom (Gargan, specifically). In fact, this is just Gargan-Venom (sans any extra features, such as the raely used symbiote-scorpion tail and "hulking-out" size changes) in reverse. One thing about the original Venom look was that it was purely intimidating. While the guy still looks like a monster, there's something lost with him being so bright and white. Doesn't work as well as the black classic look.
2 Two Characters in One
Venom (Eddie Brock)
The symbiote was its own character, even when joined with a host. One dynamic I loved about Venom was that since the character was two organisms co-existing as one, we had two separate minds co-existing as one. We'd get some interesting dialogue between Eddie and the symbiote. Sometimes the two synced perfectly, other times the two came to a dispute and we got the whole character-driven conflict. It was a cool twist to the schizo-character device used before. This is probably why Carnage never truly impressed me: it was easy to forget that the Carnage symbiote was a living alien organism. There was hardly ever any communication between Cletus and the costume. But with this Venom, I was always reminded that this character was actually a packed deal. There was drama.
Venom (MacDonald Gargan)
The dynamic here is an interesting one. Half the time, you thnk Gargan is in control, and the other half it seems the symbiote is running things. Like with Eddie, here I'm constantly reminded that the symbiote has a mind of its own and at any minute the human and alien halves could come into conflict with each other. The conflicts are much rarer, though, since either A) Gargan lets the symbiote do whatever it wants and have whatever it desires, and/or B) the symbiote has more control and say in the relationship. Sometimes it gets to the point where you easily forget that there even is a host and you believe its all the symbiote (similar to how sometimes I forget that Carnage is a symbiote and a serial killer joined and I only see the serial killer as the Carnage symbiote has almost no character or personality of its own).
Anti-Venom
I miss the sentient alien costume. I always enjoyed how the alien and the host "talked" to each other. The Anti-Venom substance seems to...silent. Its very boring. The level of sentience the Anti-Venom suit has is still a mystery, but I'm banking that its not a self-aware, self-thinking living creature. This gives the character of Eddie more chance to be the focus, but personally, I miss the complexity of two beings having to live together in symbiosis. The Anti-Venom suit is just a weapon for Eddie to use, opposed to an ally that he has to accustomed to.
3 The Spider-Man/Venom Fights
Venom (Eddie Brock)
These were the most brutal, bloodiest, entertaining fights of any Spider-Man generation. No villain instilled the kind of fear into Spidey the way Brock could. And when the two threw down, there was hell to pay.
Venom (MacDonald Gargan)
We have yet to get an entertaining Spidey vs. Gargan-Venom fight. YET. And Gargan has been Venom long enough. Let's see...their 1st fight was in Marvel Knights Spider-Man...Spidey collapsed a building on Gargan-Venom. Brock has taken more punishment than that and kept going, but that was enough to take Gargan down instantly. Hmmm...then their 2nd fight doesn't count (Beyond!) because that wasn't the real Spider-Man...and their next encounter I won't count because it was a brief teaser battle between Spidey and the Thunderbolts (before the Dark Avengers) , and the Invaders made short work of them...so their real 2nd encounter took place in NWTD, and Gargan-Venom was *****-slapped around by Anti-Venom (Spidey helped). The most recent confrontation they've had was in American Son, where, once again in a humiliating way, Spidey made very short work of Gargan-Venom. It's like Spider-Man doesn't take Gargan as Venom seriously, and why should he? An extreme opposite from how Spider-Man perceived Eddie.
Anti-Venom
This one is mostly non-applicable. Anti-Venom and Spider-Man aren't foes, and their brief skirmish in NWTD can't count.
avatar, but I've never gone on for as long as I did without a Venom avatar, so it was time.
