Spiderman’s Venom Partly a Fanboy Creation

Even though his big screen debut was an abject disappointment, Venom remains the most interesting, if not just the coolest, of enemies that Spiderman has had to deal with throughout the character’s existence. It comes then as little surprise that the folks at Marvel have been loathe to acknowledge that this memorable bad guy is largely the creation of a random fan in the series. Randy Schueller laid out the foundation of Venom’s backstory to Marvel in a submission in a contest for aspiring comic writers and artists.

I thought it would be cool if Spidey needed to upgrade his powers and his look, so I came up with this idea that Reed Richards had made a new costume for Spidey using the same unstable molecules that the FF costumes are made of. The unstable molecules would flow into Peter’s pores and allow him to cling to walls better. I think my original idea was to increase his sticking power by 25% or something like that.

For some lame reason, I had the Wasp involved since she was the resident fashion plate of the Marvel universe at the time. Remember when Jan would show up in every other issue of the Avengers sporting a cool new costume? I loved when they did that! So to me it made sense to have her design the new spider suit when she was over at the Baxter Building for cocktails or something. Anyway, I saw the new suit as a stealth version of the original costume - jet black so he could blend in with the shadows. At best, all you could see of him was the blood red spider emblem, emblazoned on his chest. (Yeah, in my design the spider was red, not white. I also gave him underarm webbing like in the original Ditko design.

To his shock, Schueller received a response a few months later from the then editor-in-chief of Marvel offering to buy the idea for $220. Schueller accepted and a year later the black costume Spiderman first appeared. While he was never thrilled that the costume morphed into a full-on villain, he is looking for some acknowledgment from Marvel for his contribution. Given that the publisher is already embroiled in a case over just who can claim to be responsible for Spiderman himself, it would be needless further aggravation for them to deny Schueller a little credit.