The Marvel Cinematic Universe is the elephant in Venom’s room
By Mia Johnson
On its own, Venom is an average, fun movie. But given the current state of Marvel, you can’t help but question if the two universes co-exist.
Warning! This story contains spoilers for the movie Venom. If you haven’t seen it yet, head back here after you do.
Welcome to 2018, where yet another superhero film has entered the ring. Following Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Deadpool 2 and Ant-Man and the Wasp, it’s clear Venom has had a lot of friendly competition — especially seeing as all of those Marvel films have come from separate movie studios (Marvel Studios/Disney, Fox, and Sony).
We’ve already accepted that the universe of the X-Men has been pretty self-contained, aside from the recent expansion of the Deadpool franchise. And eventually, those characters will come to mix in with the MCU pals after the Fox-Disney merger.
Being with Sony, Venom has a different feel. It’s hard to ignore that the biggest event in the MCU’s history went down in Infinity War, with the Sony-acquired Spider-Man being let in on the action. But now that Sony and Marvel’s Studio’s world has collided every so slightly, Venom might ultimately leave you wondering, “Where’s Spider-Man? Do the Avengers exist in this world? Is Thanos coming?”
For a movie that probably wants to separate itself as far from Spider-Man as they can right now, it’s still hard to ignore that there have been bigger fish to fry aside from the Symbiote invasion. The biggest factor of cognitive dissonance you might experience while watching Venom stems from the setting of the movie itself: San Francisco. The exact same city where both Ant-Man and this year’s Ant-Man and the Wasp take place.
So are we to expect that the people of San Francisco are primed to already know about the weirdness that comes with superhumans and aliens because there have been so many cases before?
If so, it would make sense why no one in the movie really seemed fazed by the Venom or the other Symbiotes: the scientists in Carlton Drake’s lab seemed none too surprised that they had just discovered an advanced alien species; when Anne and her boyfriend saw Venom’s unbonded form, it was like they had just encountered a stray dog and not an unworldly being; and even the little old woman who runs the minimart was cool with Eddie transforming into Venom and biting the bad guy’s head off.
For some fans, it might be easy to take Venom at face value and enjoy the Spider-verse that Sony is trying to build. But if you’re someone who enjoys the crossover moments that the comic books and MCU movies provide, it’ll be hard to ignore that there’s definitely an elephant in the room here.
At some point, it’s all very possible that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man and Venom will appear on the same screen. Maybe even a few other Avengers, too. Heck, maybe even Deadpool. But for now, Sony, Fox and Disney seem to want to hold on to the barriers that make their movies different. And we’ll just have to wait a while out to see how these characters will finally begin to meld together.
Must Read. Here's where the Into the Spider-verse characters also appear. light
Who knows? With the extended look at Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse at the end of Venom, it’s quite possible that they’re telling us the events in Venom and the MCU events take place in two completely separate universes. It makes things a lot more complicated, but at least it’s an explanation to an unsolved question.