Spider-Man's Most Popular Villain Is Finally Getting an MCU Counterpart

The Peter Parker that exists in the Marvel Cinematic Universe finally  went up against some of Spider-Man's most iconic villains, taking on baddies from other dimensions in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Tom Holland's character came face-to-face with previous franchise iterations of Doc Ock, Green Goblin, Electro, and more in the new movie, but there are still plenty of major Spidey rogues left for Peter to face in future MCU films. The events of No Way Home actually laid the groundwork for the arrival of a new villain, one of the most popular in Spider-Man history.

WARNING: This article contains MAJOR spoilers from Spider-Man: No Way Home! Continue reading at your own risk...

As expected, No Way Home sends the baddies of previous Spider-Man movies back to their respective universes, meaning that they likely won't face off against Holland's Peter Parker again in the near future. However, the film's post-credits scene brought over another character from another universe, and they left something behind when Doctor Strange closed the multiverse, setting up a new story for Spider-Man.

The post-credits scene show's Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock in a bar, talking with his Symbiote counterpart and picking up directly after the events of the credit stinger in Venom: Let There Be Carnage. By the end of the scene, Eddie is zapped away from the MCU and back to his own universe, like all of the other visiting characters, but a piece of his Venom Symbiote somehow stays behind, crawling on the bar.

Whether you consider the Venom remnant to be a plot hole or not is beside the point. What we're simply observing here is the fact that Venom now has the groundwork for an origin story in the MCU. Instead of crash-landing on Earth from space, this Symbiote arrived through an inter-dimensional portal.

There's no telling who this Symbiote will latch on to. The only person around is the bartender (played by Ted Lasso breakout Cristo Fernandez) and we never heard his name mentioned, but it there were no indications that he's the MCU's Eddie Brock. Of course, the MCU Spider-Man movies have featured Flash Thompson quite a bit, and he has made clear just how much he wants to be loved by Spider-Man. Since Flash famously gets the Symbiote in the comics, there is certainly some groundwork already there for a future movie based on Spider-Man and a version of Agent Venom. After all, no one knows who Peter is, and it would be just like this franchise to force him back into the lives of his friends through longtime rival Flash Thompson.

Regardless of who gets the Symbiote, the most important thing is that it is officially in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it won't be long before we see some version of Venom on-screen.

Spider-Man: No Way Home is now playing in theaters.

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