Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Is Already Dropping Clues for Venom’s Debut

Spider-Man fans may finally get to see a showdown between the web-slinger and Venom, just not how they envisioned it happening. While the odds of Spider-Man vs. Venom taking place on the big screen are diminished following reports of Sony scaling back its Spider-Man Universe of films, Spidey is making a new home for himself on Disney+ with the release of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. The first two episodes are already available to stream, and a fight that takes place in the premiere has set the stage for Venom to make an appearance. WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Episode 1 of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.

The big moment in the debut episode of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man involves a fight between Doctor Strange and what the closed captioning calls a “symbiotic alien” at Peter Parker’s high school of Midtown High. The presence of Doctor Strange is a surprise and confirms that Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man takes place in the multiverse, but it’s the alien creature he’s fighting that draws our attention. Since it’s referred to as a symbiote, that means it’s only a matter of time before Venom shows up.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man reveals Venom Easter egg

Peter Parker and Aunt May watch on as Doctor Strange battles the symbiotic alien, destroying Midtown High in the process. As the fight is taking place, a spider slithers down a web through the portal that Doctor Strange and the symbiote entered through, landing on Peter’s shoulder. Doctor Strange eventually corrals the symbiote and takes it back through the portal. While Peter introduces himself to Nico Minoru, he’s bitten by the spider and passes out. As his eyes slowly start to close, Peter spots the spider climbing onto another kid’s backpack as it’s picked up off the ground.

[RELATED: How Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Changes the MCU for the Better]

Perhaps the biggest repercussion to come out of this episode is how an alien symbiote can lead to Venom debuting on Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. While we didn’t see a piece of the alien symbiote left behind after Doctor Strange captured it, it does confirm that symbiotes do exist in this universe. There are several story arcs to play out in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man‘s first season, from his mentorship by Norman Osborn to learning to use his Spider-Man abilities to fight crime, so it’s unlikely that Venom officially debuts in Season 1. However, that doesn’t mean future seasons won’t bring Venom along for the ride.

The only question is how will Venom be used in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. Other projects like Marvel’s Spider-Man animated series and the PlayStation video game franchise have had different characters wear the alien symbiote. We could see someone like Harry Osborn bond with Venom, or maybe Eddie Brock will be introduced later on. There are several avenues the Disney+ series can take if it chooses to.

Venom and Sony’s Spider-Man Universe future remains uncertain

A December report stated that Sony was pressing the pause button on its universe of films centered on Spider-Man characters after the diminishing returns on projects such as Morbius, Madame Web, and most recently Kraven the Hunter. The Venom trilogy was the most successful live-action Spider-Man movies if you’re not counting the Spider-Verse animated franchise, but even Venom: The Last Dance underwhelmed at the box office. This has led Sony to put its efforts towards making Spider-Man 4 with Marvel Studios and Tom Holland.

But even if we’ve seen the last of Tom Hardy’s Venom for now, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man allows for the Lethal Protector to find an all-new audience. Sure, it won’t be the same as seeing Spider-Man and Venom throwdown in live-action, but with Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man already renewed for three seasons, Venom is all but a certainty to be one of the several characters to appear. And who knows what else the first season has planned for Spider-Man fans. Could we see Venom sooner rather than later? It’s definitely a possibility. The waiting will just make Venom’s Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man debut all the more worth it.