Well this is hard. Venom is one of my favourite villains in anything. He and Carnage were amazing villains, but sadly the movie didn't really do him justice, so I guess I'm going to have to go with Green Goblin.
I must confess I was always pissed off with Sam Raimi for botching Venom's big introduction to mainstream audiences. I can't stand the way that people try and say "Raimi shouldn't have been forced to do Venom because he wasn't interested in the character."
To start with he's a f*cking professional. Writers will sometimes have to write about characters they aren't 100 percent behind. Second his only reason for disliking Venom was because he hadn't ever read any comics featuring him, as Venom came about after he stopped reading them. Raimi was being a stupid fanboy desperate to recreate his childhood at the expense of actually doing his job. Compare him to John Semper Jr who did the 90s animated series and was also forced to include Venom and Carnage but actually went away and did his research and as a result did arguably the best versions of those characters, above even the f*cking comics themselves.
The irony is that if Raimi had actually bothered to do his research he would have found that Venom was actually a better fit for his style that any other villain! He didn't do any research btw. At a comic convention when someone asked him jokingly, what his favourite symbiote was, he didn't even know what symbiote meant! FFS even my own mother knows what a symbiote is in regards to Spider-Man.
Venom to start with is much better for horror movie tropes, which is Raimi's background.
Are you honestly telling me a f*cking horror movie director couldn't have seen any potential in images like this brought to the big screen.
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Think of how badass and cool those would have been on the big screen. Also I might add that Venom in terms of characterisation is a better fit for Raimi's style. Venom actually DOES have more humanity than Spidey's other foes. He never wants to harm innocents, he later tries to seek redemption, and even earns Spider-Man's forgiveness. Also he is generally portrayed as someone under an evil force's control like Raimi's version of Doc Ock. (Ironically Raimi had to rewrite Doc Ock to be that!)
Carnage meanwhile is similar to the deadites, being a truly evil, sadistic monster with a sick sense of humour.
Raimi however ignored all of this, because he was a spoiled brat who wanted to include his childhood villains and as a result he gave us the most half arsed version of Venom I've ever seen. Thing is though he kind of botched that characters chance on the big screen for decades to come.
Sure the Venom movies, which I like have come out since and been big hits, but still they don't really do Venom justice either. They can't because Spidey isn't in them. Venom's story arc has potential to be fascinating because of the way he goes from the ultimate villain to this noble anti hero. Now however we probably won't see that for a looooooong time because the characters rights are caught up and just getting venom and spidey in a movie together seems to be a Herculian task.
We could and should have seen the saga unfold properly across Spider-Man 3 and 4, but again Raimi was such a spoiled brat that he f*cked it up. He is one of my favourite directors btw. Evil Dead, Xena, you know how much I love those series and films, but people need to stop making excuses for him in regards to Venom. It sets a bad precedent.
Missy is another example of Raimi's kind of crap thinking, IE Moffat hated the Master and was forced to include him to set up the gender bending crap, and rather than try and do his research or find anything interesting about the Master, he just did his stupid femme fatale cliche, (River Song, Tasha Lem, Irene Adler) for the fourth time.
To be fair Robert Holmes was the same with the Cybermen. He wrote Revenge and rather than do his research, he just dismissed the Cybermen as crap and wrote the lamest version of them. He didn't tackle anything that made the Cybermen unique, like converting people and wrote them out of character, like the Cyber leader going into big monologues about the beauty of destruction. I might also add just as Raimi's movie botched Venom's chance to go mainstream, then Revenge also botched the Cybermen's chance to return in the 70s, whilst Missy, well you know the devastating effect that's had on the Master's character. A final parallel between them is that Holmes and Moffat ironically could have actually done a good version of the Master and the Cybermen if they hadn't been so f*cking lazy! The Cybermen are a great fit for Holmes style. They tackle body horror themes, they are a good fit for old gothic horror tropes. (Tomb of the Cybermen is kind of a precursor to the whole Hinchcliff era, the way it's like an old Hammer Mummy movie) and they are a once great power that is now desperately trying to survive like Morbius, Sutekh etc. Similarly Moffat's version of the Great Intelligence ironically is a better version of the Master than it was the GI. The actor, Richard E Grant would have been perfect for the role of the Master, his costume was a good fit, his motivation of despising the Doctor and preying on people was spot on, he'd also be a more fitting foe for the 50th etc.
John Semper JR in this respect should serve as the role model for writers that are handed other people's characters IE leave your stupid fanboy prejudices behind, be a professional writer and see what interesting stories you can find with this character, and do your f*cking research, and don't have contempt for the fans of said character "oh those idiots just want to see this villain return for nostalgia, so they won't care if I completely and utterly change it."
Sadly Moffat, Raimi and yes even the great Bob Holmes were all guilty of that, and in contrast to Semper who did introduce a whole generation to Venom, they f*cked up those villains for years to come. The Cybermen were seen by the new generation of Who fans as just an old 60s relic that couldn't work in the new era. It wouldn't be until almost ten years later, before JNT would restore them to being the other big villain alongside the Daleks. Similarly mainstream movie fans saw Venom as just a lame, one note villain who couldn't even hold a movie on his own thanks to Spidey 3, whilst the Master to the Claudia Boleyn generation is now the Doctors jealous ex lover because of Missy.
