As the superhero (or antihero) movie series starring Tom Hardy comes to a close, it goes out with a bang by delivering plenty of fan service. Here are five Easter eggs and Marvel references from the final film in the trilogy.
Tom Hardy first portrayed the dual roles of investigative journalist Eddie Brock and his alien symbiote companion Venom, characters from the Spider-Man comics, in 2018. He has since followed that up with Venom: Let There Be Carnage and, most recently, Venom: The Last Dance, which is the latest — and likely final — instalment in the series. Here are five connections to the wider Marvel mythology to look out for in the swansong chapter of the Venom trilogy.
1) Knull
The movie’s opening scene introduces us to Knull (Andy Serkis), a godlike entity who created the symbiotes and is imprisoned on the planet Klyntar in the Andromeda Galaxy. He sends symbiote-hunting monsters called Xenophages to Earth to find Venom, who holds the codex that can free him.
Knull is the main villain of the King in Black event in Marvel Comics, in which Eddie/Venom teams up with the Avengers and the X-Men to stop an impending symbiote invasion. He only appears briefly, but as one of Marvel’s most powerful supervillains, he could return in future movies as a major threat. Serkis, who voices and provides the motion capture performance for him, also directed Let There Be Carnage, the second film in the Venom trilogy.
2) Navigating the Multiverse
In the post-credits scene of Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Eddie/Venom was transported into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The post-credits scene of Spider-Man: No Way Home follows up on this, revealing that Eddie has been hanging out at a bar in Mexico and never interacted with Spider-Man. He leaves a bit of the symbiote behind. The Last Dance shows Eddie/Venom getting transported back to the Mexico of his home universe, where there just happens to be a similar bar with a variant of the bartender, played again by Cristóbal Fernández. There’s still a bit of symbiote goo left in the MCU, but at least for now, Venom’s sojourn to the MCU seems inconsequential.
3) Rex Strickland and Teddy Paine
The movie’s two main human antagonists are General Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Dr Teddy Paine (Juno Temple). The former represents the military, and the latter represents the scientists — the two groups have an uneasy alliance. They are both very loosely inspired by characters from the comics: Strickland is a soldier who was bonded to the symbiote Tyrannosaurus during the Vietnam War, while Thaddeus Paine is a sadistic scientist who cannot feel pain.
4) Rhys Ifans as Martin
Eddie befriends a family of hippies living out of a camper van, led by dad Martin (Rhys Ifans) and mum Nova Moon (Alanna Ubach). Ifans’ casting made many fans speculate that his character was connected to a Spider-Man villain whom he had previously portrayed: Dr Curt Connors/The Lizard, who was the main antagonist of The Amazing Spider-Man. There is no apparent link between the two characters.
P.S. Ejiofor had also previously played a separate Marvel character, Baron Mordo, in the Doctor Strange movies, and there’s no connection between Rex Strickland and Mordo either.
5) The Symbiotes
From the first Venom movie, we’ve known that there are many other symbiotes out there. That movie’s main villain was the symbiote Riot, who bonded to Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed) and Let There Be Carnage focused on the titular Carnage, who bonded to serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson).
Police detective Patrick Mulligan (Stephen Graham) appeared to die in Let There Be Carnage, but he returns in The Last Dance, bonded to an unnamed green symbiote (in the comics, Mulligan is one of the hosts of the orangey-red symbiote Toxin). The symbiotes Lasher, Phage, and Agony also appear in this movie, amongst others, with a major set piece featuring multiple symbiotes in action. Stick around for mid-credits and post-credits scenes that tease a continuation of the franchise.
Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds, the duo is forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie's last dance.
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