Written by Mike Costa
Cover and art by Mark Bagley
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You’ve been drawing Venom for awhile now — I particularly remember your depictions of him back in Ultimate Spider-Man. What have you learned about drawing such a unique-looking character in that time?
MARK BAGLEY: The “regular” Marvel version of Venom is actually a much different character than the Ultimate version of Venom. Venom in the regular Marvel universe is very much the prototypical archnemesis antagonist we’ve come to know in superhero literature, with a mind and a purpose driving him. The Ultimate Venom was really meant to be more of a monster than a super villain and the way I portrayed him in those stories was meant to reflect that. I was really thinking of him as a huge cancerous/tumorous creature which is why I had masses and random rows of teeth growing all over him.
EW: Venom’s teeth/tongue/muscles are sometimes exaggerated to ridiculous proportions, but on the cover for #155 he looks relatively restrained. What’s the key to striking that balance? Does his appearance coincide with his mindset?
BAGLEY: Venom’s more exaggerated look, the huge muscles, massive fanged jaws, and that amazing tongue, really evolved over the years from artist to artist. With the Legacy stories I think Marvel really wanted to rein that in quite a bit. Bring Eddie Brock/Venom back to his roots, so to speak. But the tongue and more monstrous aspects of his look aren’t gone for good. Instead, they are going to be used thematically as more of a visual cue to reflect the symbiote’s mental state.
Who else is excited by the return of the original Lethal Protector? What do you hope will be different this time around?