WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD FOR “SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME”
Sony Pictures’ “Spider-Man: No Way Home” has finally arrived, as is typical with Marvel films, you should stick around after the credits for a little more. But, if you’re here, it probably means you did just that and you have some questions — specifically about that scene with Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock/Venom.
After the post-credits scene in “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” many hoped that Eddie/Venom would actually meet — if not actually fight — Tom Holland’s Spider-Man in “No Way Home.” Alas, that’s not quite how things went. But, Tom Hardy definitely did set up the MCU’s version of Venom, or something like it.
So here’s what went down. In the mid-credits scene of “No Way Home,” we find Eddie and Venom at a bar. Like the rest of the “No Way Home” villains, Eddie was pulled in by Strange’s spell, but he didn’t go looking for Peter Parker. Instead, he’s been learning all about Tony Stark and Thanos from the bartender. That said, all the information he’s been given is a lot to process, so Eddie thinks maybe he should go talk to Peter (something Drunk Venom wholeheartedly supports).
But, before he can actually make a move to go anywhere, Strange’s new spell hits — one that sends all the multiversal characters home and in turn, makes everyone in the MCU forget about Peter Parker — and Eddie is sent back to his own universe.
So sadly, it looks like Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock and Venom won’t be in the MCU after all. Hang on though, because we did say he sets up something similar for the MCU. And he does.
In the final moments of the mid-credits scene, we see that a piece of the symbiote responsible for Venom actually separated from Eddie as he vanished, and landed on the bar. After a moment, we also see that it’s very much still active, as it crawls off — presumably to find its MCU host.
Now, at this point, who exactly that will be is anyone’s guess. All we know for now is that a little bit of the Venom symbiote is loose in the MCU — and by our reckoning, it’s not even in New York yet, since Eddie was on a beach when he arrived.
Obviously, with the multiverse having been split open in “No Way Home” and “Loki,” and likely again very soon in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” there’s always a possibility of Tom Hardy finding his way into another “Spider-Man” film. But this mid-credits scene seems to make it pretty clear that he won’t be back in the MCU.
Could Sony and Marvel cast an MCU-specific version of Eddie Brock? Sure, but we’re very skeptical that will happen. Sony still hasn’t announced a third “Venom” movie but we expect that to happen before too much longer. No sense in having two versions of the same character in otherwise unrelated movies confusing movie audiences, right?
There are however plenty of other characters who have interacted with Symbiotes in the comics that could show up — way too many to list here. But we will note that in the comics, before Venom became Venom, the symbiote first showed up as a cool new costume for Spider-Man himself — until it turned out to be evil, of course.
Maybe Sony (and Marvel) will take another swing at the Alien Costume Saga, since no one, including director Sam Raimi, liked “Spider-Man 3.”
Note: This article was originally published in December 2021.