The Best of Symbiote Action Figures

First off, Happy Halloween! Remember: cosplay does not equal consent! Comic books and toys seem to naturally go hand-in-hand, so for today's dose of Venom, I'll be reviewing the best of all symbiote action figures in symbiote toy history. Now, my criteria of what constitutes the "best" action figure—range of posability, scale to other figures, accessories, and the sculpt's accuracy of likeness—may differ from your own, but by the end of this review I'm sure most of you will agree with more than one of my choices from your own experience. In this review, I'll explore the best action figures based on select symbiote characters, including Venom (Eddie Brock), Agent Venom (Flash Thompson), and Carnage (Cletus Kasady), as well as note a couple honorable mentions.

Let's start with the newest of our three subjects: Agent Venom. So far, there have only been two action figures released for this character, and both hit the ball out of the park in relation to my criteria. The newest of the figures was recently released as a Walgreens exclusive in the Marvel Legends Infinite line of figures from Hasbro, and features one unique accessory that sets it apart from its predecessor: a detachable back piece with four gun-wielding symbiote tendrils (only three can actually wield weapons, though).

However, the prize goes to the first Disney Store exclusive Agent Venom action figure from the Marvel Select line, produced by Diamond Select Toys and sculpted by symbiote fan-favorite Jean St. Jean (this won't be the last you hear about him in this review). Though the figure lacks the range of articulation and a minor paint detail as opposed to the Marvel Legends one, I feel the Marvel Select Agent Venom has the most comic book accurate look and a solid sculpt. Aside from those highlights, it's also to-scale with the rest of the Marvel Select line, which is a big plus.

Next up is the classic Venom. Venom has had just about as many action figures as he had comic book miniseries, if not more! One cannot dismiss his immense popularity, after all. Most Venom action figures have their own unique toy gimmicks, but the clear winner of the best Venom action figure is the one with comic-inspired accessories in place of gimmicks. Sculpted once again by Jean St. Jean and produced by Diamond Select Toys, the Marvel Select Venom figure is the all-around best symbiote action figure of all. It's also the first figure with which Diamond Select decided to shake things up and replace the standard of giving all of its Marvel Select figures complementary sculpted base stands with oodles of accessories to customize the base figure with.

This figure comes with three different head sculpts—including a Venom head with the classic Tod McFarlane-esqe smile, the open-mouthed Venom head with a removable tongue, and an Eddie Brock transformation head based on a famous Mark Bagley sketch—as well as three interchangeable pairs of hands, and a detachable back piece with an extra pair of articulated arms, miniature Venom heads, and miniature arms you can attach to the base figure's forearms to replicate his nightmarish likeness from Venom: The Madness. These accessories and the figure's perfect comic book likeness makes it the Venom figure to buy.

Finally we come to Carnage. A steady fan-favorite and rising star once again in the comics, the symbiotic serial killer has also had a fair history of action figures much like his less murderous father. His most recent release from the Marvel Legends Infinite line (he's called "Spawn of Symbiotes" on the packaging) takes the cake thus far simply because of the Legends level of articulation and the sculpt's accuracy of likeness to his initial appearances as drawn by Bagley, his artistic co-creator.

Few of the figure's predecessors can compare to the Marvel Legends Carnage. Despite its stellar features, its paint job is moderate at best; the red base color is too plasticky and toyetic, and the black slime lines end at the figure's wrists and various protruding tendrils. (I gave my figure a simple custom paint job to extend the black squiggles.) However, this figure's reign of supremacy will be cut short come Spring 2015 when Diamond Select Toys releases its new Marvel Select Carnage figure (they previously released a Marvel Select Ultimate Carnage figure based on the Ultimate Spider-Man comic version). Much like Marvel Select Venom, this figure will be sculpted by Jean St. Jean and will come with various accessories and a Bagley-inspired likeness that puts the Marvel Legends figure to shame.

Now, let's not leave out a few honorable mentions. These figures either had few to no competitors or are just my personal favorites. The Marvel Select Anti-Venom is the only proper Anti-Venom action figure on the global market (there was an Australian released figure that was a base Venom figure repainted as Anti-Venom, but it's rare). Again, it was sculpted by Jean St. Jean and features an exact comic book likeness to his first appearance in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man.  Lastly is the Marvel Legends Icons Venom, which is a whopping 12" tall and was my favorite Venom figure prior to the Marvel Select version. This figure was basically a scaled-up, slightly resculpted Amazing Spider-Man Venom figure minus the practically useless jaw action and the Symbiote Blast arm cannon.



So what's the take-away lesson from this review? Trust in Jean St. Jean and the Marvel Select line. You can't go wrong with the quality of Diamond Select's figures (barring the earlier Ultimate Venom and Carnage figures, which I don't own and can't vouch for, sadly), but considering their collectibility and the exorbitance of their after-market values, they might not be the most affordable to attain if you didn't already jump on getting them upon release. If you like Carnage and want the upcoming Marvel Select figure, don't hesitate to preorder this bad boy at sites like Big Bad Toy Store or Dork Side Toys because he'll be gone fast.

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AXIS and Carnage

When thinking of Cletus Kasady, the first few things that come to mind are usually chaos, murder, and "Carnage rules!"  The mind of this psychopath oozes with crazy and gives the reader some connection with being what Carnage thinks is complete freedom. The bond between Cletus and Carnage is as thick as blood, but sometimes you wonder how much control Cletus has in the relationship. When he was lobotomized, the symbiote controlled Cletus' body until it bonded with a doctor named Karl Malus and developed a healing power in Superior Carnage that  allowed the suit to somehow fix Cletus' brain.

Over the years, the symbiote has developed numerous adaptations, but being able to heal someone as such gives Carnage a superior edge over most other villains. In more recent works with Wade Wilson himself (Deadpool), Cletus was punished mentally by Deadpool and it caused him to rethink a lot of his ideas. Could this be the precedent for what we are going to see in AXIS? I wonder sometimes, though, what the extent of this healing power is. Can it re-grow limbs or could it even bring someone back such as Charles Xavier?


In the new AXIS event, Carnage is somewhat of a key player. Recently, he was recruited to be a part of an elite team created by Magneto. He will be getting his new limited series in this event and, hopefully, will be played up in this inversion as a new key player for Marvel in the upcoming months. Who wouldn't want to see more Carnage or a conflicted Cletus Kasady?

Also, be on the lookout in this event for an old-time favorite, Anti-Venom. Hopefully this will be a triumphant return for Eddie Brock or could it be a new character taking on the healing powers of Anti-Venom.  If Eddie returns as Anti-Venom, who will take on the role of Toxin?  Many questions are left to be answered and this is only a small part of what is going on with the continuing Spider-Verse series going on and a major year-long event that shall be taking place next year once again titled Secret Wars. Let's hope for a Secret Wars #8 throwback issue and see if Flash Thompson can give up Venom for a few issues or possibly a new symbiote could spawn.

November will be the real symbiote madness month with plenty of other upcoming titles in Guardians of the Galaxy's "Planet Venom," though Cletus takes the main stage in November and shows what he can do as a hero against Red Onslaught.

Video Game Spotlight on Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

Welcome back to A Dose of Venom's Video Game Spotlight segment. Today, we shall explore one of my all-time favorite Spider-Man and symbiote video games, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows (Xbox 360 edition). Developed by Treyarch and Shaba Games and published by Activision in 2008 for almost every platform available back then, this game was perhaps one of the most exciting for symbiote fans because half of the game's campaign revolved around a city-wide symbiote invasion and players could switch between Spidey's classic red-and-blue costume and his powerful black symbiote costume freely.

Now, I loved this game when I first played it, and still love it even to this day. I know it has some mechanical issues (especially with wall crawling and targeting enemies) and people have their gripes with the voice acting, but I felt it was a solid game with a fun story at the time. There is a morality system to the gameplay as well that pretty much started the morality trend later seen in other Spider-Man games (including the recent The Amazing Spider-Man 2 video game adaptation, though that one had a comparatively dumbed down version). The morality system allows players to make one of two decisions during select cutscenes—depicted as "Red Suit" (good) or "Black Suit" (evil) decisions—which would ultimately decide which of the four ending cutscenes the player would experience in the campaign's conclusion. The morality decisions are set up as instances in which either Peter Parker or the symbiote was in control of his actions.

Wait, where did Spidey get the symbiote suit from, though? He gains his alternate suit shortly after the introductory level in which the game throws the player in media res during the symbiote invasion as Parker's narrative (voiced by Mike Vaughn) explains how everything began with a fight against Venom (Eddie Brock, voiced by Keith Szarabajka). During their fight, Venom's symbiote tries to bond with Spidey again, but the process is interrupted and Spidey escapes with a fragment of the symbiote. From then on, players can switch between the red and black suits, each of which possesses unique abilities and stats. The red suit is super agile and fast and executes web-oriented attacks while the black suit is all about power and symbiote-oriented attacks.

Both of Spider-Man's costumes are beautiful, neo-classic representations of their comic book counterparts, and the symbiote costume has a black base color with an indigo sheen. The ability to switch between costumes at any time really helped to sell the game to me, and I definitely felt the power of the symbiote suit whenever I used it (which was much more often than the red suit).

Venom is pretty cool in this game, as he's most definitely the classic Brock version—he even calls his symbiote "the other." You can't get much more Venom than that! The character design is passable, even if the spider symbols on his chest and back aren't that great and his white hand patches are missing. The little detail of Brock's mouth at the back of Venom's throat as seen in the video below made up for it, though, and was a very interesting take on how Brock integrated with the symbiote.


The first half of the campaign is pretty much inconsequential to Venomaniacs, as Venom only ever shows up once in a while as the mystery behind how Spidey came to possess the symbiote suit thickens. Players battle a host of classic villains, including the Vulture, Rhino, and Electro, as well as work with a team of heroic and villainous characters, including Mary Jane Watson, Luke Cage, Black Cat, Wolverine, Moon Knight (another favorite character of mine, and done very well in this game), Black Widow, the Tinkerer, and the Kingpin. Players are able to summon some of the superheroes and villains during combat for assists, as well. All of it, though, is setup for the third and most exciting act: the symbiote invasion of New York City!

The Venom symbiote takes control of Brock as it learns how to replicate itself on a massive scale, and New York is quickly overrun by its own citizens possessed by symbiotes. Spider-Man and his heroic friends work with Black Widow and S.H.I.E.L.D. to help evacuate uninfected citizens to quarantine zones, but their nightmares become realized when their allies and enemies are taken over as well. Players get to battle symbiotic versions of Black Cat (who receives a special second symbiotic form for those playing with a darker morality), Wolverine, Vulture, and Electro, each of whom have pretty bad-ass character designs. There was even a symbiotic Moon Knight planned, but he didn't make it into the game outside of concept art featured in the end credits. Of course, let's not forget the awesome character designs for all of the symbiote minions—of which there were many variations—and the endgame boss: a giant multi-headed Venom.

(Start the video at 8:50 for the symbiote Wolverine fight.)

Depending on players' morality choices made throughout the game, two of the four endings left the game open for a sequel as Spidey becomes completely overtaken by the symbiote and takes command of the symbiote hordes. There was a sequel planned, as evidenced by the release of some concept art that even included Carnage, but the game never panned out due to a lukewarm reception of the first one and the production of the more successful Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. Despite its flaws and glitches, though, I personally believe the game possesses a high replayability rate, and I occasionally dust off the disc for another fond go-around.

If you're looking for an open-world Spider-Man video game with plenty of symbiotic action for your buck, you can't go wrong with Web of Shadows. It's a definite must-buy for the avid Venomaniac game collector. What did you think about the game? Who had the coolest symbiote costume? What more would you have liked to see in this game? Let us know in the comments section below, and, as always, check back in at A Dose of Venom every Friday for a new article!