Fair enough, but he could have kept being Venom and don’t hate anyone. Ever since Venom and Spider Man each agreed the other wasn’t all that bad so long as Venom stuck to the West coast (and operated mainly in San Francisco as a vigilante) and Spidey to the East coast (New York has always been his turf, where he does what a vigilante would, only less violently) that Venom had been more about defending innocents (in “Maximum Carnage” – brace yourselves, I’m having a nerd moment – Venom defends his mind to kill Cassidy instead of imprisoning him as Spidey would have done, arguing that he must do because he’s responsible for Carnage’s existence. When Spidey retorts that he does understand, because that’s how he regards Venom, Venom is shocked and says something to the effect of “Us? But… we protect innocents!”). Not much hate in that.

I’ll admit, I’m not very familiar with Anti-venom, but I know this: his looks are modelled on Venom’s, except the colours are inverted, i.e., he’s mainly white with a black spider motif on his chest and back. Granted, that’s well and good, representing at once both his origins as Venom and his departure from Venom’s ideology to his polar opposite, but it doesn’t look nearly as good as Venom.

Brock Venom is still my favourite character, with Deadpool and Iron Man in very close pursuit.