Two years ago Randy Schueller recounted to Comic Book Resources that Venom evolved out of an idea Schueller sent to Marvel in the 80s when the company ran a competition for aspiring comic book writers and artists.

I thought it would be cool if Spidey needed to upgrade his powers and his look, so I came up with this idea that Reed Richards had made a new costume for Spidey using the same unstable molecules that the FF costumes are made of. The unstable molecules would flow into Peter's pores and allow him to cling to walls better. I think my original idea was to increase his sticking power by 25% or something like that.

For some lame reason, I had the Wasp involved since she was the resident fashion plate of the Marvel universe at the time. Remember when Jan would show up in every other issue of the Avengers sporting a cool new costume? I loved when they did that! So to me it made sense to have her design the new spider suit when she was over at the Baxter Building for cocktails or something. Anyway, I saw the new suit as a stealth version of the original costume - jet black so he could blend in with the shadows. At best, all you could see of him was the blood red spider emblem, emblazoned on his chest. (Yeah, in my design the spider was red, not white. I also gave him underarm webbing like in the original Ditko design.

To Schueller's surprise, a few months later he got a letter from the Marvel desk of then editor-in-chief James Shooter saying flat out, "I want to buy it," and offering Schueller $220 for the idea and the chance to write the script. He wrote up a few versions of his idea, but scripting didn't pan out and the idea, he thought, had been shelved.

A year later, Secret Wars came out, introducing a black costumed Spider-man. Shueller was surprised to see some of his concept brought to life, but when his idea then turned into Venom in The Amazing Spider-man he was disturbed. " I was never a fan of the costume-turned-villain idea. Give me the classic Ditko villains any day! Venom just never really seemed to work for me," he wrote in to CBR.

When Venom became such a big part of the Spiderman-3 movie, Schueller decided to bring his venomous alter-ego to light, along with the letter James Shooter personally sent to him in 1982.

While Schueller isn't looking for money from Marvel — he did get his $220 — he's bummed the comic giant never acknowledged his part in the character's creation. With Marvel's continued legal trouble as they suss out who created and now owns what of the Spider-man franchise, this two-year-old story has gained traction again.

With a Venom movie in the works, along with Spider-man 4 we wonder if Schueller will get any props from Marvel, or the movies' directors any time soon.

The secret origin of the black Spider-Man costume [Heat Vision Blog]

Researchers at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum have been studying the Sinornithosaurus, the "Chinese bird lizard," a diminutive relative of the raptor. Closer investigations of the skull reveal that the Sinornithosaurus had snake-like fangs and pockets in the skull that indicate the former presence of glands. Because of the shape of the teeth and the fact that these gland pockets are connected to the teeth through narrow ducts, paleontologists believe that the glands contained venom. The researchers believe that the bird-like dinosaur had a venomous bite, which it used to subdue its prey.

It's a significant discovery for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it offers more clues as to the origin of venom in snakes and lizards, which likely stems from a common ancestors these animals shared with Sinornithosaurus. It also opens up the possibility that other raptors also had venomous bites. The researchers plan to look more closely at other raptor skulls, especially its close relative, the glider Microraptor, to see if they possess similar features.

Dinosaur Packed Venom in Fangs [LiveScience]

Inception:

Michael Caine spills the beans about what part he plays in Christopher Nolan's first post-The Dark Knight` project:

I play a professor who's teaching a guy science. It's Leonardo diCaprio. He's going off to do a science project and he speaks to me before he goes.

But it sounds like he's only in the film for a few brief moments.[Empire Online]

Venom:

Spider-Man 4 director Sam Raimi, not surprisingly, has no clue whether this spin-off will take place in the same "universe" as his movies. (The same universe as in the same continuity — I'm fairly sure the laws of physics will apply, more or less, in both films.) [MTV]

Star Trek 2:

Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman give another vague interview. This time around, they hint that there will be more exposure for characters other than Kirk and Spock in movie #2:

Kurtzman: For sure. In a sequel, you have even more of that burden, because the first movie is about introducing characters, but the second movie is about digging deeper into them. So you've got to make sure your story is giving everyone a moment… More than a moment. An arc.

Orci: We've always thought of the bridge crew as a family, so it's not just, "What are we gonna find for them?" It's part of the DNA of doing Star Trek right, I think - to make sure all the characters represent a significant part of the family.

[IGN via TrekWeb]

The Road:

Here's the final poster for this apocalptic funfest. [Cinemablend]

2012:

This new Adam Lambert music video seems to include some scenes from what must be the end of this movie, showing John Cusack and company emerging from storage containers unharmed. [Cinemablend]

Twilight:

Jackson Rathbone says Jasper Cullen's Civil War flashbacks in Eclipse don't take up quite as much time as they do in the book, but it's nice to see Jasper when he was still a bad dude. Also, as in the book, Jasper's the only one who knows how to combat the vampire army being raised by Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard). [MTV]

Also, director Chris Weitz says New Moon will follow the book's storyline, so we won't see that much of Edward. (Nooo!):

We didn't want to shoehorn him into the story. I did alter the visuals of the story in the sense that in the book, Kristen [Stewart]'s character has aural hallucinations — she hears his voice — and we've built in a very beautiful subtle effect so that we see him as well. But those are brief, if impactful, moments. A lot of the film is sustained by her loss and Taylor [Lautner]'s character bringing her back to life.

[IGN]

Lost:

Emilie de Ravin will be in every episode of season six, and we'll find out what happened to her. And we'll be seeing a different version of Claire — one that's more Rousseau-ish. As for the real Rousseau, we won't be seeing her in the final season — the producers asked Mira Furlan to return for the final season, but she turned them down due to a prior commitment. [EW]

Also, episode six is called "Sundown" and probably revolves around Sun and/or Jin. The show seems to be copying season one's pattern of character-centric episodes, but probably that will change with episode seven — unless we're really getting a Charlie-centric outing. [SpoilersLost]

Fringe:

We may not have seen the last of Charlie, since his duplicate in the alternate world is still running around. The show got rid of him because the producers wanted to get out of the FBI offices and more underground. And by the same token, we may not be seeing that much of new FBI character Special Agent Jessup (Meghan Markle) in the upcoming episodes — she's available if the show wants her, but she may not turn up that often, by the sound of things. We'll be getting to know our core characters more. Also, we may meet Olivia's evil stepfather this season. [EW]

Supernatural:

You won't have to wait much longer for the big showdown. Sam and Dean fight Lucifer in episode 10, and two characters die! [EW]

FlashForward:

Three sneak peeks from tonight's episode, "Gimme Some Truth":

Stargate Universe:

Just how angry is Sgt. Ronald Greer? Let Jamil Walker Smith explain:

And here's a sneak peek from Friday's new episode, "Light."

Sanctuary:

And a clip from tomorrow night's new episode, "Eulogy." Put those two episode titles together, you've got a Funkadelic song title.

Smallville:

In the episode called "Disciple," Steve Bacic will play The Dark Archer (bwa ha ha ha) who's Green Arrow's mentor and teaches him everything there is to know about archery. And darkness. Fans are speculating this is the same character as Merlyn The Archer from the comics. Also, Emilie Ullerup will play Cat Grant, and she appears in episode six, "Crossfire," the episode that also introduces Speedy. [ComicBookMovie and ComicBookMovie]

Heroes:

Here's the official description of episode 4x08, "Shadowboxing":

Claire is determined to get to the bottom of the attacks; H.R.G. realizes he may be the source of Claire's troubles; Peter's new ability is the perfect fit for his job; Sylar's battle at gaining full control of Matt's body escalates.

[SpoilerTV]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

If Venom is going to be, as the trades describe it, "transformed into an anti-hero who becomes a defender of the innocent," then this will most likely be borrowing from Venom's solo titles. Still, was the character of Eddie Brock, as set up in the last Spider-Man, enough to merit his own film? Especially if Columbia Pictures recasts the role, which originally starred Topher Grace. And there's been quite a bit of speculation that they will recast, since Topher is not a "tent-pole" actor.

We'll have to wait to see what Gary Ross does, but right now he's busy rewriting the script for the third time. Plus we still have another Spider-Man film to get through, before this film is ready to be made.

[Variety]

Rhett Reese, one of the screenwriters for the Sony movie, was happy to tell Superhero Hype that Lee's place in the evil Spider-Man's solo movie debut was assured:

Oh, yeah. Stan Lee is in it.. I feel like that's the one thing we can say. He does appear in our script, and we're very specific about where he is and why.

Considering that Lee had nothing to do with Venom's creation - unlike Hulk, Iron Man, Spider-Man and Fantastic Four, all of whose movies he's blessed with his presence - we're curious to see where he turns up... and whether Jim Shooter, Mike Zeck, Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz, David Micheline or Todd McFarlane (all of whom were involved in the creation of Venom in one way or another) also get cameo appearances in the movie.

Stan Lee to Appear in the Venom Spin-Off [Superhero Hype]

Zombieland writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese told reporters they've been selected to write that Venom script. Although they weren't able to say much about it, they also rushed to reassure fans that they're not going to screw the symbiote with this one:

We read [Venom] growing up, but we were not experts," Reese said. "We certainly know the mythology of Venom, but went back and learned more when it became clear that we could actually get this job...It's source material that everybody knows and everybody's familiar with and everybody loves. There's a burden on you to meet the expectations of people. A lot of people are curious about Venom."

I've always been under the impression that Venom is a love 'em or hate 'em character, so I'm really curious as to how they're going to pull this off. Plus, in order to really sell this movie to the main stream masses you know the studio is going to go after a bigger "tent pole" actor to leverage the cost it will take to make and market the action flick. We've tried to cast Venom before, but let me state for the record that I adored Topher Grace in the "let's never speak of this again" Spider-Man 3 movie. I would be very happy if they kept Grace, but I also liked the idea of James McAvoy. Still, the studio may need to go after someone bigger (muscle and reputation wise). [Sci Fi Wire]

While the D.C. Comics shoes from Limited Soles announced last month that you rep a particular superhero, the new Nike SBs simply suggest the presence of greatness is in the area. You don't need Bruce Wayne on the back of your heels...your tailored suit, sneakers, and butler tells the ladies everything you need to know.

The Nike SB shoes come out in November, and you can preorder them here.

Scifi Clothing You Can Wear Without Fear of Reprisal [io9]

Marvel Comics have their lightest week in quite some time, which clears the way for Amazing Spider-Man #568, the first part of the six-issue "New Ways To Die" storyline that brings Venom back into Spider-Man's world, as well as introducing the potentially-awesome, potentially-disastrous new character "Anti-Venom" to the world. If any Spider-fans need more reason to pick it up, what if I tell you that it also returns Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, to his rightful place as Spider-villain? Exactly.
DC Comics have two great launches to compete against any number of webheaded bad guys, however; Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds sees uber-writer Geoff Johns and uber-artist George Perez team up to smash three different versions of the 31st century together and see what survives, while G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker's Air offers up a heady mix of technology, terrorism and spirituality in a story that starts with a flight attendant who's afraid of flying and ends up somewhere off any map you've ever seen.

If those two books don't tickle your fancy (and if not, then for shame: they're the two I'm most looking forward to this week), then IDW and Dark Horse have you covered: Doctor Who: The Forgotten is due in stores tomorrow, launching IDW's "All of the Doctors, ever" mini-series with story by Tony Lee and art by Y: The Last Man's Pia Guerra. More excitingly, though, Dark Horse has Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, a graphic novel based upon the upcoming video game (and written by the game's writer , Haden Blackman); you can find a seven-page preview of the book here, if you're not convinced, but for those of you who may be craving a less cartoony take on George Lucas' legacy, this is for you.

By this point, you know what comes next: A full list of this week's books can be found here, which you can use to build your very own shopping list that you can take to your very own local comic store... which you can locate by going here. Use those powers wisely, my friends, and remember: Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering, and suffering leads to you realizing how much you need something like The Force Unleashed to remind you why you liked Star Wars the first time around.

McFarlane told Newsarama.com:

He should be creepier than what he was in Spider-Man 3... You don't want to scare the kids, because the kids love the character... But I think you could add a little bit of a creep factor. I mean, it never bugged me to watch Frankenstein as a kid, so you could have a little bit of it, as long as you have a good story backing it up.

But he's also very concerned about what kind of good story backs it up:

I'm thinking about how they want to make anti-heroes nowadays... Those don't work. The reason they're so cool as a bad guy is because they're bad. And as soon as you try to give too much humanity to them, then you go, no! Now they're not as good as a bad guy because you're trying to redeem them.

So, basically, McFarlane wants to see a movie starring a creepy monster who doesn't get redeemed at all. Does someone want to try and explain Sony's idea of an addition to a family-friendly franchise to Todd and see if his head explodes?

Todd McFarlane Weighs in on 'Venom' Movie Spin-off [Newsarama]

DC's big releases of the week are probably Countdown: Arena, which is much more fun than any comic with no plot and ugly art has any right to be (I'm not joking about the lack of plot; here's literally everything that happens in it: Three different versions of many DC superheroes have to fight each other or be killed. The end.), and The Flash: The Wild Wests, in which writer Mark Waid tried his hardest to recast the Fastest Man Alive as the father in a superhero sitcom family with varying results (The first issues are by far the best, not only because of the way in which the story peters out by the end, but also because Daniel Acuna's art is a beautiful thing to behold); much more worthwhile, though, is Dark Horse's The Mask Omnibus, Vol. 1, which will remind all who have forgotten that there was always more to the tale of the magical green mask than either Jim Carrey or Jamie Kennedy could ever hope to relate to moviegoing audiences.

The independent publishers seem to have sensed weakness from the majors, with IDW releasing the beautiful and nonsensical-in-the-best-way Complete Zombies Vs. Robots collection for just $24.99 (the cheapest way to read about the undead fighting the mechanically-living while also taking on Amazons and also a giant squid or two that you can find, I believe) and Devil's Due releasing the 99-cent preview issue of Heroes' Milo Ventimiglia's new comic, Rest. But both of these valiant efforts for variation are likely to be crushed by the sales behemoth that is Marvel Comics' Spider-Man, which tries to take over your local retailer with three different titles this week.

In preparation for the apparently-upcoming movie, Venom: Dark Origin launches its six-issue-run, telling the apparently ill-lit beginnings of Spider-Man's alien, while much happier times can be found in the King-Size Spider-Man Summer Special, which hopefully includes ol' webhead getting ginchy on the beach with Annette and Frankie with a title like that. And if both of those aren't enough spider-action for you, then there's always the first issue of Amazing Spider-Man Family, where - I swear to you this is true - there's a strip called Mr. And Mrs. Spider-Man about Peter and Mary-Jane being married and preparing to have a kid. Who could resist?
(Just in case you can resist, Marvel is actually putting out something that has nothing to do with their favorite franchise this week: NYX: No Way Home revives the "gutterpunk" version of the X-Men from a few years back, with novelist Marjorie Liu getting rid of the teenage prostitute and focusing on a more YA-friendly direction.)

As is the case each and every week of each and every year, the full list of this week's releases can be found here, with the whereabouts of your local comic book store being found here. Just make sure to support your local Spider-Man while you're there; that guy really doesn't get enough attention.

Leonardo DiCaprio:


Why He's Destined To Don The Skin Tight Unitard: DiCaprio is a much better fit as Venom than as Captain America. Even though you may think he'd never do a movie like this, you could argue that Christian Bale opened the door for more A-listers to take super-roles.
Why He'll Fall Flat On His Big Venom Grin It's still DiCaprio and my money is if he gets this role, he'll phone it in big time cause it's beneath him or something arty like that.

Casey Affleck

Why He's Destined To Don The Skin Tight Unitard: Showed us all he could play crazy in that ridiculous cowboy flick, so now it's his time to shine.
Why He'll Fall Flat On His Big Venom Grin: Does anyone want to see another Affleck movie, even if it is the younger brother?

Sam Witwer:


Why He's Destined To Don The Skin Tight Unitard: He's going to be huge after The Force Unleashed as the secret apprentice. Huge I tell ya, huge. He's already proven that he can play the bad guy, what more do you need? Plus I'd pay to watch this guy read his mail for two hours, he's that good looking.
Why He'll Fall Flat On His Big Venom Grin:Banking pretty hard on the fact that he will become able to carry a film based on a video game is a big risk.

James McAvoy:

Why He's Destined To Don The Skin Tight Unitard: Proved he could do action in Wanted, looks good in action, and is pretty decent actor. So he could pull off the crazy villain thing.
Why He'll Fall Flat On His Big Venom Grin:McAvoy would need to go seriously dark for anyone to take him seriously in this role. I'm still used to seeing him in as the romantic lead, in spite of Wanted.

[Hollywood Reporter]

Marvel Comics’ big summer Spider-Man storyline, “New Ways To Die”, promises to introduce a new villain into the webslinger’s life: a mysterious character connected to his enemy Venom, called Anti-Venom. The most recent issue of Marvel’s Fantastic Four series featured Mr. Fantastic stopping an invincible foe by wearing his new “Anti-Galactus suit”. Sensing a trend here? We've got the full back story on this new anti-zeitgeist.

This isn’t the first time that comic characters have had to face their opposites, although it’s mostly been a DC schtick; Superman’s imperfect clone Bizarro does everything Superman does backwards, after all, and the Flash has had a Reverse-Flash to deal with for decades, now (There’s even a Legion of Super-Villains for the Legion of Super-Heroes). It's not even the first time that a villain has used the "Anti-" prefix (Who can forget Crisis on Infinite Earths' Anti-Monitor, who outlasted the Monitor by about two thirds of the series?). But Marvel’s latest version of this idea may have less to do with exploring the undersides of villains’ identities and more to do with exploiting brands for cheap identification - Fantastic Four’s Anti-Galactus was a one-time appearance with no connection to the series’ giant planet-eater beyond the name, after all. As to who and what Anti-Venom turns out to be, that’s still shrouded in mystery for the most part, with Amazing Spider-Man editor Steve Wacker playing dumb when asked to elaborate:

[He’s a b]rand new [character]...but he does have a tie to an existing villain in Spidey's life.

Gee, do you think that villain could be Venom? (The current and former Venoms have already been announced to be appearing in "New Ways To Die"; current speculation is that the original Venom, Eddie Brock, will turn into the Anti-Venom.)

For a more in-depth dichotomy between hero and villain, maybe you should be looking to The Sentry, Marvel’s Superman clone who happens to be his own worst enemy… literally. The Sentry’s arch-nemesis, The Void, happens to be the evil side of the Sentry’s schizophrenic secret identity, Robert Reynolds, split into his own, separate, body. I could explain exactly how that works, but all you really need to know is, “Hey. It’s comics.” That whole “man versus his own dark side” thing is much easier here; even Captain America is doing it (Give it two months, and one of them will be calling himself the Anti-Cap).

Introducing the Anti-Venom [IGN]

But chances are Topher won't actually don the slimy rubber-fetish outfit again. He said last April that he wouldn't be on board for a Venom movie because spin-offs starring Elektra and Supergirl have bombed. He thinks a Venom vehicle would do similarly badly. [IESB]