Villain Profile: Venom (Mac Gargan)

Part 3: Mac Gargan

I think I can count the veins in his neck. <Shudder>

I guess I should mention the guy who bought the suit. It is bought by Don Fortunato, a mafia boss, who gives it to his son Angelo to toughen him up. The union is short lived. After goading Spider-man into a battle, Angelo flees when things shift in Spidey's favor. Venom, disgusted by what his new partner had done, breaks things off with Angelo. Mid swing. Above New York. Safe to say, Angelo didn’t walk away. Venom, probably sick of working with subpar candidates, sought out a new host that could live up to its standards.

Macdonald “Mac” Gargan was a dirty private investigator turned super human warrior created to kill Spider-man. Despite his enhanced strength, speed and acid spewing bionic tail, he flubbed up more often than not. I'll get more into his career as the Scorpion some other day. When the batch of Black Ooze known as Venom offered him new powers and a better chance to kill Spider-man, he signed his soul away. More so then the previous Venom hosts, actually.

The phrase, "Pick a God and Pray," comes to mind.

While the suit gave Gargan a whole new level of power, moving him up to the “A-list” as he put it, there was a pretty serious price to pay. Either due to the Scorpion alterations he’d already underwent, or due to Venom’s disgust with his last host, Venom decided to handle things differently with Gargan. It’s revealed as their bond grew stronger, more and more of Gargan’s personality was being repressed. The result was a homicidal rage monster that even Gargan was afraid of when the suit went dormant. I mean, the dang thing started EATING people. It didn’t do that with anyone else, to my knowledge. Not sure if it’s technically cannibalism though, if the suit is in control… Probably best not to think about it.

Gargan worked alone a good percentage of the time, but was continually roped into Norman Osborn’s schemes. Venom was a key member of Osborn’s “Sinister Twelve,” Doc Ock’s Sinister Six doubled, and later his Dark Avengers. The Dark Avenger’s was a concept Osborn came up with when he was appointed head of SHIELD. He basically took supervillains, gave them the costumes of heroes with similar powers, and called them the Avengers. Hawkeye was replaced by the villain Bullseye. Wolverine’s psychotic son Daken took Daddy’s costume. Ares filled the demi-god slot in place of Thor and a few others. A villainous named Moonstone took Ms. Marvel's costume and codename. Venom was rebranded as Spider-man, and Norman Osborn put himself in for Ironman and Captain America as the Iron Patriot. Scary group.

Ven-orpion? Well, it's kind of a cool design.

You are probably wondering how Mega-sized Venom could pass as Spider-man. The simple answer is, he couldn't. Without help. Stormin’ Norman came up with a drug that repressed the Venom Symbiote, slimming the monster down to a costume that resembled Spider-man’s look when united with the Symbiote. It allowed Gargan to pretend to be a black suit Spider-man, and transform back into his hulking behemoth form at will. The Dark Avengers arrangement lasted until Norman’s most insane plan, assaulting Asgard, failed. Gargan was arrested alongside his boss and teammates, where he was finally separated from the Symbiote. The question now was, what could the US government do with such a dangerous, but still incredibly useful resource? I’ll get into that next time with Flash Thompson.

Powers are the same, although its implied that even with an bigger physique than his predecessors, Gargan is still weaker than Brock was because he didn’t hate Spider-man enough. And occasionally Gargan would create a Scorpion tail from the Venom suit, but not often.

Gargan as Venom doesn’t appear too often in the expanded Marvel-verse. The one time I know of was in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, where he and Green Goblin were unlockable characters. He’s big and scary, which is all that Gargan really needs to be. A Venomized version of Scorpion did appear in the Ultimate Spider-man TV series, but the character was more like Scorpion coated in Venom gunk. More of a reiteration of Ven-orpion seen above then Gargan's Venom. It doesn't really matter, I suppose, since he was only there to pass the suit on to the generation three Venom, Flash Thompson.

It is important to note that of the four main hosts, Gargan is apparently the one that Venom has the least attachment towards. On one occasion, the suit actually attempts to reconnect with a cancer free Brock when the opportunity arose. The only thing that stopped the transfer was the emergence of Brock’s new powers, but I’ll get into that when I cover Anti-Venom. If we keep the dating metaphor, Venom has gone from the vengeful ex to the straight up abusive Ex, forcing Gargan to do whatever it wanted regardless of Gargan’s wishes. The drugs keep it docile, but Gargan knows that when it wakes up it’s going to be pissed.

Honestly, I don’t really like this version of Venom. Mac Gargan is just a low level thug with superpowers, and I don’t like Venom being tied to it. I find his design to be just overly disgusting, with all the veins and what not you see close up. The cannibalism angle they went with just seems too over the top, like they were just adding stuff to hope it increases the creepiness factor. Though, if they wanted me to hate the character they succeeded. Next time, my favorite iteration of Venom, Agent Venom.

Well, I found my nightmare fuel for the next month. Don't let it eat my soul. Or my flesh.

 http://marvel.wikia.com/MacDonald_Gargan_%28Earth-12131%29
 http://marvel.wikia.com/MacDonald_Gargan_%28Earth-616%29
 http://www.comicvine.com/forums/battles-7/anti-venom-vs-venommac-gargan-vs-carnage-vs-toxin-529462/
 http://professoradagio.deviantart.com/art/Mac-Gargan-Venom-477107556