Venom: Why Haven’t the Life Foundation Symbiotes Ever Become Popular?

Although Marvel primarily focuses on Venom and Carnage, there are several other symbiotes that have yet to attain the same degree of popularity.


Venom is easily the most iconic and recognizable of Marvel's symbiotes, namely due to his relationship with Spider-Man. His popularity in the late '80s and early '90s saw the similar rise of his offspring/nemesis, Carnage. As with all good things, the concept was repeated ad nauseam with other symbiotes, although they weren't nearly as successful.


For various reasons, these other symbiotes have all fallen by the wayside. Part of this is due to timing, but even the revival of Venom as a singular IP hasn't made them any more well-known. This goes for the symbiotes and their hosts, with none of these humans having the same renown as Eddie Brock or Cletus Kasady.


Venom's First Series Introduced the Life Foundation's Symbiotes


Created by David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane, the Life Foundation debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #298. A group dedicated to surviving the worst catastrophes that might befall humanity, it sought to use technology (of both human and extraterrestrial means) to achieve this goal. This led to an encounter with Venom where the Life Foundation extracted five new symbiotes from his body in a manner similar to the birth of Carnage.


These five symbiotes were Scream, Riot, Agony, Phage and Lasher, with the former being the first female symbiote ever seen in the comics. Bonded to Life Foundation mercenaries, these foes (who debuted in Venom: Lethal Protector #4) survived a defeat the hands of Venom and Spider-Man. Scream remained the most prominent of this group, although Riot got a bit of a push following the character's appearance in the 2018 Venom movie. The classic versions of these villains mostly appeared in the 1990s in various Spider-Man video games, but this push was ultimately the most publicity they received as a whole. In fact, their lack of more mainstream media appearances has been their biggest downfall.


More recently, they've returned to the limelight somewhat in Venom comics. Phage, Lasher, Agony and Riot served both their "brother" Carnage and even the symbiote god Knull, with wanton destruction still chief on their minds. Conversely, Scream (whose newest host is Andi Benton) has become an antihero, allying herself with Venom and fighting against her evil siblings. For the most part, they've only been featured in the various Venom-based crossovers in recent years, with even the current "Death of the Venomverse" mostly only dealing with variants of Venom or Eddie Brock. This has left the Life Foundation's brood fairly underdeveloped, despite their apparent potential.


The Life Foundation Symbiotes Were Too Much of a Good Thing


As mentioned, Venom was immensely popular in the 1990s, and this facilitated his shift into a heroic Lethal Protector. Thus, Carnage was used as a more villainous version of what Venom started out as, offering the proverbial best of both worlds. Unfortunately, their mutual push was definitely a case of oversaturation, as they both notably appeared in Spider-Man: The Animated Series only a few years after being created. When juxtaposed with the numerous Venom books, spinoffs and crossover events from the era, readers had more than enough of the symbiotes by the time the Life Foundation crew came around.


It didn't help that the five new symbiotes felt like an inorganic push for potential new IPs, as they were all merely palette swaps of Venom and Carnage. Their initial mercenary hosts meant that they had little in way of depth and were merely there to be bruisers. To be fair, even Brock and Carnage's main host Cletus Kasady didn't receive their best stories and characterizations until years later, meaning that these color-swapped copies were even more unlikely to receive any development. This was an area where the 2018 Venom movie improved Riot by making Carlton Drake his host and giving him a bit of a personality. Ironically, many fans didn't initially recognize the symbiote, speaking to just how obscure the Life Foundation Five have consistently been throughout the years.

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