Venom: The Last Dance is out now, bringing the Tom Hardy-starring trilogy to a close. In the new film, Eddie and his symbiote are on the run, implicated in the death of Detective Mulligan (Stephen Graham) in the previous movie, Venom: Let There Be Carnage. As anyone who watched that film will know, however, Mulligan is not really dead. He survived his encounter with Carnage and now appears to be infected with a symbiote of his own...
This development has its roots in Marvel Comics, where Mulligan and his symbiote are a pretty major character: Toxin, the offspring of Carnage (who is, himself, the son of Venom!). So, does that mean that Toxin features in Venom: The Last Dance? The answer to that is actually a little complicated...
Spoilers for Venom: The Last Dance
Toxin made his first appearance 20 years ago in 2004's Venom/Carnage limited series by writer Peter Milligan and artist Clayton Crain. In the first issue it's revealed that Carnage is about to become a father to a new symbiote, which has been bonded to the body of NYPD cop Patrick Mulligan. Carnage wants to kill it (and Mulligan) before the "baby" matures, while Venom wants to protect it in the hope of having an ally in his fight against Spider-Man.
Mulligan survives and does indeed transform into Toxin – a dark red symbiote. When Venom realizes that he's broadly speaking "good" and unlikely to help him take down the webhead, however, he forms a temporary alliance with Carnage to destroy him. They fail when Spider-Man intervenes and, realising that his old life is over forever, Mulligan decides to leave his wife and young child behind for their own safety, pledging to try and use his symbiote for good.
Mulligan/Toxin went on to have numerous adventures together, starring the following year in a six-issue comic where they battled supervillains like King Cobra and Razorfist. Alas, Mulligan suffers a lot in his time as Toxin and is eventually killed by Blackheart in 2011's Venom #11, though the symbiote survives. Most recently he bonded with teenager Bren Waters.
That's all very different to the character we see in Venom: The Last Dance. In the movie Mulligan is imprisoned in Area 55, the secret base underneath the decommissioned Area 51. When his symbiote eventually appears on screen he's blue, rather than the red usually associated with Toxin, and that name is never spoken on screen. What's more, he doesn't act much like Toxin in the comics, who has a more youthful and lighthearted vibe. In the movie, Mulligan's symbiote is all business until he is eventually killed by one of the Xenophages.
So, is Stephen Graham's character in Venom: The Last Dance meant to be Toxin? The answer is: we don't know, but probably not. It seems like Kelly Marcel (who wrote and directed the movie from a story that she developed with Tom Hardy) has taken the basic outline of the comics character – Mulligan is a cop who becomes infected with a symbiote – but gone in a completely different direction, similar to the way the Xenophages here are different to in the comics. That's a shame, but at least there's still the potential for Toxin to show up in a different film someday...
Venom: The Last Dance is in theaters worldwide now. Check out our guide to the upcoming superhero movies to add to your calendar, as well as how to watch the Spider-Man movies in order.
