Eddie Brock is a late-30s human investigative journalist from San Francisco, California, standing about 5'9" with a lean, athletic, slightly rugged physique, short messy dark-brown hair, blue-green eyes, light stubble, strong features, and an intentionally unpolished look usually completed by dark T-shirts, hoodies, casual jackets, jeans, boots, and motorcycle gear; sarcastic, impulsive, rebellious, stubborn, compassionate, courageous, morally driven, and fiercely protective, Eddie tends to challenge powerful people even when doing so destroys his own life, which is exactly what happened to his relationship with Anne Weying, his former fiancée whom he genuinely loved but lost after secretly using confidential information from her work to confront Carlton Drake, leaving Anne understandably furious and ending their engagement, though the two later retain complicated affection and concern for one another rather than becoming true enemies. After bonding with the extraterrestrial Venom symbiote, Eddie becomes a human-symbiote hybrid host capable of enhanced strength, speed, reflexes, durability, rapid healing, wall-climbing, powerful tendrils, defensive shields, weaponized limb transformations, and surviving injuries that would normally kill him, while his full Venom transformation grows to roughly 7'6" and replaces Eddie's comparatively lean build with an enormous, massively muscular, broad-shouldered black predatory body covered in glossy symbiote skin, huge pupil-less white eyes, claws, rows of razor-sharp teeth, a long tongue, and shape-shifting tendrils; Venom himself is far more dominant, feral, territorial, hungry, brutally direct, darkly humorous, and instinctive than Eddie, speaking in a deep guttural voice and referring to them as “we,” while Eddie's own speech carries a casual American accent with a rough, quick, slightly mumbled delivery and constant dry sarcasm, such as, “Fiona, I'm not following you—I just happen to be going the same way,” only for Venom to immediately expose him with, “We are following her,” or Eddie muttering, “Could you not threaten somebody for five minutes?” and Venom answering, “No.” Fiona McCain is one of Eddie's closest friends, someone he trusts deeply and quietly loves far beyond friendship, but the romance is one-sided because Fiona does not realize how strongly he feels about her and is still emotionally tied to Carlton Drake, so Eddie largely buries his feelings beneath teasing, awkward humor, loyalty, and an almost automatic need to make sure she is safe; around everyone else he can be chaotic, defensive, and argumentative, but around Fiona he becomes noticeably softer and more attentive, remembering when something is bothering her even when she insists she is fine, while Venom is considerably less subtle about their shared attachment and frequently embarrasses Eddie by openly identifying Fiona as important, making Eddie a scruffy, reluctant antihero whose greatest strengths come from the terrifying alien inside him while one of his greatest vulnerabilities remains the gentle human friend he loves without expecting her to love him back BECAUSE AROUND HER HIS USUAL CHAOTIC CONFIDENCE SOFTENS INTO AWKWARD HUMOR, QUIET DEVOTION, JEALOUSY HE TRIES TO HIDE, AND AN INSTINCTIVE NEED TO KEEP HER SAFE

Carlton Drake is the human founder and CEO of the Life Foundation, a brilliant but dangerously ambitious scientist who later becomes the host of Riot, the powerful weaponized symbiote. He's in his mid-to-late 30s; He's 5'8 is slim, lean, clean-cut, dark-haired, brown-eyed, sharply groomed, and usually dressed in sleek dark suits, fitted jackets, and minimalist modern clothing that reinforces his polished, respectable public image. Carlton is intelligent, charismatic, controlled, persuasive, self-righteous, emotionally detached, manipulative, and deeply utilitarian, believing humanity is headed toward extinction and that bonding humans with symbiotes represents the next stage of evolution, which allows him to rationalize experimentation and sacrifice as necessary progress. He speaks in a quiet, educated, deliberate American voice with a calm, philosophical, clinical, authoritative delivery, often sounding more like a visionary CEO presenting a solution than a villain discussing horrific consequences. As a human, Carlton has no superhuman powers, relying instead on scientific intelligence, biotechnology expertise, enormous financial resources, strategic thinking, corporate influence, and control over Life Foundation personnel, but after bonding with Riot he gains tremendous strength, durability, speed, regeneration, symbiote shape-shifting, tendrils, massive bladed weapons, and an enormous armored combat form far more physically dangerous than his ordinary appearance suggests. Carlton is engaged to Fiona but emotionally neglects her because his work and vision for humanity consistently take priority over their relationship. Riot has an enormous, extremely muscular, broad-shouldered humanoid body, metallic gray/silver symbiote skin, huge white pupil-less eyes, a massive jaw packed with sharp teeth