Venom Movie

Today Sony Pictures released a new trailer for the upcoming Marvel movie  Venom, starring Tom Hardy as the titular antihero and its human alter-ego, Eddie Brock. In the film, Eddie Brock is a journalist who attempts to rehabilitate his career by investigating the Life Foundation, and in the process comes in contact with a dangerous alien symbiote that possesses him and takes on the mantle ‘Venom’. Michelle Williams joins as Eddie’s girlfriend, district attorney Anne Weyling, and Riz Ahmed plays the genius inventor Dr. Carlton Drake, head of the Life Foundation, who becomes bonded with the symbiote Riot (seen at the trailer's end). What is a symbiote? What is ‘Riot’?

Of Symbiotes and Men

In Marvel Comics, the story of Venom and the symbiotes are associated with the Spider-Man comic universe. Venom initially debuted in  The Amazing Spider-Man  #252 as an extraterrestrial costume worn by and associated with Peter Parker. In the comics, symbiotes are symbiotic parasites which bond with hosts, amplifying their powers and abilities while granting them others, like shapeshifting. Initially created by the dark god Knull to conquer worlds (before Thor separated his connection to them), the newly autonymous symbiote species captured Knull in an artificial planet, Klyntar. The species proceeded to bond with worthy hosts to establish the Agents of the Cosmos, advancing peace across the galaxy as a form of collective redemption. Some symbiotes, corrupted through bonding to unworthy hosts, periodically become expelled and severed from the hive mind connection with other symbiotes, though they can reproduce and bond to other hosts.

The symbiote that became Venom initially bonded with Deadpool on Battleworld (an amalgamated planet created by an all-powerful entity known as the Beyonder) before Deadpool rejected the entity for its own good. It proceeded to bond with Spider-Man, granting it unique forms of his powers (like organic webbing) before eventually being identified as an alien parasite. Learning of its vulnerability to sound, Spider-Man brought the symbiote to the Our Lady of Saints Church in hopes the church bells would separate them, but it slithered to and bonded with an Eddie Brock below. Brock, who had grown to hate Spider-Man for damaging his career, embraced the symbiote and its powers, becoming the first Venom, and eventually evolved into an antihero with a succession of other hosts.

Sony's  Venom: Who/What is Riot?

Sony’s  Venom  will stem from Sony’s Marvel Universe of characters rather than be a spinoff of the MCU, and it is highly possible that Venom’s film origin could omit or change part of this backstory. The trailer does suggest that the symbiotes initially come from an extraterrestrial origin, and shows at least two separate symbiotes. The film itself is largely inspired by the series  Venom: Lethal Protector, which explains the origins of the villainous symbiote seen in the new trailer, Riot.

In  Lethal Protector, the Life Foundation (a fictional group attempting to create doomsday-proof communities) creates five symbiotes, each an offspring of Venom extracted from the symbiote and designed to serve the Life Foundation. These five symbiotes are named Agony, Phage, Scream, Lasher, and Riot, with Riot sharing many of Venom’s powers while being the most powerful of the five Life Foundation symbiotes. He's notable for manifesting blunt (rather than bladed) weapons from his organic form.