So in case you missed it, it turns out Shriek didn’t get her moment of pure, bloody revenge. These things are hard to catch when you have so much sound and fury going off around symbiotes. In fact, we (briefly) see Mulligan one more time with both eyes as a new symbiote seems to consume him.

“Monsters, monsters everywhere,” is the last we hear from our good lawman. So wait, was that Carnage coming for him? And why didn’t we see what happened next? The answer is because they have to save a big reveal for the sequel. They have got to hide that…

Mulligan Becomes Toxin

That’s right we’re about to get a third major symbioted character. Or fourth when you count Riz Ahmed’s Riot from Venom (2018). While the how’s and why’s of this occurring in Venom: Let There Be Carnage remain frustratingly opaque, Toxin is actually Carnage’s son, just as Carnage is Venom’s.

In the comics, Toxin was the third major symbiote character introduced on the page after Venom and Carnage, first appearing in Venom/Carnage #2 in 2004. This red and blobbier looking symbiote is created reluctantly when Carnage (both the symbiote and its host Cletus Kassady) realize they’ve become pregnant. Far more vain and narcissistic than even Venom, and with the memories of Kasady’s broken home, Carnage has no desire to give birth to a spawn which could become more powerful than himself, just as Carnage became more powerful than Venom. So he resigns himself to killing it as soon as it’s born.

Kasady even goes so far as to bond the symbiote to a hero cop who happens to be stumbling by, Det. Patrick Mulligan, so he can easily kill both while they’re disoriented. Luckily, Venom sought this event out, hoping to raise his grandchild symbiote. It is Venom who even names the new creature Toxin—after himself. The two characters, however, have a falling out because Brock in the comics is still kind of unhinged while Mulligan wants to be a real good guy. 

So instead of becoming Venom’s partner, Toxin turns out to be the first symbiote to be a true ally to Spider-Man and a real superhero, as opposed to a partner of convenience, as is often the case with Venom.

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