Venom

Former villain Mac Gargan — once the Scorpion — bonded with the alien Venom symbiote, gaining devastating powers including superhuman strength, shapeshifting, and immunity to Spider-Man's spider-sense. He later posed as Spider-Man within Norman Osborn's Dark Avengers.

Dwayne McDuffie and Scott Kolins introduced this incarnation of Venom to the Marvel Universe in 2006's Beyond! #1, launching a Modern Age chapter for one of comics' most viscerally compelling identities. Over roughly two decades, this version of the character has woven through some of Marvel's most charged titles — Thunderbolts, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Beyond! — sharing pages with the likes of Spider-Man, Norman Osborn, and Bullseye, which tells you immediately that this is a figure who gravitates toward high-stakes, morally complicated corners of the Marvel universe. With 68 catalog appearances, a key issue to the name, and a run stretching all the way to 2026, this is a Venom with real staying power — not a footnote, but a presence that collectors and readers have kept returning to across a generation of storytelling.