The trailer for the third and (fortunately) last live-action Venom from the SSU (“Sony’s Spider-Man Universe”), featuring a venomized horse (Vorse?), provided a starting point for a crossover article. Venom is undoubtedly one of the Marvel characters with the most captivating look, and dinosaurs… Well, they’re cool, and maybe this is why dinosaurs bound to symbiotes have often appeared in comics!
VENOMSAURUS REX (OLD MAN LOGAN)
Let’s start with the most famous representative of the category, a Tyrannosaurus rex possessed by the Venom symbiote which appears for the first time in the dystopian series “Old Man Logan” (the same that inspired the film “Logan”). This beast, which anticipates Jurassic World’s “more teeth” by a few years, chases the elderly versions of Wolverine and Hawkeye for a few panels before the symbiote is separated from the T. rex with a sonic attack by Black Bolt (for those who don’t know, the two weaknesses of the symbiotes are sound and fire).
From that moment on, the beast became quite popular, with appearances in other books, a Sideshow comiquette, and some toys including even a Lego set!
Years later, the prequel miniseries “Old Man Hawkeye” explains the origin of the Venomsaurus rex, making it clear that its attack was not random.
An army of Venom, multiplied thanks to the union of the symbiote with a descendant of Madrox the Multiple Man, wants to avenge the killing of some members of the Madrox Gang by the Marvel archer. Hawkeye, a guest in a refuge run by ex-helper Kate Bishop at that time, decides to draw the attention of all the Venoms to himself to protect the people inside. He and Kate lead them to an area where dinosaurs imported from Savage Land have been set free to roam the desert. After making sure that only one Venom remains, a T. rex soon appears and takes the symbiote in its jaws.
Note how the pose of the dinosaur on the splash page is very reminiscent of the “Standing Tyrannosaurus rex” model by Papo.
DEVIL DINOSAUR
Arguably the most popular Marvel dinosaur, Devil Dinosaur has had three experiences with Marvel symbiotes.
In the funnily titled “Land Before Crime” series, Venom discovers that the dinosaurian supervillain Stegron has an army of humanoid dinosaurs living beneath New York and intends to transform all of the city’s inhabitants. He teams up with Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur to stop him, but Stegron exerts his mind control over dinosaurs (a power that can only be useful in comic book universes) to subdue Devil Dinosaur. Eddie Brock then uses The Symbiote to cover Devil Dinosaur’s head and nullify Stegron’s psychic hold. This allows the unlikely team to foil Stegron’s plans.
In the “Venomized” series, Poison, a symbiote-consuming alien race, attacks Earth by forcibly uniting superbeings with symbiotes to absorb them and gain their powers. Although the invasion was ultimately foiled, for a time Devil Dinosaur was venomized, with the risk of being “poisonized”.
Finally, in the story “Venom: The End”, the super-artificial intelligence Godmind is putting an end to biological life to transform the entire universe into a giant supercomputer, in which life is converted into computer data. In a desperate attempt to preserve biological life, an enhanced version of the Venom symbiote combines with every being in space and time, sacrificing itself to create a new universe with the acquired genetic codes, which Godmind preserves out of respect.
In this instance, we also see Devil Dinosaur and his historical friend Moon Boy in symbiotic form.
T. REX SYMBIOTE (VENOM ISLAND)
Venom, trapped on the Island where he settled years earlier when he believed he had killed Spiderman, is engaged in a battle with the symbiote of his nemesis Carnage. What’s worse is that Eddie Brock is separated from his symbiote and possessed by the Carnage symbiote, who wants to make him his puppet.
Meanwhile, Dylan Brock fears that his father may be in grave danger and, using his mysterious connection with symbiotes, manages to communicate with the Venom symbiote. The two decide to team up, with Eddie’s son starting to pilot the Klyntar “remotely”. And since there’s no physical human host, why not take on a more powerful form like that of a Tyrannosaurus rex? The clash is ferocious on both a physical and psychological level.
“MERIDIUSAURUS REX”
Ok, this one is a little difficult to explain…
Eddie Brock, now a “human symbiote”, has bonded with Bedlam, another version of himself, and travels to Doctor Doom’s castle in Latveria. In a clumsy attempt to save Dylan, the current Venom, Eddie wants to use the supervillain’s time platform to travel through time and face other versions of himself led by the manipulative Meridius.
Doctor Doom disagrees and the two clash while the time platform, following some damage, randomly takes them into what appears to be the Cretaceous period. Suddenly, a symbiotic T. rex sporting Venom’s white spider emblem emerges from the undergrowth and roars Eddie Brock’s name. After a brief clash in which each tries to prevail over the other, the platform reactivates allowing Eddie and Destino to escape through time. After they disappear, the T. rex is revealed to be a transformed Meridius.
Also in this case it seems that the Papo model was used as an artistic reference, specifically the “Running T. rex”.
VENOMSAURUS REX (EDGE OF SPIDER-VERSE)
On a prehistoric Earth in an alternate universe, the T-Rex Norrannosaurman and his lackeys chased the weak Pteranodon Pter Ptarker. Just as Norrannosaurman bit Ptarker, they were both hit by a meteorite containing glowing spiders. When they woke up, the two discovered that they had switched bodies, with colors reminiscent of Spider-Man and Green Goblin.
In a later chapter, during a fight with a saber-toothed tiger playing Kraven the Hunter, he accidentally throws a Brachiosaurus called Eddie Brockiosaurus into a tar pit (similar to those in La Brea) from which it emerges as a ferocious and uncontrollable brain-eating carnivore which, despite being more reminiscent of a carcharodontosaurid, will be named after Pachycephalosaurus Jingshan Jingshanosaurus (which should be the J. Jonah Jameson of this universe) Venomsaurus rex!
He will then be thrown into a volcano and become some sort of lava Carnage, just not to miss anything!
Ah, there is an inflatable costume for this version…
SYMBIOTED DINOSAURS (CABLE & DEADPOOL)
Hired to recover technology from the Savage Land to aid the developing nation of Rumekistan, led by his partner Cable, Deadpool inadvertently teleports a herd of dinosaurs into midtown Manhattan just as a squadron of police cars and several superheroes escort an armored personnel carrier led by the Thing from the Fantastic Four to bring the Venom symbiote to Reed Richards. The armored vehicle is torn apart by the impact and the symbiont multiplies on the dinosaurs, and it must be said that witnessing such a variety of prehistoric animals covered in symbionts does not happen very often… Tyrannosaurus, Apatosaurus, Triceratops, Velociraptor, Utahraptor , AMARGASAURUS!
Obviously, it will be up to Deadpool to put things right, with the help of a futuristic spear sent to him by Cable.
