Venom Artist Scrapped New Design Because It Resembled a DC Character
Mark Bagley designed Venom’s symbiote offspring Carnage and Sleeper, but one original design had to be scrapped because of a Batman Beyond villain.
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While Marvel’s symbiotes tend to feature consistent themes, artist Mark Bagley once revealed that while working on Venom: First Host, he had to scrap a new design because he realized it was too close to a character from popular animated series Batman Beyond. While an awesome design, based on the interview, scrapping it was definitely the right call.
Mark Bagley has worked on Amazing Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man, Venom: Lethal Protector, and Venom: First Host. Bagley co-created the villainous symbiote known as Carnage and its host Cletus Kasady, and also co-created Sleeper for Venom: First Host. He hasn’t designed many symbiotes, but where he has, he’s managed to take the classic design and do something striking and new.
In an interview with SYFY Wire from 2018 – which has since been removed from the site – Mark Bagley discussed his work on Venom: First Host and his previous symbiote-related works. When asked “Any stories from the initial design process left on the cutting room floor?” Bagley mentioned a symbiote that was meant to be infantile – therefore very gooey and undefined. Unfortunately, this kind of character had already been created by DC for the Batman Beyond animated series villain Inque. Regarding the exact design, Bagley states:
I must’ve done a dozen sketches and I didn’t have a single one I liked. Basically, it was just a kind of black figure, kind of loose. No real muscle tone and just kind of a loose figure. Like it’s an infant, unformed, with a big white spot on its face. Apparently, it looked just like some character from Batman Beyond [a character called Inq.], the TV show, which I’d never heard. They sent me a picture of it, and I was like “Cot dammit!” [laughs]. I didn’t actually have to draw it for like a month or two in the actual book. By the time came it came time to draw it, I said I can’t do that. It’s a terrible piece.
Inque is a villain that Terry McGinnis faces early in the animated series, Batman Beyond, which aired from 1999 to 2001. She is a shapeshifter thanks to her liquid form, which is highly reminiscent of Marvel’s symbiotes. In her fluid form, Inque appears exactly like Bagley’s description. She is liquid black with a round white spot on her face, although she also has a human form she can appear in. Like Marvel’s symbiotes, she is humanoid and able to adjust her liquid form into alternate shapes, turning herself into various weapons. Given Bagley nearly duplicated her form twenty years after her first appearance, her design stands as a rather good one – even if it isn’t a form DC is known for. Ultimately, the seventh spawn of the Venom symbiote would be Sleeper, who still boasts an awesome (and unique) design.
The symbiote form across Venom’s family is rather standard, though each has a defining characteristic to help them stand out. Scream has long hair she can use as a weapon, Agony can spew acid, and Lasher has tentacles along his back. Inque doesn’t have these additional abilities, and her design would have made her a rather generic symbiote at first (though that was the point of the design.) Ultimately, Mark Bagley was able to create something unique in Venom’s symbiote son, Sleeper, leaving Inque to Batman Beyond.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/venom-new-symbiote-design-dc-sleeper-mark-bagley/