Popverse's top stories of the day

• Dune: Prophecy creators promise to bring the "complexity" and "grand scale" of Frank Herbert's books and Denis Villeneuve's movies to TV
• Marvel's TV head says there's "absolutely" a future for Jon Bernthal's Punisher after his Daredevil: Born Again appearance
• Meet the Grim Reaper of The Walking Dead TV show cast, and what goes into killing someone off in the show

Major spoilers for Venom: The Last Dance ahead.

So what's the deal with symbiotes and the MCU? It's a question fans have been asking ever since a news clip of Tom Holland's Spider-Man showed up in Venom: Let There Be Carnage. But even after Sony wrapped up their Venom trilogy with The Last Dance, the character's future with Marvel Studios is still tenuous at best, meaning all we fans can do is sit around and speculate. Fortunately, we straight up love doing that, and perhaps even more fortunately, we did get a piece of news that could speak to a symbiote showing up in the MCU: that is, the Spider-Man 4 release date.

Just how will that matter to Marvel's oozy aliens? Well, that's what we're here to discuss, but before that, let's set some expectations. Firstly, this piece is going to reveal exactly what happens at the end of Venom: The Last Dance, so DO NOT continue if you are concerned about that. Second, this piece is speculation only - I'm not speaking on behalf of Sony, Marvel Studios, or anyone involved. Like you, I'm just a humble nerd, scouring comic book and movie lore in a desperate attempt to distract from the horrors of modern life. 

Anyway, let's get started.

Sony is done(ish) with Venom

Alright, here's that spoiler I warned you about - Venom: The Last Dance ends with Venom nobly sacrificing himself so that Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock might live. Now, I have no foolish notions that this means Sony is forever done with the character of Venom (What movie studio is going to give up IP, I ask you?), but it does seem like the studio's time in symbiote-land is, at least momentarily, over. If the MCU were to start off their own symbiote storyline, now would be the perfect time to do it.

Especially because, if you'll recall, there's already one in-universe.

The symbiote from Spider-Man: No Way Home

Venom's first (and thus far, only) appearance in an MCU movie comes from the post-credits scene of Spider-Man: No Way Home, where Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock is seen at a bar discussing Thanos with Cristó Fernández's bartender character. After a few moments, Eddie and Venom are magicked back into their own universe, but a piece of black ooze remains behind. It's unclear whether this symbiote is an Eddie Brock-less Venom or (more likely) a kind of spawn, but what's more important than who the symbiote is is what that symbiote knows.

As you'll recall, the spell that got all those multiversal characters into the MCU in No Way Home was based on people that knew Spider-Man's secret identity. Though we don't know how, Venom seemed to possess this knowledge, bringing a clueless Eddie along with him as reality shifted. And that means, even though its progenitor is back in a different timeline, the symbiote back in the MCU knows who Spider-Man is. More than that, it is probably feeling very alone, lost, and identity-less, exactly how we left old Peter Parker at the end of that movie.

But what does any of this have to do with Spider-Man 4's release date?

The symbiote's origins in the Secret Wars comic

As even a casual Marvel Comics reader knows, Spider-Man first met the symbiote in the pages of the 1984-85 series Secret Wars. In Issue #8, Peter comes across the black alien suit, and though it would eventually give him a whole lot of grief, it was an excellent tool in helping him survive Battleworld, the Hunger Games-style planet that every Marvel hero was trapped on for the story.

Flash forward 40 years, and the MCU's next Endgame-level chapter ending is taking its name from the story above. Avengers: Secret Wars is slated to come out May 7, 2027. We don't know its plot at all (though it's hard to imagine it'll divest completely from the comic that shares its name), but we do know it will complete the story started by Avengers: Doomsday, slated for May 1, 2026. And you know what's right between those two films?

The new release date of Spider-Man 4, July 24, 2026.

Is it possible that Spider-Man 4 will see Peter Parker and the mysterious leftover symbiote bonding, preparing him for his stint on Battleworld, just like in the comics? As I clarified at the beginning of this, I have absolutely no authority to say. But I can tell you that the events sure are lined up for that to happen, both within the MCU and in our own world, and now our only option is to sit back and see if Sony and MCU will come to that decision.

And, of course, to speculate.

Marvel's most reliable superhero has proven he can do a whole lot more than just 'whatever a spider can.' Swing into Spidey's history with Popverse's 10 best Spider-Man comic books, our Spider-Man movie watch order, and if you want our opinions on the subject, read our articles ranking Spider-Man's actors and Spider-Man's girlfriends.