The thing I think's making me go so insane over Venom comics is how they kind of keep proving themselves right? Idk that's not a good way of putting it. A comic brings up an idea only to refute it, then a later comic brings that idea up again to prove it right actually.
So, like, go back to just the symbiote. Peter's suit's moving and it wants to permanently bond with him, which is pretty understandably icking him the fuck out. It spends basically the entirety of Web of Spider-Man #1 trying to bond back with him while Peter tries to get it off. It's doing a pretty objectively bad thing!
But here's the thing. The symbiote doesn't stay as the villian. It's set up as an evil alien, but that's not how it ends up as.
It's sympathetic. The idea of it being inherantly evil is brought up to specifically reject it. To say, no, it's not completely evil. And this subversion is the point! "Why did it save him?"
A similar contradiction also brought up earlier, in the Amazing Spider-Man #259.
Haha wow imagine if it could feel emotions!
So, the symbiote being inherantly evil is only really brought up to refute it. But....
Venom: the Madness is probably the first example of the symbiote actually being corruptive. Well, it's the mercury virus, but it's treated basically as an extension of the symbiote.
Beck's right! You DO need to control the symbiote. The mercury virus is never shown to be sympathetic, or anything other than a blight to be overcome.
Planet of the Symbiotes and Venom: the Hunger are probably the best examples of these ideas being re-refuted. Then Spectacular Spider-Man: the Hunger re-re-refutes them! And so on. But I'm on the app so no more images you've been spared of my Planet of the Symbiotes essay for a little while longer