When you think of the creation of the alternate version of Spider-Man, the villainous Venom, who would you credit?
Stan Lee? Todd McFarlane? How about a kid from Illinois named Randy Schueller!
Way back in the 1980′s Marvel had a push for new ideas from untested writers. That’s when Randy sent his idea to Marvel.
What was his idea? Here it is, in his words…
I thought it would be cool if Spidey needed to upgrade his powers and his look, so I came up with this idea that Reed Richards had made a new costume for Spidey using the same unstable molecules that the FF costumes are made of. The unstable molecules would flow into Peter’s pores and allow him to cling to walls better. I think my original idea was to increase his sticking power by 25% or something like that.
For some lame reason, I had the Wasp involved since she was the resident fashion plate of the Marvel universe at the time. Remember when Jan would show up in every other issue of the Avengers sporting a cool new costume? I loved when they did that! So to me it made sense to have her design the new spider suit when she was over at the Baxter Building for cocktails or something. Anyway, I saw the new suit as a stealth version of the original costume – jet black so he could blend in with the shadows. At best, all you could see of him was the blood red spider emblem, emblazoned on his chest. (Yeah, in my design the spider was red, not white. I also gave him underarm webbing like in the original Ditko design.)
A few weeks later, he received the above letter, a note from then editor in chief Jim Shooter offering him $220 for the idea.
Two hundred and twenty cool dollars later, Randy had an idea bought, Marvel moved ahead with this black costume…and that costume became Venom.
Today, Mr. Schuller doesn’t want more money. He just wants credit. And who can blame him? His idea became a million dollar franchise, even making it to the silver screen for Spider-Man 3.
You have to wonder though, with Marvel making c…will Randy get more than $220? Stay tuned, true believers!
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