Venom cosplay · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0 (Flickr user 145739041@N05)
Five years ago today, Sony's Venom: Let There Be Carnage opened wide in the United States. Directed by Andy Serkis, the sequel brought back Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock/Venom and finally unleashed Woody Harrelson as serial killer Cletus Kasady, the red symbiote host known to Marvel readers as Carnage. Kasady's first screen tease came in the mid-credits scene of the 2018 film; this was the payoff.
The numbers mattered: roughly $90 million in its U.S. opening weekend (The Numbers lists $90.03M across 4,225 theaters), which Wikipedia describes as the highest opening of the pandemic era at that point. It closed around $500 million worldwide (sources differ slightly, from $501.5M to $506.9M) on a $110M budget, proving superhero audiences were returning to theaters. Carnage himself comes from the early-1990s Spider-Man books; the film turned a 1990s comics villain into a mainstream draw.
OCTOBER 1, 2010
Marvel Anime: Iron Man Premieres in Japan
Iron Man at Comic-Con · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0 (greyloch)
Madhouse's 12-episode Iron Man anime debuted on Japan's Animax at 10 p.m. on October 1, 2010, after a world premiere at San Diego Comic-Con in July. It was the first of four Marvel Anime series, followed by Wolverine (Jan. 7, 2011), X-Men (Apr. 1, 2011) and Blade (Jul. 1, 2011). Sony Pictures Home Entertainment handled North American distribution, and the shows later aired on G4 in the U.S. Marvel's heroes, reimagined by one of anime's marquee studios.
OCTOBER 1, 2002
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Begins
Motoko Kusanagi cosplay at Comiket · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0 (fortbragg)
Production I.G's Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex premiered in Japan on October 1, 2002, with episode one, "Public Security Section 9," written by series director Kenji Kamiyama. The cyberpunk series drew on Masamune Shirow's manga and kept more of the source's tone than the Mamoru Oshii films. Animax carried it first; English-language TV broadcast on Adult Swim followed in November 2004. It remains a benchmark for manga-to-TV adaptation.
OCTOBER 1, 1934
Fred Neher's "Life's Like That" Debuts
Original illustration · swap for licensed art
The single-panel newspaper feature Life's Like That by Fred Neher launched on October 1, 1934, an early entry in the gag-panel format that newspapers would lean on for decades.
First Issues, Debuts & Premieres
Film: Venom: Let There Be Carnage, U.S. theatrical release, Oct. 1, 2021.
Anime: Marvel Anime: Iron Man, Animax (Japan), Oct. 1, 2010.
Anime: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Oct. 1, 2002.
First issues / character debuts: none verified for this exact date in the sources checked.
Panel of the Day
Marvel Anime's four series were rolled out on a tight schedule: Iron Man on Oct. 1, 2010, Wolverine on Jan. 7, 2011, X-Men on Apr. 1, 2011, and Blade on Jul. 1, 2011. Three of the four premiered on the first of the month.
From Our Shelves
Marvel: What If . . . Marc Spector Was Host to Venom? (a Moon Knight & Venom Story) - Paperback
$19.00
Today's spotlight is Venom's big-screen sequel; this is the symbiote on the page, bonding with Moon Knight in a story that asks what happens when Venom picks a different host.
