Venomized T-Rex

In 2008's "Old Man Logan" mini-series, there were about three pages that featured our heroes fleeing across the Mojave Desert, pursued by a Tyrannosaurus that had been "infected" by the Venom symbiote.  It was kind of a throwaway moment, but it sure stuck with me.  I hoped that Hasbro would make an action figure of it, combining the favorites of dinosaurs and Marvel Comics.

But they never did.

Unfortunately, the ONLY product I've ever seen for sale based on this image (which was later given some backstory in the comics as being a T-Rex from the Savage Land that attacked Venom, and was inadvertently combined with the symbiote) is this ridiculously overpriced statue by Sideshow Collectibles:

That sucker would run you around $229.99, if you bought it before that price doubled.

But the thing is, I like the IDEA of a Venomasaurus much more than the actual design of the thing. You see, this is what Venom looked like in his first appearance:

He was basically the black Spider-man costume uit on a hugely muscular body, with a great McFarlane grin. THAT'S Venom to me, since I was there at the beginning (in the same way that certain shots in the Star Wars Special Edition's smirking ghost Anakin Skywalker, for example, strike me as offensively wrong, even though they have now existed longer than the original*), and I remember how captivated I was by that first issue, Amazing Spider-man 299.

Later, Erik Larsen started drawing him with fangs and an oversized tongue, and by the time Venom hit the big time with his own title, he was constantly drooling green goo and his skin was dripping black tar like a melting candle. This is what Venom looks like today:

But none of those images are quite as displeasing to me as the Venomized T-Rex. There's just too much white, too many tendrils, too much alien, and not enough Venom OR dinosaur.

So I decided to try my hand at making one myself.

I found a big T-rex on clearance at Target (this one is called the Bite 'n Fight Tyrannosaurus) for about half the price they were when they were new.  While I don't regret buying it (in fact, I wish I'd bought several, since I'd like to try different ones), the mouth on Bite 'n Fight is always open, while this one:

(The Thrash 'n Throw Tyrannosaurus) has a mouth that is closed in its resting state, and only opens when you press the tail.  Your mileage may vary, though.  They're both mostly the same figure, in shape and size (although Thrash 'n Throw is more expensive, by several dollars . . . even on clearance).

This one is brown rather than orange, but they're both great figures.

There are various sizes of the world's most famous dinosaur, ranging from fairly small (and cheap) to the Super Colossal Tyrannosaurus Rex, which is an amazing creation of artistry and beauty . . . and is also surprisingly cheap.

I MIGHT do another one in the giant scale, just to see what happens.

Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures of the work-in-progress, because I didn't imagine it would amount to much (I didn't even think to make a blog post about it until over a month had passed--and I started on the sequel).  But I did send Big Anklevich this picture, while I painted and watched "The West Wing."

I wish I had taken some, when it was brown and black.

Despite the way Venom has evolved over the years, I wanted to make it look like Venom did in 1988, only on a dinosaur.  So I did the best I could--and found that the spider symbol is really hard to replicate.

Here's the final product:



I did go in and put some green drool around his teeth and jaw, though I COULD go all-out and use hot-glue to make it really runny.

I'm really happy with it.  I only wish the photos could come out as well as the figure did.

Rish Outfield

*Guess this is only true of the original "Special Edition" changes.  Sebastian Shaw Anakin Ghost: 21 years (1983-2004), Hayden Smirking Anakin Ghost: 15 years (2004-2019)