Venom is not the "do you even lift" version of Spider-Man. Venom began as a basic villain, but has since evolved a narrative of his own. Unlike Peter Parker, Eddie Brock was a man with nothing: the victim of childhood abuse, and later professional failure, who bonded with the symbiote over their mutual hatred of Spider-Man.
Yet despite wanting to eat Spidey's brains, the dual being called Venom still retained something of a moral core: he never stopped thinking he was doing the right thing. He held to his own code of honor, and refused to harm those he thought of as innocent. (Crucial, since if he'd targeted Aunt May or MJ he could have destroyed Spidey in five seconds.) During times of ceasefire between the two, Venom would actually step into the role of antihero, helping others who he viewed as innocent. It's not for nothing that his '90s miniseries was called "Lethal Protector."
Venom was thus the darker, more desperate, no-holds-barred reflection of Spider-Man. He was what Spider-Man could become without friends, without a support network, without scruples or a sense of "with great power comes great responsibility."
How is this not a story worth exploring? Frankly, I find it more interesting than the umpteenth MCU film about random quippy dude #17. Venom is fucked up, but he has a solid--albeit skewed--sense of morals and none of the social conventions that prevent him from, say, biting a guy's head off in the most literal sense. He even has his own, even darker equivalent in the form of Carnage, who has no morals whatsoever and is basically "what if the Joker got a symbiote?"
