Eugene " Flash " Thompson is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Flash Thompson is a star high school football player, who mercilessly bullies his high school classmate Peter Parker, but greatly admires Spider-Man , an irony in which the superhero takes some gratification. In time, they become close friends in college after Flash matures and he later discovers Peter is Spider-Man.
After graduation, he joins the United States Army , but becomes haunted by his combat experiences , leading to alcoholism. After losing both of his legs in the Iraq War , Flash Thompson turns into the superhero Agent Venom after being bound to the Venom symbiote , which he controls via drugs. Eventually during an argument between him and Eddie Brock regarding the Venom symbiote, he became the new host of the Anti-Venom symbiote, causing him to assume his current alias of Agent Anti-Venom.
Thompson has appeared in several other media adaptations. Though he reappeared in the comic a few times while on leave, he did not return to the regular cast until issue Feb. Though the relationship between Flash Thompson and Spider-Man's alter ego Peter Parker gradually became more cordial over the years, the major turning point towards their becoming friends was in The Amazing Spider-Man Nov.
Writer J. DeMatteis commented, "Despite our human tendency to want to fit people into convenient pigeonholes, no one is any one thing all the time. The main point of 'That Thompson Boy' was to show that there were other sides to Flash, to look behind the curtain and see the vulnerability, and depth, that was there.
Eugene is a complex, wounded human being. I think the character's history, even going back to Stan [Lee]'s stories, is a constant battle between the two, a seeking to find balance.
