Symbiote (comics)

Klyntar Symbiote
The two most enduring symbiotic characters, Venom and his offspring Carnage, battling each other in the cover of Venom vs. Carnage #1 (July 2004). Art by Clayton Crain
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Black Costume, The Amazing Spider-Man #252 , The Spectacular Spider-Man #90, and Marvel Team-Up #141 Symbiote, The Amazing Spider-Man #258 (May 1984)
Created by	Jim Shooter (Writer) Mike Zeck (Artist) David Michelinie (Writer)
Characteristics
Notable members	Venom Carnage Toxin Anti-Venom Scream Hybrid Riot Phage Agony Lasher Scorn Mania
Inherent abilities	Symbiosis with a host provides superhuman strength, speed, agility, and endurance; gains characteristics of host; amplifies original powers and traits of hosts

The Klyntar (colloquial: Symbiotes) are a fictional species of inorganic, amorphous extraterrestrial symbiotes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The Klyntar bond with their hosts, creating a symbiotic bond through which a single entity is created. They also are able to slightly alter their hosts personalities, by influencing their darkest desires and wants, along with amplifying their physical and emotional traits and personality, granting them super-human abilities.

The first appearance(s) of a symbiote occurs in The Amazing Spider-Man #252, The Spectacular Spider-Man #90, and Marvel Team-Up #141 (released concurrently in May 1984), in which Spider-Man brings one home to Earth after the Secret Wars (Secret Wars #8, which was released months later, details his first encounter with it). The concept was created by a Marvel Comics reader,^[1] with the publisher purchasing the idea for $220.^[2] The original design was then modified by Mike Zeck, becoming the Venom symbiote. The concept would be explored and used throughout multiple storylines, spin-off comics, and derivative projects.

Fictional history

Symbiotes were originally created by an ancient malevolent primordial deity named Knull. When the Celestials began their vast plan to evolve the universe, Knull retaliated by constructing All-Black, the first symbiote, and embarking on a genocide against the other gods.^[3] Crashing on a desolate planet,^[4] Knull created an army of symbiotes that he used to conquer planets and devour entire civilizations, establishing in the process the Symbiote Imperium.^[5] However, upon Knull's severed connection to the symbiotes, the symbiote hive-mind began to explore notions of honor and nobility as they bonded to benevolent hosts. The symbiotes subsequently rebelled against their god, imprisoning him at the heart of an artificial planet in the Andromeda Galaxy they called Klyntar, which is their word for "cage". Ashamed of their dark past, the symbiotes of Klyntar desired to spread and maintain peace throughout the Cosmos by seeking out worthy hosts from various species in order to create an organization of noble warriors.^[6] However, these altruistic goals were imperfect, as the Klyntar symbiotes could be corrupted by hosts with harmful chemical imbalances or problematic personality attributes, turning them into destructive parasites who would spread lies and disinformation about their own kind in order to make other peoples fear and hate the symbiote species as a whole.^[7]

The corrupted Klyntar became more widespread than their benevolent counterparts, establishing a spacefaring culture dedicated to infecting and overtaking whole planets. The corrupted Klyntar forced their hosts to perform death-defying feats in order to feed off of the resulting surges of hormones like adrenaline and phenethylamine. These host beings would die quickly, either because of the wear from constant stress and exertion or as a result of the inherent danger in the stunts performed.^[8]

At some point, a symbiote-run planet was devoured by Galactus. Due to their genetic memory, all symbiotes now loathe both Galactus and his former herald, the Silver Surfer.^[9] ZZZXX, a symbiote with a predilection for eating brains, was also captured by the Shi'ar, and imprisoned and studied for years until it was released and employed as a Praetorian Guard by Gabriel Summers.^[10]

The cover of Secret Wars #8, which details Spider-Man's first encounter with the black costume. Pencil art by Mike Zeck.

The Venom symbiote, much like the benevolent Klyntar symbiotes, sought a mutual bond with its hosts, rather than domination. Its fellow parasites considered this insane and left it in a prison canister, and supposedly condemned to death by disintegration on a planet that would later become part of Beyonder's Battleworld where it bonded with Spider-Man. Spider-Man returned with the symbiote, where it later bonded with Eddie Brock; during this time, it spawned six children, its first child later having two of its own. The Venom symbiote gradually grew more and more monstrous and psychotic. When bonded to Flash Thompson, who originally struggled to control it, the symbiote developed some slight affection for him.^[11] It is later established that the host's mental state affects the symbiote just as much as the other way around,^[12] as the Carnage symbiote is as psychotic as its host and the Venom suit's explosiveness got worse after bonding with its two hosts after Brock, both of which were career criminals. Likewise, the various symbiotes bonded to heroes are not shown to be as twisted, though they occasionally struggle with aggression.

A swarm of Brood that had been overtaken by symbiotes later invade the S.W.O.R.D. satellite and possess all of its inhabitants, but Spider-Man defeats the symbiotes.^[13]

The homeworld of the Klyntar was later raided by the Poisons with help from Haze Mancer – a symbiote poacher – resulting in the apparent death of the Agents of the Cosmos and the abduction of all the symbiotes, leaving the planet barren and uninhabited.^[14] The abducted symbiotes were later modified by the Poisons so they could use on the superheroes on Earth in order for the Poisons to consume. After the defeat of the Poisons, the surviving symbiotes were returned to Klyntar.^[15]

When the body of Grendel, a dragon-like composite symbiote is discovered on Earth, this reawakens Knull enough to allow him to control the creature before being stopped by the combined efforts of Venom and Spider-Man.^[16]

Powers and abilities

The symbiote bonding with a host, which it needs to survive

Symbiotes empower the natural abilities of a host to the point where they far exceed that of normal members of the hosts' species. These abilities include the following:

• Superhuman strength (strong enough to lift 50 tons or more), speed, endurance, agility, healing factor, and intelligence, enhances other natural attributes as well.
• Genetic memory, recalling information from previous hosts.
• The ability to negate damage caused by terminal illnesses and permanent injuries while not actually healing it. For example, Eddie Brock was able to survive indefinitely with terminal cancer, and Scott Washington was able to walk despite being paraplegic. Also Flash Thompson had received "legs" after bonding with the Venom symbiote when he lost his legs in a war. While symbiotes can somewhat heal their hosts, they generally seek to force their hosts to depend on them and thus ensure the symbiotes' survival.
• Can expand to any size as long as they have something to grow on such as a host or an object. Symbiotes can get inside of small areas such as electric wires and the insides of cars and completely disable them.
• Its own senses extend over its entire surface, enabling its host to "see" what is behind or otherwise not in his/her line of sight.
• The symbiote also reacts to the thoughts and will of the host. When Spider-Man was originally selected, he had been thinking about Spider-Woman's costume in the Secret Wars. The symbiote acted on this and formed a similar costume, which is the one seen on him and Venom.
• Can blend in the environment and disappear.
• Can change the form of the body, (clothes, attire etc.)
• Changes the actual suit design based on personality.

The following are functions that have been demonstrated from various hosts' wills (but are not limited to):

• The ability to block part of the host's mind.
• The ability to form fangs or simple bladed weapons out of their limbs. First appearance was the Carnage symbiote
• The ability to form tendrils and tentacles of various lengths from their body.
• The ability to project the surface of the symbiote to attack at a distance.
• The ability to shapeshift, from mimicking clothing up to and including complete change of appearance, regardless to the host's actual stature and bodily dimensions as the symbiotes are living tesseracts.
• The ability to camouflage itself and its host by assuming the color or texture of the material behind or around it. (The Venom symbiote displayed the ability to do this with water and wood.)
• The ability to stick to walls (adapted from Spider-Man).
• The ability to produce acid, toxins and venoms, such as in the venomous bite Venom delivered to Sandman. (Shown with Venom, Agony and Venom 2099)
• The ability to produce webbing from its own mass (adapted from Spider-Man).
• The Venom symbiote also has empathic abilities, and is able to project desires and needs into the thoughts of its host or potential hosts; this ability can also aid Venom in detecting the truth from those he interrogates.
• Can sense the presence of other beings within a certain distance.
• Symbiote bonding protects the host from Ghost Rider's penance stare.
• Venom and all its descendants (the latter to a lesser extent) possess the ability to bypass the Spider-Sense; because the original symbiote was attached to Peter Parker (Spider-Man) first, it took his genetic information and spider-powers. This means that the symbiote attacking Peter would essentially be Peter attacking himself, which wouldn't set off his Spider-Sense (during the Clone Saga, this became complicated, as Venom and Carnage did set off Ben Reilly's Spider-Sense, however this has been attributed to Ben being cloned from Peter prior to his first encounter with the Venom Symbiote).
• The ability to create storage portals inside of them (this created easy access to Peter's camera).
• Each symbiote has their own unique ability, such as Carnage being able to see from every direction of his body (this is similar to Spider-Man's Spider-Sense), Venom's venomous bite, and Toxin's ability to change his shape and form into a Spiderman-like build (slim, but strong) and Venom-like build (big and muscular) which is dependent on its mood.
• In some realities, Venom's symbiote has been shown to be able to replicate.
• In some realities, the symbiote feeds on the baser emotions of its host, creating an increasingly hostile personality. The longer the host is exposed to the symbiote, the more overpowering this state of mind becomes.
• Has the ability to filter breathable air for the host, allowing them to breathe underwater (seen in Vengeance of Venom), inhale poisonous fumes, and even survive in space.
• The ability to grow wings as shown when Venom came in contact with Knull and grew a pair of web-like wing.
• Has the ability to give to it's host symbiote traits as shown when Carnage ate Karl Malus and then he became a symbiote-human hybrid.

Weaknesses

• Symbiotes have a natural weakness to "sonic and heat-based attacks". However, as each new symbiote has spawned a child, a natural evolution seems to not only increase their strengths, but also reduce their weaknesses. Even already existing symbiotes can mutate and develop these resistances. Still, there has not been an invulnerable symbiote in mainstream continuity, because the newest breeds can be harmed by incredible amounts of sonic waves and heat. Also, in the Ultimate Marvel Universe, symbiotes are vulnerable to the heat produced by high voltage electricity.

• There are other weaknesses as well besides sonics and heat. Iron Man managed to create an antidote formula that could destroy a symbiote (it should be noted that these were actually just virus-like biological organisms created by Doctor Doom, originally based on the Venom symbiote and were specially made as a bio-weapon). With Venom and Carnage, authorities have been able to keep the symbiotes in check with a chemical inhibitor. The criminal Styx nearly killed the Venom symbiote with his lethal touch. Whether a symbiote can mutate and reduce the effect of these weaknesses is unknown, although Carnage claimed to have developed invulnerability to sonics. Also, when a symbiote bonded with Wolverine, it was pushed out by his advanced healing factor, although Wolverine's healing factor was no use when he was bonded to a clone of the Venom symbiote.

• In some incarnations, the symbiote is depicted as requiring a certain chemical (most likely phenethylamine) to stay sane and healthy, which has been said to be found abundantly in two sources: chocolate and human brain tissue. Thus, the host is forced to steal/buy large amounts of chocolate or become an unwilling cannibal who devours the brains of those they kill. This peculiar trait has only been witnessed in the Venom symbiote. However, both Carnage and Toxin have threatened their enemies with aspirations to "eating their brains", as well as various other body parts. When Toxin teamed up with Spider-Man and Black Cat, he struggled to keep himself together, telling Spider-Man that he was only "joking" about eating the robbers' brains.

• On at least one occasion, Spider-Man was able to exhaust the Venom symbiote by taking advantage of the fact that it made its webbing out of itself; after the symbiote had already used a great deal of webbing to bind him to a bell, Spider-Man forced Venom to use further webbing so that it would exhaust itself, like blood dripping from a wound (although the sheer amount of webbing that the symbiotes would need to use for this weakness to be exploited makes its use in a fight limited).

• Another weakness that they have is their hunger for feelings. In the storyline Planet of the Symbiotes, Eddie Brock releases a cry of pain and agony so great that the entire symbiote race commits mass suicide.^[17] However, how they kill themselves is not clear.

• The Xenophages, a race of extraterrestrial shapeshifters which prey on symbiotes, possess the ability to spew an unknown incendiary chemical that can paralyze symbiotes, and enhance their taste.^[18]

• A new and still mysteriously extraterrestrial race known as Poisons, apparently nature's answer to the symbiotes, prey on them through direct contact infection, which forms an unstoppable one-sided union that the symbiote wants no part of.^[19]

• It was hinted that the Symbiotes' aggressive behavior may be a result of its bonding with a person who has very abusive behavior driving them insane as shown when Tel-Kar first wore the Venom Symbiote suit before it switches to Spider-Man, however since their true origins were revealed, their aggressive behavior is actually their true nature.

List of symbiotes

Other versions

In the Ultimate Marvel universe, the Symbiotes are featured. The Venom suit is a man-made creation born of an experiment by Richard Parker and Edward Brock, Sr. to develop a protoplasmic cure for cancer. It used Richard's DNA as the starting base for it, thus himself and Peter are "related" to it. The suit enhances the wearer's strength and natural abilities, but also attempts to permanently bond with the host and can affect his/her mind. The Ultimate symbiote is seemingly weak only to electricity. When worn by a host other than Richard's son Peter, the Ultimate Spider-Man, the host is compelled to devour the life energy of other human beings or else have their own be consumed by the suit instead.

The Carnage symbiote also appears in the Ultimate universe as a parasite genetically engineered by Curt Conners from Peter's DNA. Traces of the Venom suit remaining in Peter's blood give Carnage similar properties to the Venom suit. It also devours people, but does not require a host. It is killed after being consumed by fire following its attempt to absorb Peter to become whole. It later reappears in the form of Gwen Stacy, and during an encounter with Venom, the latter absorbs the Carnage suit into itself, making Venom "complete" though more monstrous than ever before.

In other media

References