Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, my name is Robert Lammon. This is the Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing in non mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters. In time, I'd like to turn our attention to the symbiants of the Marvel universe at this point. Now, for those of us less familiar with the intricacies of the Marvel universe, such as familiarity primarily through various films and the ninety
Spider Man cartoon, the basic origin story is pretty straightforward. Here, Spider Man acquires a new black and white costume from space that turns out to be a kind of sentient alien ooze. It flows over him, becomes his new costume. It gives him enhance stabilities, but it also becomes clear that the aliens Symbiant is slowly taking over. Once successfully rejected, the alien Suit finds a new host in Eddie Brock, giving birth to the villain and ultimately anti hero venom.
Initially introduced in the mid nineteen eighties, the lore and legacy of the Alien Symbiant Suit would continue to grow in Marvel comics. Eventually encompassing multiple Clintar symbiants as they would come to be known, such as Carnage, as well
as a fleshed out origin story. They are the ancient bioweapons of a dark stellar deity known as Knoll, the King in Black, overthrown but not killed by his own slimy creations in ages past, Venom stands out as the prime example of a clintar symbiant merged with a human being, while the case of Spider Man wearing the Alien suit suggests more of an exosymbiant, a layer of living ooze that acts as a kind of organic power armour. Venom
is merged with host Eddie Brock. Ultimately, at a cellular level, it flows over him, encompassing him in a powerful artifice of pseudopods and muscles. This would be exosymbiosis, but it also surges inside him, which would be endo symbiosis. In a similar way, Venom's chaotic offspring Carnage manages to merge with host Kletus Cassidy's very blood. In the natural world, symbiosis is a complex topic. At times, it can be tricky to determine just where parasitism ends. In some form
of mutualism or commensalism begins. A parasitic relationship between two organisms can evolve into mutualism over time, for instance, with a one sided relationship becoming something more balanced. But symbiosis on its own need not benefit both organisms to be symbiotic in nature. A twenty eighteen Yale study by Shapiro and Turner published in the journal Evolution explored mutualistical relationships between bacteria and viruses that were seemingly once parasitic in nature.
They found that these changes could evolve in either direction in as little as twenty generations. The paper discusses parasitism and mutualism is both being on the quote unquote symbiotic spectrum, which is perhaps a term worth keeping in mind when considering the Clintars of Marvel comics. Some view the Clintars
as parasites, others as symbiotic enhancements. Certainly, they can be either in the eye of the beholder, but the exact balance of the change they bring to a host can certainly adjust over time, as we see with venom or Certainly, this relationship could simply evolve over the vast expanse of time.
Since the King in Black first brought them into the cosmos. Venom, the alien costume, and the various symbiants are the creation of multiple Marvel artists and illustrators, but the basic idea arises out of the zeitgeist of the mid nineteen eighties. Assessments have linked the entity to various social and public health issues of the nineteen eighties in compelling ways. From a purely scientific point of view, Beyond the mere treatment of symbiosis, Venom and his fellow Clintars would also be
examples of a kind of pan spermic symbiosis. After all, the origin of the alien suit is somewhere in outer space. Right. On one hand, even a highly adaptive symbiotic organism just might not be able to join with an extraterrestrial mode of life. The attempt could simply be ineffective, or it could be catastrophic. On the other hand, if one leans fully into the fringes of pan spermia hypothesis, then maybe
maybe we'd have enough in common. But again, we're drifting into the unknown and the unprovable here, especially since life on Earth is the only model of life we know. But the symbiants of Marvel are ultimately less concerned with science and more concerned with power, IDENTI and will, and also with lashing tendrils of ooze. Of course, tune in for additional episodes of The Monster Fact each week. As always, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.