Facts About The Venom Symbiote:
Any fan of Spiderman will know that the Wall-Crawler has one supervillain he has never truly managed to best in battle. It is not the Green Goblin or Doctor Octopus. It is certainly not the Vulture or Mysterio. The one true character that has always managed to get on the bad side of Spider-Man and lived to tell the tale is Venom. After Eddie Brock became host to the symbiote organism from outer space, he got crazy superpowers. Right now Venom is a renowned Anti-Hero. The Venom symbiote is an alien parasite that latches onto sentient species and provides them with superhuman abilities in return for sustenance. The movie showed us only a fraction of their history. The Venom symbiote’s parent species – the Klyntar, has a long and complicated history in the comic books. Some of these facts will blow your freaking mind.
1. Its previous hosts gain permanent superpowers
There is a biological function of the Klyntar parasite that comes into play here. The Klyntar symbiotes retain all the memories of their previous hosts, which the next host has access to. This means that a new host will have the combined experiences of all the hosts that once hosted the symbiote in their bodies. But to do that, the Klyntar symbiotes require a part of their own body to stay within these previous hosts. This leftover symbiotic fluid, called the Codex, is just a part of the DNA that the Klyntar use to collect information from people if need be. But often, this Codex activates dormant superpowers that a normal symbiote does not possess. That is how Eddie brock after the Venom symbiote left his body, became the Anti-Venom.
2. They have a hive mentality
Like bees and ants, the Klyntar symbiotes do not have or adhere to the concept of individualism. Whatever they do, they try to do for the greater good of the swarm. To do that, they need to be in constant touch with each other. The Symbiotes have a hive mind. They can share necessary information and data with each other even if they are light years apart from each other in different parts of the universe. The symbiotes also use this ability to intimate the other symbiotes of their former and current hosts. Venom, though, does not have this ability.
3. They are actually prison cells
The Klyntar are born to serve but one purpose – to keep a primordial God from escaping a planet-sized prison. The Klyntar was born out of Knull, a dark entity that thrived on Chaos and was strong enough to fight the Celestials. When Knull became too much for the Celestials to handle, they forced Knull into a trap. The symbiotes were used to bind Knull to the planet called Klyntar. The symbiotes formed an impenetrable shield around Knull, something even the God of Chaos and darkness would never be able to escape. This revelation came into being in Donny Cate’s run on Venom. The fact that Venom and the rest of the symbiotes are responsible to contain a potential threat to the universe raises the stakes to sky-high levels.
4. Their God’s name is Knull
Back when the Universe was still a baby, there was one entity that lived in the dark vacuum of space, where the universe still hadn’t reached yet. He was called Knull and he is Marvel Universe’s God of Infinite Darkness. Knull was the first-ever sentient entity to have symbiote like powers, which makes him the Marvel Comic Book Universe’s first-ever symbiote superhero. Knull, in his fight against the Celestials, who did not like the idea of Knull trying to plunge the universe back into chaos, created the Symbiotes. The Venom symbiote is actually a descendant of the Klyntar foot soldiers created by Knull in his fight against the Celestials. His species now collectively double up as Knull’s personal prison quarters.
5. The Venom symbiote was exiled
The Venom symbiote is only one of many such symbiotes scattered throughout the galaxy. Each of these symbiotes communicated with each other using telepathy. But for a long time since Venom was introduced into the comic books, he never used the telepathic abilities each of his species is bestowed with. No one knew why. To answer that gaping plot hole in Venom’s back story, the writers revealed that the reason Venom was not able to access his telepathic powers was that he was exiled out of the Klyntar. He was an outcast and so never got to explore the full extent of his abilities. Venom has since been accepted back into the Klyntar and has unlocked new abilities like flight even superior strength.
6. It once bonded with a Dinosaur
In the Old Man Logan comic book issues, the world has descended into the dark ages after all the superheroes of the world were killed by a combined and well-organized strike by all the supervillains banding together. In that alternate universe, Venom had been killed but the symbiote had survived. But it had found a new but highly unusual host. The Venom symbiote was now bonded to a T-Rex!! Imagine – the Venom T-Rex roaming the streets of New York City, eating up villains alive. It sounds almost as cool as it sounds scary!
7. It does not have a gender
The Venom symbiote does not actually have a gender. As a matter of fact, none of the species belonging to the Klyntar race have genders. So how do they reproduce, you ask? Well, they have something called asexual reproduction capabilities. The Venom symbiote does not need another symbiote to mate. It can generate new of-springs on its own. Each symbiote has a specific number of times it can reproduce. Venom has already given birth to several other symbiotes like Carnage and Scorn. Venom may have been confused for a male since the symbiote is always associated with Eddie Brock and it tends to take on the physical attributes and characteristics of the host it possesses.
8. The only emotion they are ever allowed to feel is hatred
The symbiotes were created by Knull to help him fight the Celestials. In order to make sure the symbiotes fought for Knull to their maximum potential Knull rewrote their DNA and took a vital part of their sentience away from them. The symbiotes have no social order or hierarchy. They also do not have any mention of jealousy or rage. All they ever feel is hatred, for their enemies. While it does make them disciplined as a fighting force since they also do not have any semblance of mercy or love in them as well. But it is a double-edged sword. The Klyntar can still feel hatred for members of their own species.
9. They eat adrenaline
Since it is a parasite, it is wrong to call the Klyntar a symbiote as it never actually gives them anything in return for taking so much out of the host’s body. The symbiotes latch on to their hosts and provide them with superpowers but the amount of strain they put the host body through is too much to be called an equivalent symbiotic trade-off. The symbiotes take in adrenaline form their hosts as food. The Klyntar actually join with the endocrine system of their fellow hosts and start stimulating the body into generating copious amounts of adrenaline for them. While it acts as a good source of food for the host, it is a tremendous point of strain for the host body and sometimes proves fatal.
10. They are scared of the Silver Surfer
The story is an old and interesting one of how the symbiotes came to fear the Silver Surfer. To put things into perspective, the symbiotes do not fear the Surfer but what he represents. The Silver Surfer used to be the Herald of Galactus, and he used to find out planets for him to feed on. The Silver Surfer once visited the planet of Klyntars and brought Galactus along with him to feed on. The symbiotes survived but ever since then, the fear of Silver Surfer has become genetically ingrained into them.
