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Venom Reveals the Freudian Reason Symbiotes Are So Powerful

Warning: Contains spoilers for Venom: Lethal Protector #2!

Fans know just how powerful Marvel's Venom can be, but what they may not know is that it's because symbiotes connect with humans on a Freudian subconscious level.

When Spider-Man first acquired his black suit he assumed it was just a costume that was telepathically linked to him. When he discovered that the suit was indeed its own living organism, it changed a lot about how he viewed it. The symbiote wanted to bond with him permanently, but the bond goes beyond the physical. It's psychological as well and taps into the theory by famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who believed that on a subconscious level humans desire to return to their mother's womb.

Related: Marvel's Spider-Man 2: What Happened The Last Time Venom Fought Kraven

It's not that symbiotes are a womb in the literal sense, but as revealed in Venom: Lethal Protector #2, which was written by David Michelinie and illustrated by Ivan Fiorelli, a symbiote takes care of a lot of a person's needs. When the Venom symbiote is injured and Eddie Brock is forced to nurse it back to health, he's surprised by how the outside environment feels. He has to break into a basement in his human form and reflects that he's forgotten what it feels like to be cold and to even feel pain when he's stepping on broken glass.

Fans tend to focus on the violent and superpowered nature of symbiotes. It's very cool that Venom gets to swing on organic webs, has super strength, and can climb on walls like Spider-Man. But it might be that Venom's real superpower is allowing its human host to feel perfectly comfortable inside of it. It's a temperature controlled environment that's warm, comforting, and protective of everyday threats like splinters and mosquito bites. While it may not be what Freud had in mind, it does satisfy that human urge to be comforted.

What's so scary about this situation is that while the human believes they are gaining superpowers by merging with the symbiote, they are in fact actually making their human hosts weaker. In this regard, symbiotes aren't a symbiotic organism but more like a parasite. They provide their hosts with a suitable environment that satisfies all of their psychological desires while simultaneously preying on them and feeding off of their life force. Keeping this in mind, it's no surprise that symbiotes are a powerful and everlasting race that thrives not just on human hosts but pretty much any sentient being. So Eddie Brock might do well to be wary of his time as Venom.

Next: Venom is Absolutely Humiliating Spider-Man's Classic Villains



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