Symbiotes were cooler when they were just a living costume that could communicate with the host, but we didn't know what they were saying or how they communicated.

Everyone talks about the KLYNTAR and KNULL retcons, but honestly I think the simple way they've been portrayed alone takes a lot away from the coolness/creepiness, by further anthropomorphizing them to the point they're basically just people who swallow up other more solid people

I do think the symbiotes work best when they're, well, alien. Creepy and unknowable. We know too much about them these days.

>>149463161 (OP)
>>149463194
When do you think the shift really started?
I'm more of a DCfag so I haven't read many Venom stories, but he's always seemed cool. What are some of your favorite stories or runs where Venom appears as a very alien figure?

>>149463332
They pretty much were the same from the start until the 00s or so, the story where Scorpion is henching for Goblin and eventually becomes the new Venom after Eddie auctions off the symbiote, is the first time I recall a symbiote ever speaking fully and fluently in a comic like it was just a person

If you're very into the symbiote at peak alienness, "The Hunger" is a good one off story where it's super animalistic. It's also the story that came up with the "Venom eats brains but can substitute it with chocolate" meme

>>149463161 (OP)
Lool mulletbrock

>>149463332
>When do you think the shift really started?
Bendis. It's always Bendis. When he stole Flash Venom for his shitty GotG team, he tried to retcon the symbiotes into being peace loving Green Lantern knock offs and the Venom symbiote was only evil because homesickness. The Knull/Klyntar shit was course correction because EVERYONE fucking hated Bendis' idea.

>>149463332
I blame Carnage.

>>149464023
Jesus Christ, has Bendis ever done anything GOOD for comics? I can't really think of it, at this point. Even Ultimate Spider-Man, which used to be regarded as his high point, became awful because it cursed us with Miles.

>>149464085
I never saw what people got out of USM. It was slow paced. It took like 6 issues to do a fucking origin. That Stan and Steve did in 15 pages. More profoundly. It cursed us with High school bullshit which we still haven't escaped.

>>149464065
Carnage symbiote was the same as Venom, mostly mute, the only difference was Carnage tortured the symbiote with fire until it totally submitted to his consciousness to the point that there's no separating the two

So, his symbiote doesn't communicate at all because n the 90s, or if it does the reader wouldn't know since there is no "we" or any dialogue between Cletus and the alien, it's all presented as one being

The first time I saw it like I said was when they made Eddie auction his symbiote, it bonded with that Angelo kid, then Gargan, and it was presented as it's own character with fully functioning speech

>>149464085
Bendis? You mean Brian Michael Bendis?