Real Name: Peter Parker

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #252 (May 1984); chronological first appearance: Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars #8 (December 1984)

First Multimedia Appearance: Spider-Man: The Animated Series season 1 episode 8, “The Alien Costume Part 1” (April 1995).

Powers and Abilities: The alien symbiote enhances Peter Parker’s innate Spider-Man abilities, making him stronger, faster, more agile, etc. while also generating organic webs for him. Additionally, symbiotes possess natural super-strength, genetic memory, the ability to heal themselves and their hosts, and the ability to change their size and shape.

Comic Book Chronicle 

Remember in Spider-Man 3, when Toby Maguire suddenly had bangs and wore black and flirted with Gwen Stacy in front of Mary Jane at jazz club? This card is that. 

The original Secret Wars comic book series was born of toymaker Mattel’s desire to launch a superhero toy line to compete with rival Kenner Super Powers line (featuring DC Comics characters) with a supporting comic book event to kickoff the line. In the eighth issue of that series, Spider-Man receives a new mostly black costume. One of the conceits of Secret Wars, which isn’t always apparent to readers today, is that while its twelve issues were published over the course of a year, the heroes who participated in the story returned from the secret war one month after they left. This meant that many characters suddenly had new looks or new status quos, without explanation (because the explanations resided in the forthcoming issues of Secret Wars). Spider-Man was one of those characters, wearing his new black costume in Amazing Spider-Man before it “debuted” in Secret Wars #8. 

It was soon revealed that the costume was far more than a costume comprised of alien fabric, but rather, was a living, symbiotic organism, feeding off Spider-Man’s emotional state and making him act darker and more extreme. Eventually, he managed to forcibly remove the symbiote (and, for awhile after that, continued to wear a regular-fabric black costume facsimile). Shortly after, a new villain was introduced: Venom, a reporter whose career was inadvertently ended by Spider-Man wearing the cast-off alien symbiote. 

Fueled by their shared hatred of Spider-Man, Venom quickly became a recurring, fan-favorite Spider-Man villain. Popularity begat the sanding down of rough edges on the character, positioning him as more of an anti-hero than an outright villain. This in turn led to the creation of other, more evil, symbiote characters, like Carnage. Over time, the expanding mythology of the alien symbiotes expanded to include home planets and god-like deities such as Knull, the creator of the symbiotes. All stemming from a toy line and a desire to shakeup Spider-Man’s classic look. 

Fit & Finish 

To their credit, Marvel Snap is not getting fancy with the Symbiote Spider-Man cards, presenting simple, straightforward takes on the general premise of “Spider-Man in a black costume”. It is worth pointing out that one of the initial variants for the card is a recreation of the cover to Secret Wars #8. I really enjoy these “comic cover” cards as they represent one of the few cases where Marvel Snap uses classic art for their cards over the more contemporary stuff. I’m sure there’s assorted limitations preventing it, but it would be great to see some cards featuring art from older Marvel masters like Jack Kirby or John Buscema in the game (with all the appropriate parties being appropriately compensated, of course, something that isn’t even happening for contemporary art right now). 

Form and Function 

While Symbiote Spider-Man is the card which introduces the new Activate mechanic into the game (in which a card has, essentially, an On Reveal ability which is triggered on-demand vs. when its played), its specific ability is tied to a previous mechanic in the game. Being, essentially, “Spider-Man crossed with a symbiote”, there were two ways the card could go and still be in keeping with its predecessors in the game: like Spider-Man (and many of the other cards this season), it could be a Move card. Or, it could do the “merge with other cards and take them over” thing that Venom or the Klyntar location does. The designers opted to go with the latter, presumably leaning into the more unique in-game element (merge) over the more widespread Move. 

In doing so, the card also taps into what makes the comic book iteration of the character so significant. What makes Symbiote Spider-Man (or Black Costume Spider-Man, if you prefer) unique isn’t the way the symbiote makes him more Spider-Man, it’s the way the symbiote gradually overwhelms its host with its own needs and desires.

By having the card absorb another card — to the point that it takes on the other card’s ability, just as the Spider-Man symbiote took on Spider-Man’s ability — is a smart way to connect it to both the Marvel Snap and Marvel Comics history.