Alright, so in a previous Symbiote thread someone asked what the potentially earliest thing they could plausibly retcon as being a symbiote, which the current official earliest Symbiote through retcons is Flexo the Rubber Man from 1940.OK, so that is a little difficult because comic books owned by Marvel don't go back much further than that. However, if we can count public domain stories that aren't necessarily comic books, the job becomes way easier. So, looking at stories that are either public domain already or will be in the next ten years, we can consider these:>1936: H.P. LoveCraft's At the Mountains of Madness (Formless shape shifting aliens)>1935: Harl Vincent's "Parasite" (Aliens controlling the minds of humans)>1932: Paul Ernst's The Green Sarto" (A sentient dress fusing to its wearer and influencing them)>1929: Clark Ashton Smith’s "Formless Spawn" (Black colored liquid shapeshifting monsters)>1923: Anthony M. Rud's "Ooze" (Liquid creature that consumes living matter)>1918: Francis Stevens "The Citadel of Fear" (Fluid monster that turns people into monsters)As for comics, that's a little harder to research, but I suppose Marvel could just slap one of these public domain stories into a "History of the Symbiotes" trade and declare that to be the first appearance of the symbiotes.
>>154849563I don't see what the point of that would be, just bragging rights?The Green Sarto seems interesting but it seems ungoogleable. https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Paul_ErnstIs it part of a collection?
>>154850038bump
>>154850038
>>154849563Yeah funny how it's all horror movies like the lake blob from the Raft or the blob from the BlobMy favourite would be Flubber from the movie Flubber(it's Disney)as far as comics you're looking for sentient goo or an intuitive suit/power armour that materializes through the skin and isn't to tech based. Like Colossus's skin could get retconed into being a symbiote.
I absolutely love symbiotes, and think that they make for very visually striking characters that can be given a variety of cool abilities to facilitate interesting stories.For my own sanity and enjoyment I ignore any and all attempts to add “lore” to them. It is never good, and only ever detracts from their appeal.
