When searching for a nightmarish collection of symbiotes that are even scarier than Luke Skywalker can confirm.
Though Marvel Comics is responsible for some of the foremost symbiotes in pop culture, courtesy of 1990s storylines like Venom: Lethal Protector and Maximum Carnage (and the more recent King in Black), it is the lesser-known Abersyn symbiotes that are the most terrifying. Whereas the tight partnerships between the Venom symbiote and Eddie Brock or the Carnage symbiote and Cletus Kassidy are infamous, the darker symbiotic relationship from the Star Wars Universe is so horrifyingly one-sided that it makes Sleeper’s forceful lobotomy of a foe look tame.
These nasty creepy-crawlies made their debut in Star Wars: Doctor Aphra (2016) #1 by Kieron Gillen and Kev Walker as a viscera-colored alien species with a disgusting bug aesthetic. In a flashback to Doctor Chelli Lona Aphra’s time as a doctoral student, it was revealed that the archaeologist’s confrontational and resentful doctoral supervisor was keeping a nest of these brain-eaters in his chambers. Though Aphra stole them to suggest that they were found on the planet she had been exploring as part of her studies, they were promptly disintegrated as part of a protocol that recognized their inherent danger. This stemmed from the well-known fact that the symbiotes had brought death and ruin on many historical empires.
The Abersyn symbiotes forego the dynamic that has been so common in Marvel Comics, which is to form a lasting bond between host and symbiote. Whereas Marvel’s symbiote roster is full of strong personalities with their own goals and guiding principles, those affected by Abersyn symbiotes become singularly-minded. This is due to the parasites’ consumption of the host’s brain stem in an attempt to create a hive mind of killers that are only subservient to their queen. Aside from Sleeper’s transgression and Knull’s symbiotic mind control over many of Earth’s greatest heroes as part of his dark takeover strategy, this biological obliteration of a host’s free will is not the standard modus operandi of Marvel’s symbiotes. Instead, it is in line with those gut-wrenching, real-world nature documentaries where the zombie-ant fungus takes over an insect’s body.
Even on a purely visual level, the Abersyn symbiotes are comics' scariest. The Marvel symbiotes are presented as amorphous goo that eventually works with the host to create some of pop culture's coolest aesthetics, such as Venom’s riff on Spider-Man and the Carnage symbiote’s epic transformation of Green Goblin. By comparison, Abersyn look like long-legged pink alien ticks ready to burrow into hosts' flesh in search of a brain buffet. Furthermore, their hosts develop deep red rings around their eyes, with the Queen that Luke Skywalker and Doctor Aphra confront in The Screaming Citadel having vertical stripes that give the appearance of eyes dripping blood.
With their overabundance of sharp teeth and their large and jagged white eyes, the descendants of Marvel Comics’ Klyntar race would seem to have the market cornered on scary symbiotes, yet it is clear that a different Marvel property provides even more nightmare fuel. With a scarier appearance than Venom, Carnage, and Sleeper, it is Star Wars’ Abersyn that are the most haunting symbiotes in comics, terrifying even battle-savvy heroes like Luke Skywalker and Doctor Aphra.
