One of the most iconic parts about Venom is, without a doubt, his tongue. It's his most striking physical attribute: constantly waving around while he's swinging through the city or even when he's standing still. But it's a lot more than just a cosmetic design choice; Venom's tongue has a genius function that helps keep its host alive.

When Venom's iconic tongue first appeared in comics, it was just another way to make the character look alien. It worked great, but aside from Venom sometimes using it as a weapon, it didn't really seem to have any practical application, but this is actually far from the truth.

It turns out that the tongue does a lot more than just look cool. Not only does it make a pretty good weapon when necessary, but Venom's absurd tongue is also the key to keeping Eddie Brock alive, as it provides the symbiote's host elevated levels of oxygen. That's right: without Venom's iconic tongue, Eddie Brock would have suffocated long before he got the chance to kill Spider-Man.

Venom's Giant Tongue Is How Eddie Brock Breathes

Marvel Anatomy: A Scientific Study of the Superhuman by Marc Sumerak, Daniel Wallace, and Jonah Lobe

One of the great things about the Marvel Universe, and something that originally set it apart from DC Comics, was how Stan Lee and other creatives tried to make everything make sense. For example, Lee famously stated that he had no idea how Superman could fly. Compare this to Thor; Thor is able to fly because he throws Mjölnir, and since Mjölnir is attached to Thor's wrist due to the wristband, obviously, Thor goes along with the hammer. But that dedication to realism in the Marvel Universe has left open one big question: when a host is inside a symbiote, how do they breathe?

Symbiotes are essentially just living masses of goo. When they bond to a host, the host ends up inside this goo, leaving fans to wonder how they get the oxygen they need to survive. Turns out that's exactly what that ludicrous prehensile tongue is for. All along the length of the tongue are microscopic channels that maximize taste and smell, allowing the symbiote to hunt prey by scent better. But these same channels also take in oxygen, which is directly delivered to the host, keeping them alive while completely submerged in the symbiote itself. It's a genius design choice, and it makes perfect sense.

Venom's Tongue Is Also How It Gets Rid of... Waste

His Tongue Also Has Another Disgusting Feature

While Venom's elongated tongue is certainly an iconic aspect of the character's design, there's another part that's nearly as recognizable: the absurd amount of green drool. Pretty much anytime Venom showed up in the 90s, he was drooling massively. It helped to make the character look a lot creepier and more deadly, due to the whole wanting to eat Spider-Man thing. Venom was literally salivating at the mouth, wanting to bite into the webhead. But a much later comic revealed that this isn't quite the case, as that's not exactly drool.

Symbiotes are apex predators, some of the most dangerous aliens in the entire universe. Naturally, this means their biology is pretty streamlined. Symbiotes don't often need to eat. While they can get sustenance from brains, they can mostly just drain nutrients from their host as well. Like every other living being, this also means that the Symbiote needs some way to expel waste. It seems the easiest way for them to do this is through their mouth. That iconic green saliva that Venom is constantly drooling isn't just spit - it's how the Symbiote gets rid of any nutrients it doesn't need.

Symbiote Biology Was Fully Thought Out by Marvel Comics

Even the Smallest Details Make Sense

The Marvel Universe is full of fantastical characters who could never exist in real life. Every time Iron Man has a sudden landing, he should instantly get a horrific concussion due to the sudden stop. But despite the fact that this universe really is fiction, Marvel did try to make everything at least semi-plausible. This is true of Thor, Spider-Man, and even Venom. Without the symbiote tongue essentially acting as an oxygen tube, they'd just end up smothering their hosts instantly. That's why it was such a genius move to tie the iconic tongue to a practical explanation.

The tongue went from being just a way to make Venom seem alien and strange, to being the way symbiotes feed oxygen to their hosts...

Venom has one of the most iconic character designs of all time. Just the elongated tongue is already enough to make people think of him, and it's fantastic how Marvel has continued to build on what it actually does. The tongue went from being just a way to make Venom seem alien and strange, to being the way symbiotes feed oxygen to their hosts, and finally a way for symbiotes to expel waste from their bodies. While sometimes superhero biology can be complete nonsense, this explanation makes perfect sense for why Venom's host needs that long tongue to survive.

Marvel Anatomy: A Scientific Study of the Superhuman is available now from Insight Editions!