The late `80s and early `90s were a special time in the world of superhero comics. Collector culture was really starting to take hold and the pressure increased for publishers to make their books bigger, flashier and more appealing to teens and adults looking for multiple variant covers and first appearances, as opposed to a crowd who were more interested in disposable entertainment. This, of course, meant that those publishers had to start getting pretty creative, especially with the general trajectory of pop culture heading in a direction that was decidedly more `extreme.`This was the dawn of superheroes who carried huge guns, wore utility belts covered in pouches and always looked just this side of succumbing to a roid rage fugue state. Hair got longer in the back and shorter in the front, covers got holographic and metallic, and the characters got increasingly more over the top.The inadvertent brainchild of a fan who thought it might be cool for Spider-Man to wear black instead of red and blue and a team of creators who took the idea and ran with it, Venom and his plucky parasitic family are as emblematic of `90s superhero culture as any blaster-slinging mega-yolked cyborg with tiny feet.It was a spirit that persisted, even through the decades since Venom`s initial introduction--and clearly plays a role in the new Venom movie, which is now in theaters. Even modern Symbiotes carry with them the DNA of the radical, the spiked leather jacket wearing, the foil cover holographic variant covered. Feeling like the unholy union between a Saved By The Bell bully and a laser tag arcade is really just part of their charm. So, using a complex system of algorithms and deeply tested scientific methods cataloging everything from the first ever `Do The Dew` commercial to POG slammers with flaming skulls, we`ve ranked Marvel`s Symbiote characters based on their quantifiable `90s xtremes. 9. LasherWildly, the name `Lasher` isn`t enough to earn this particular Symbiote a h ...
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