The Monstrefact: Marvel’s Cyber

In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses Wolverine’s foe Cyber, a mercenary with adamantium skin and a high-powered toxin.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hi, my name is Robert Lammin. This is The Monster Fact,
a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
focusing on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters. In time, We're
going to return once more here to the world of
Marvel Comics with a character that I exclusively know from
the nineteen ninety four video game Wolverine Adamantium Rage, a

(00:34):
typical side scroller of the era that I think is
mostly notable for its selection of villain battles, has some
neat villains in it, and, at least in the case
of this supers version, an excellent proto Grime original score,
which is currently available on vinyl and digital from the
UK's Sneakers Social Club record label, so if you're into

(00:55):
that sort of thing, check it out. The Wolverine adversary
in question from the game is Cyber, a hulking humanoid
mercenary with the physique of a silverback gorilla and the
jaw line of a Dick Tracy villain. The character was
created by I believe Peter David and Sam Keith back
in nineteen ninety one, and as you'd expect for a

(01:16):
comic book character with a now thirty five years of
life on the page, his origin, his timelines, his powers,
it all gets a bit convoluted, So I'm going to
attempt to boil things down to the essentials here. Like
a lot of Wolverine adversaries, and like Wolverine himself, Cyber
is a mutant augmented with adamantium enhancements, so he naturally

(01:38):
possesses enhanced strength, enhanced healing factor, which is always helpful
if you want to actually survive those grotesque adamantium upgrades
that scientists are doing to you, as well as a
mild psionic ability that aids him in tracking his targets.
His artificial gifts, however, are the most noticeable, impenetrable adamantium

(01:59):
skin and retractable adamantium claws on all of his fingers
and thumbs that are coated in a potent hallucinogenic toxin. Now,
this last part made for a very memorable boss battle
in Adamantium Rage, because you actually battle Cyber inside the
trappings of an hallucinogenic nightmare, Wolverine can't actually pierce Cyber's skin.

(02:23):
The only way to defeed him is to somehow turn
his venom against him. So pretty fun stuff. Cyber's nature
then is defined by his born mutant abilities as well
as his acquired Sci Fi enhancements. But it's still, I think,
a rewarding exercise to compare him to evolve natural world organisms.
Looking at him through this lens, it's interesting to consider

(02:46):
how Cyber boasts both incredible armor and a potent toxin
for a natural world organism. The former is an excellent
defensive investment, of course, and the latter can go either
way as an act of predation aids such as most
snake venom, or as a defensive deterrent as in poisoned

(03:06):
dart frog toxins. The poisoned dart frogs are actually in
an attractive comparison here, because, much like Cyber, they don't
produce the toxins in their own bodies, but they've evolved
the means of sequestering these toxins from the toxic arthropods
that they feed on. Not a direct one to one,
but still interesting to think about. But evolutionarily speaking, adaptations

(03:28):
like this are expensive, and you generally see more of
an investment in one area than another Armadillos and panglins,
for example, have exceptional armor, but they are not venomous.
They're not poisonous. Venomous snakes don't have shells. There would
have to be a compelling reason for evolution to select
for two heavy weapons investments like this, and as luck

(03:49):
would have it, we do have a couple of examples
that we can turn to here that may help us
understand cyber which both came up in recent episodes of
Stuff to Blow Your Mind. First of all, the HeLa monster,
which we did a three parter on, does pack a
combo of armor and venom. The bony osteoderms and the
flesh and fuse to the skull of this nest rating

(04:11):
lizard provide physical protection against other Helo monsters, would be
predators and any nest defenders that might run run into.
But they also boast a complex venom which they administer
via their bite. Largely thought to be purely defensive, you
could argue that the venom is a much bigger investment. Certainly,
it's complex venom, as we discuss in the core episodes

(04:33):
of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, but the armor and
venom have seemingly served this creature well together, enabling it
to thrive virtually unchanged since the death of the non
avian dinosaurs. The armor protects the helas against other helo
monsters who are immune to helo monster venom. The armor
and bite provide real time deterrence to predation, and the

(04:55):
venom arguably serves to instruct other organisms about the dangers
of hun in creatures that look like it. So anything
that survives a dose of this venom is maybe more
likely to remember, and that memory could be sustaining. And
then there are the marine cone snails, gastropod mollusks that
boast both an incredibly durable shell as well as some

(05:19):
of the most potent venom in the natural world, which
they use to hunt and sometimes in self defense. I
guess it's worth keeping in mind that a lot of
times something that is defensive can that is offensive can
be defensive as well. But they administer this toxin at
range by firing a tethered harpoon like radular tooth. So

(05:42):
armor and weapon here come with very high metabolic costs
for the cone snail, but these investments enable these slow
moving organisms to dominate their niche in a very very
competitive marine environment. Their enemies are few in an ocean
typically teeming with predators for invertebrates of their size, and

(06:04):
I suppose we might apply all of that back to
cyber In order to stand out and have a chance
in the crowded rogues gallery of evil Marvel mutants, he
absolutely needs more than just armor or just psychedelic toxins.
As such, his own enduring enemies, which we might compare
to natural predators, are a narrow but incredibly dangerous roster

(06:27):
of individuals, with the main emphasis on Wolverine himself as
well as Wolverine adjacent characters. Tune in for additional episodes
of The Monster Fact, The Artifact or Animalist to Pendium
each week. As always, you can email us at contact
as Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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