Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lammin. This is The Monster Fact,
Speaker 2: a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 2: focusing on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters. In time, We're
Speaker 2: going to return once more here to the world of
Speaker 2: Marvel Comics with a character that I exclusively know from
Speaker 2: the nineteen ninety four video game Wolverine Adamantium Rage, a
Speaker 2: typical side scroller of the era that I think is
Speaker 2: mostly notable for its selection of villain battles, has some
Speaker 2: neat villains in it, and, at least in the case
Speaker 2: of this supers version, an excellent proto Grime original score,
Speaker 2: which is currently available on vinyl and digital from the
Speaker 2: UK's Sneakers Social Club record label, so if you're into
Speaker 2: that sort of thing, check it out. The Wolverine adversary
Speaker 2: in question from the game is Cyber, a hulking humanoid
Speaker 2: mercenary with the physique of a silverback gorilla and the
Speaker 2: jaw line of a Dick Tracy villain. The character was
Speaker 2: created by I believe Peter David and Sam Keith back
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety one, and as you'd expect for a
Speaker 2: comic book character with a now thirty five years of
Speaker 2: life on the page, his origin, his timelines, his powers,
Speaker 2: it all gets a bit convoluted, So I'm going to
Speaker 2: attempt to boil things down to the essentials here. Like
Speaker 2: a lot of Wolverine adversaries, and like Wolverine himself, Cyber
Speaker 2: is a mutant augmented with adamantium enhancements, so he naturally
Speaker 2: possesses enhanced strength, enhanced healing factor, which is always helpful
Speaker 2: if you want to actually survive those grotesque adamantium upgrades
Speaker 2: that scientists are doing to you, as well as a
Speaker 2: mild psionic ability that aids him in tracking his targets.
Speaker 2: His artificial gifts, however, are the most noticeable, impenetrable adamantium
Speaker 2: skin and retractable adamantium claws on all of his fingers
Speaker 2: and thumbs that are coated in a potent hallucinogenic toxin. Now,
Speaker 2: this last part made for a very memorable boss battle
Speaker 2: in Adamantium Rage, because you actually battle Cyber inside the
Speaker 2: trappings of an hallucinogenic nightmare, Wolverine can't actually pierce Cyber's skin.
Speaker 2: The only way to defeed him is to somehow turn
Speaker 2: his venom against him. So pretty fun stuff. Cyber's nature
Speaker 2: then is defined by his born mutant abilities as well
Speaker 2: as his acquired Sci Fi enhancements. But it's still, I think,
Speaker 2: a rewarding exercise to compare him to evolve natural world organisms.
Speaker 2: Looking at him through this lens, it's interesting to consider
Speaker 2: how Cyber boasts both incredible armor and a potent toxin
Speaker 2: for a natural world organism. The former is an excellent
Speaker 2: defensive investment, of course, and the latter can go either
Speaker 2: way as an act of predation aids such as most
Speaker 2: snake venom, or as a defensive deterrent as in poisoned
Speaker 2: dart frog toxins. The poisoned dart frogs are actually in
Speaker 2: an attractive comparison here, because, much like Cyber, they don't
Speaker 2: produce the toxins in their own bodies, but they've evolved
Speaker 2: the means of sequestering these toxins from the toxic arthropods
Speaker 2: that they feed on. Not a direct one to one,
Speaker 2: but still interesting to think about. But evolutionarily speaking, adaptations
Speaker 2: like this are expensive, and you generally see more of
Speaker 2: an investment in one area than another Armadillos and panglins,
Speaker 2: for example, have exceptional armor, but they are not venomous.
Speaker 2: They're not poisonous. Venomous snakes don't have shells. There would
Speaker 2: have to be a compelling reason for evolution to select
Speaker 2: for two heavy weapons investments like this, and as luck
Speaker 2: would have it, we do have a couple of examples
Speaker 2: that we can turn to here that may help us
Speaker 2: understand cyber which both came up in recent episodes of
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind. First of all, the HeLa monster,
Speaker 2: which we did a three parter on, does pack a
Speaker 2: combo of armor and venom. The bony osteoderms and the
Speaker 2: flesh and fuse to the skull of this nest rating
Speaker 2: lizard provide physical protection against other Helo monsters, would be
Speaker 2: predators and any nest defenders that might run run into.
Speaker 2: But they also boast a complex venom which they administer
Speaker 2: via their bite. Largely thought to be purely defensive, you
Speaker 2: could argue that the venom is a much bigger investment. Certainly,
Speaker 2: it's complex venom, as we discuss in the core episodes
Speaker 2: of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, but the armor and
Speaker 2: venom have seemingly served this creature well together, enabling it
Speaker 2: to thrive virtually unchanged since the death of the non
Speaker 2: avian dinosaurs. The armor protects the helas against other helo
Speaker 2: monsters who are immune to helo monster venom. The armor
Speaker 2: and bite provide real time deterrence to predation, and the
Speaker 2: venom arguably serves to instruct other organisms about the dangers
Speaker 2: of hun in creatures that look like it. So anything
Speaker 2: that survives a dose of this venom is maybe more
Speaker 2: likely to remember, and that memory could be sustaining. And
Speaker 2: then there are the marine cone snails, gastropod mollusks that
Speaker 2: boast both an incredibly durable shell as well as some
Speaker 2: of the most potent venom in the natural world, which
Speaker 2: they use to hunt and sometimes in self defense. I
Speaker 2: guess it's worth keeping in mind that a lot of
Speaker 2: times something that is defensive can that is offensive can
Speaker 2: be defensive as well. But they administer this toxin at
Speaker 2: range by firing a tethered harpoon like radular tooth. So
Speaker 2: armor and weapon here come with very high metabolic costs
Speaker 2: for the cone snail, but these investments enable these slow
Speaker 2: moving organisms to dominate their niche in a very very
Speaker 2: competitive marine environment. Their enemies are few in an ocean
Speaker 2: typically teeming with predators for invertebrates of their size, and
Speaker 2: I suppose we might apply all of that back to
Speaker 2: cyber In order to stand out and have a chance
Speaker 2: in the crowded rogues gallery of evil Marvel mutants, he
Speaker 2: absolutely needs more than just armor or just psychedelic toxins.
Speaker 2: As such, his own enduring enemies, which we might compare
Speaker 2: to natural predators, are a narrow but incredibly dangerous roster
Speaker 2: of individuals, with the main emphasis on Wolverine himself as
Speaker 2: well as Wolverine adjacent characters. Tune in for additional episodes
Speaker 2: of The Monster Fact, The Artifact or Animalist to Pendium
Speaker 2: each week. As always, you can email us at contact
Speaker 2: as Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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