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The Cybermen first entered the world of Doctor Who all the way back in 1966. Instantly recognizable in their various designs by the distinctive handles on their heads, circular eyes and expressionless faces, these cyborg menaces have always chilled audiences through with their own particular brand of body horror. It is neither their sheer power nor their coldhearted ruthlessness that makes the Cybermen so terrifying. Rather, it is the fact that they were once human and now seek to turn all other humans into Cybermen, carving away any trace of real humanity in the process.

In their original incarnation, the Cybermen were the inhabitants of Earth's twin planet, Mondas, but modern Doctor Who reimagined this classic nemesis. Season 2's "Rise of the Cybermen" and "The Age of Steel" saw the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler falling into a parallel Earth, where the inventor and CEO of Cybus Industries, John Lumic, had created the Cybermen. The modern series' new approach to the classic foe courted some controversy among classic series fans. Ultimately though, Lumic's twisted motivations and the means he utilized to start converting humanity into Cybermen made this iteration of the Doctor's old enemy their most terrifying form yet.

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When William Hartnell's First Doctor originally encountered the Cybermen in the serial "The Tenth Planet," they had come from a species identical to humanity that existed on Mondas, which initially shared an orbit with Earth. After their home world had been pushed out into space by the formation of Earth's moon, the planet became increasingly inhospitable. The Mondasians began to modify themselves with cybernetics to survive these conditions, replacing flesh with metal and plastic, and removing their emotions, which they had come to see as a source of weakness.

By contrast, Lumic's Cybermen on the parallel Earth visited by the Tenth Doctor were created not out of a need for basic survival, but out of Lumic's own narcissism. Lumic himself was terminally ill, rendered reliant upon a wheelchair with a built-in life-support system. He saw the Cybermen as a means of gaining immortality, with little consideration for what was being lost to gain that prize. Chillingly, Lumic's Cybermen had their emotions removed not because they viewed emotionality as weakness, but because existence as a Cyberman was so traumatic that the brain would not be able to cope with it otherwise.

Lumic's willingness to overlook the pain his upgrade program inflicted on those subjected to the procedure spoke again to his narcissism and twisted worldview, which developed into a dangerous ideology that was borderline fascistic. Having decided he knew what was best for humanity, Lumic took it upon himself to start forcibly upgrading the population of Britain into Cybermen, removing their humanity to reshape the world as he alone saw fit.

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When Doctor Who brought back the Cybermen, it did so through a look at the landscape of modern technology. In order to enforce mandatory upgrades, Lumic made use of technology Cybus Industries had already released to the public. The EarPods manufactured by Cybus were worn by practically everyone, enjoying the same ubiquity as real-world smartphones. As well as serving as phones, the EarPods allowed people to receive a daily news download from the Cybus network, straight to their brains. Through the EarPods, Lumic was able to control people's minds, compelling them to walk straight into the Cyber-conversion factories.

While the original Cybermen had been inspired by advances in human prosthetics and "spare-part" surgery, modern Doctor Who's new version of the Cybermen drew instead more heavily on advances in everyday technology. These Cybermen were essentially an extension of the various devices that are becoming endlessly more prevalent in the real world, and of people's desire to endlessly increase the integration of those devices into their lives. As time has gone on, advances in such technologies and the companies behind them have only made the Cybus Cybermen more relevant and more terrifying.

It's hard not to see the parallels between the Cybus EarPods and technology that is emerging today. This includes the growing interest in commercial neurotechnology and in the constant drive to improve compatibility between smartphones and similar devices. All of these technological advances aim to build a world where humans and technology are more heavily integrated with one another. Alongside these developments, of course, is an increasing focus on the billionaires of the tech world whose push for progress can often appear to be at odds with the interests of the people for whom they are supposedly developing such products. It's hard to look at such figures and not see a glint of John Lumic.

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Doctor Who's Season 2 Cybermen Remain the Most Terrifying Villains - CBR - Comic Book Resources