Top 10 Characters Who Have Worn the Carnage Symbiote

What’s worse than one notorious Spider-Man villain? Two of them combined! The final mission of THQ’s fondly-remembered Spider-Man game from way back in the year 2000 sees Doc Ock and the Carnage Symbiote merging to form Monster Ock. You’d think that the combination would be kind of redundant, given that Symbiotes already have the whole tentacle thing down. But the combined power of these two villains is so great that poor Spidey can’t even fight them, leading to a tense chase sequence as a helpless Spidey can only flee in terror from the monstrosity now before him. And hey, we’d be running too.

Humans are naturally curious, but you know that old saying about what curiosity did to the cat? The cat, in this case, was a researcher for Morse Laboratories, who was infected with the Carnage Symbiote when a tiny part of it, which she was studying at the time, leaped into her eyeball. After destroying the rest of the sample, she then went home and killed her abusive husband using the Symbiote’s abilities. Unfortunately, this moment of empowerment was short-lived, as the Carnage Symbiote consumed her body before jumping to a new host in its quest to be reunited with its favorite human counterpart.

The Carnage Symbiote considers most humans entirely uninteresting or expendable, and will frequently use them as little more than stepping stones or vehicles to get from place to place. This psychiatrist was one such unfortunate soul. She first came into contact with the Symbiotes when she attempted to rehabilitate Carnage’s one-time love interest Shriek. She was later bonded to the Carnage Symbiote, which used her to return to its original host. Surprisingly, she survived the encounter, later discovering she had been left with a new symbiote by Carnage, one that bonded with her prosthetic arm to create the cyborg Symbiote known as Scorn, a rare force for good among Symbiotes.

You may not have heard of the supervillain group known as The Frightful Four, but you can probably guess what heroic group they serve as antagonists to. Usually led by the villain called The Wizard, the group has a revolving door of members that at one point included a supposedly Superior iteration of Carnage, with this mad scientist serving as the Symbiote’s host. While The Wizard was initially able to control Carnage using the sonic abilities of Ulysses Klaw, the Symbiote escaped their control and went on a rampage, killing Klaw with a vibranium blade before taking control of The Wizard himself.

Across any reality, the Carnage symbiote tends to have a twisted sense of humor, and that’s the only reason we can think of why it would choose Peter Parker’s infant son as its host after spending some time in the body of the ungainly Moose Manfield. A native of the MC2 universe, this wee wallcrawler comes from a world inhabited by the children of superheroes, like his older sister Mayday Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Girl. The baby’s encounter with Carnage ended with a sonic weapon was used to separate the two, also damaging the child’s ears in the process. The experience also accelerated the development of his spider-powers.

#5: Ben Reilly

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The saga of this character is far too long to ever recap here: basically, Ben Reilly, is a clone of Peter Parker who actually took over the role of Spider-Man for some time, even rocking his own variation of the iconic suit. When the clone became infected with the Carnage Symbiote, it even morphed his duds into a monstrous variation of his normal costume. While this pairing was short-lived in the comics, it re-appeared in the Spider-Man cartoon series from the 1990s. In this version, a clone of Peter from a parallel dimension bonded with the Carnage symbiote, becoming the terrifying and monstrous villain known as Spider-Carnage.

#4: The Silver Surfer

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If you’d spent a good portion of your life leading the world-eating Galactus to various planets, you’d have some enemies too. The surfer of the spaceways isn’t exactly popular with a lot of races who lost their homeworld to his former master, and the Symbiotes are among those holding a grudge. When the Surfer crossed paths with the Carnage Symbiote, the creature’s genetic memories of the Surfer tagging its homeworld for destruction caused it to lash out and try and control the hero. After a brief trip to space, the Surfer was able to shake off the Symbiote’s control, to the massive relief of everyone. Carnage with the Power Cosmic? No thanks.

Remember how we said earlier that two Spider-Man villains rolled into one is a pretty terrifying prospect? Well, this combo takes “terrifying” to a whole new level. After willingly merging with the Carnage Symbiote, the former Green Goblin recently took on a whole new identity as the Red Goblin, an even more fearsome version of Spider-Man’s arch-nemesis. The Goblin even combined the Symbiote with his own Goblin formula, combining the strengths of both, and eliminating the Symbiote’s weaknesses to fire and sonic frequencies. He even spread the symbiote to his grandson Normie, which is all kinds of messed up. This new iteration of Spidey’s old foe almost made him retire from the superhero biz for good, and we can’t say we blame him.

#2: Captain America, Wolverine, Hawkeye, and The Thing

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We all want someplace to settle down and maybe even raise a family, but this isn’t quite what we had in mind. In the “Carnage USA” storyline, the deadly Symbiote took over the town of Doverton, Colorado, creating copies of his symbiote that subsequently took over the sleepy town. Obviously, this prompted a superhuman response, and a small team of heroes was sent in to try and contain the problem. But much to the chagrin of Spider-Man, his heroic backup were all taken over as well, becoming twisted, Carnage-infused distortions of their former selves. Talk about things going from bad to worse to terrifying in a big hurry.

While quite a few characters have taken the Carnage Symbiote out for a spin (or more accurately: been taken out for a spin by it) no other character is more closely linked to the entity than this bloodthirsty serial killer. Originally appearing as Eddie Brock’s cellmate, he rose to supervillain infamy when the Venom symbiote unexpectedly spawned a new, red Symbiote that bonded with the redheaded inmate. Further twisted and warped by the horrific inclinations of its first host, the Symbiote gained a love of bloodshed that pushed the pair to new heights of villainy. In the end, the two really are made for each other.