Carnage

NAME Edward Charles Allan "Eddie" Brock[1] CURRENT ALIAS Carnage[2] ALIASES Codenames: Editorial Names:

Venom: Lethal Protector Nicknames: Impersonations:

Obnoxio the Clown,[13] Spider-Man[14]

AFFILIATION Formerly Symbiote Hive (leader), partner of Spider-Man (Peter Parker), Scarlet Spider (Ben Reilly), agent of the Overreach Committee, the Associated Press, Sinister Six, volunteer at F.E.A.S.T., Revengers, Savage Six, Symbiote Task Force, FBI, Resistance, Daily Globe RELATIVES Parents:

Carl Brock (father) Jamie Brock (mother, deceased) Spouses:

Anne Weying (ex-wife, deceased) Children:

Dylan Brock (son) Sleeper ("son")[21] Bedlam's Child (symbiote spawn)[22] Other Relatives: HOST OF Carnage (Formerly) MARITAL STATUS Divorced

GENDER Male HEIGHT 6′3″ (1.91 m), Variable (as Venom, Anti-Venom, and Toxin) WEIGHT 260 lbs (117.93 kg), Variable as Venom, Anti-Venom, and Toxin) EYES Irises:

Blue White (as Venom) HAIR Strawberry Blond, No Hair At All (as Venom) UNUSUAL FEATURES Black spider insignia on torso,[24] Claws, fangs, tentacles, and prehensile tongue (as Venom, Anti-Venom, Toxin)

ORIGIN Human Formerly turned into the Nexus of the Symbiote Hive-Mind. (Human-Symbiote Hybrid)[27] LIVING STATUS Alive; formerly deceased REALITY Earth-616 PLACE OF BIRTH New York City, New York[1] CAUSE OF DEATH Being thrown off the top of the Empire State Building by Knull[23] (Resuscitated by the God of Light)[28] Incinerated by a missile shot at him by agents of the Absent Throne[29] (Codex reanimated his remains)[17]

IDENTITY No Dual CITIZENSHIP American OCCUPATION Former King in Black, God of the Symbiotes, Vigilante, symbiote hunter, homeless shelter attendant, government operative, reporter EDUCATION BA in journalism from Empire State University BASE OF OPERATIONS New York City, New York

Eddie Brock was the former-villain-turned-anti-hero Venom. A reporter whose fall from grace was unwittingly caused by the actions of Spider-Man, Brock would go to Our Lady of Saints Church to ask God forgiveness before attempting suicide. However, a symbiote that had been earlier discarded there by Spider-Man sensed his anger and merged with Eddie, combining their shared scorn to become one of Spider-Man's deadliest foes.

Going by the alias of Venom,[7] he would give birth to another symbiote that bonded with the serial killer Cletus Kasady to become Carnage.[30] For a time, Eddie agreed to a truce with Spider-Man and moved to San Francisco, where he became the anti-heroic "Lethal Protector" of an Underground City, but returned to villainy following a failed stint as a black ops government assassin. Parting ways with the Venom symbiote, Eddie began to seek redemption for his dark past - bonding to the Anti-Venom and Toxin symbiotes,[3][5] before finally returning as Venom and attempting to become a true hero.[31][32]

Coming into conflict with the God of the Symbiotes, Knull,[33] Eddie eventually discovered he had a son named Dylan.[34] Eddie freed Knull from his prison to save his son from Carnage,[35] but redeemed himself after vanquishing the dark god during his invasion of Earth. He became the new King in Black,[6] and passed on his mantle of Venom to his son.[36] However, Eddie received a cryptic warning from the future that his son and his other were in danger, but while trying to save them, his physical body was killed by an organization called the Absent Throne.[29]

Unstuck in time thanks to the power of the King in Black, his codex was transported to the Garden of Time.[29] There, he met other Kings in Black: Finnegan, Bedlam, Wilde, Tyro, and the Garden's creator, the evil Meridius.[37] Eddie learned that these were all future versions of himself and that he would turn on his own son, but he also learned that there was also the seventh iteration of himself, the Eventuality.[16] Having received answers from this god-like being about the true nature of the King in Black, Eddie used his power to return to life and vowed to save his son.[24][27] Having learned of a future in which Dylan's bond with Venom created a Venomworld, Eddie returned to the present to stop it, starting a war. However, Eddie would lose his powers eventually and be stabbed by Meridius when the former fought his son. Taken away by the Zombiotes and left to die, Eddie would be approached by a also dying Carnage to bond with him.[38] Eddie accepted the deal and bonded to the psychopathic symbiote, deciding to go on a quest to kill those who took lives as well.[2]

Eddie's big break as a reporter came when he intercepted a letter written to the Daily Globe by Emil Gregg, who claimed to be the serial killer Sin-Eater. Contacting Gregg, Eddie wrote front-page exclusives interviewing the Sin-Eater, protecting his identity under the First Amendment, until a crisis of conscience and pressure from the police and his editor forced him to write an exclusive article revealing Gregg as the Sin-Eater.

Although that edition of the paper sold out immediately, that same day Spider-Man captured and revealed the true identity of the Sin-Eater to be Detective Stan Carter. Gregg was found to be Carter's delusional neighbor, making Brock a laughingstock among his fellow journalists. Fired from the Daily Globe, he was forced to write venomous drivel for a tawdry tabloid. Disgusted by Eddie's refusal to accept responsibility for his own mistakes, Anne left him, his father disowned him, and his future appeared to be over. Brock blamed all of these problems on Spider-Man and began an intense physical workout program hoping to reduce the stress of his life. Although his body was honed to physical perfection, Eddie's vengeful obsession with Spider-Man only intensified.[7]

Ultimately overwhelmed by shame and despair, Eddie - who had been raised a devout Catholic - decided to visit Our Lady of Saints Church to beg forgiveness from God before intending to commit suicide. Once inside the church, he was caught by surprise when the symbiote that had until-recently been posing as Spider-Man's Black Suit ambushed and bonded with him - drawn by their mutual hatred for Spider-Man. on which it fed. The symbiote bonded mentally and physically to Eddie, revealing Spider-Man's civilian identity to be Peter Parker.[7] Agreeing to bond to the symbiote in exchange for revenge against Spider-Man, Eddie agreed to the symbiote's suggestion to name their merged form "Venom" out of resentment over being forced to write drivel for tabloids.[7][43]

Taking advantage of the symbiote's immunity to Peter's Spider-Sense, Eddie ambushed him several times.[44][45] Driven by the symbiote's jealousy towards Peter rejecting it, Venom attacked Mary Jane Watson at her and Peter's apartment, leaving her terrified and traumatized.[46] Realizing the symbiote had returned, Spider-Man obtained a sonic blaster from the Fantastic Four and battled Venom using it. Venom took advantage of Spider-Man's refusal to deal a fatal blow by knocking him out and attempting to kill him using Our Lady of Saints' bell, but Spider-Man escaped and tricked the symbiote into depleting its biomass through overuse of its organic webbing. With Venom incapacitated, Spider-Man turned him over to the Fantastic Four, who imprisoned him in a sonic containment cell before he was transferred to a government-run super-prison in the Colorado Rockies called the Vault.[7][47] Posing as a fallen Guardsman, Venom murdered new recruit Hugh Taylor and escaped to New York City,[42] thwarting the criminal activity of a small militia in Missouri en route.[48] Hunting for Spider-Man, Venom came across Peter's former lover the Black Cat, and nearly beat her to death.[49] Getting Spider-Man's attention by menacing May Parker, Venom battled him on the beach of Montauk, Long Island. However, Spider-Man exploited the symbiote's desire to return to him in order to trick it into attempting to separate from Eddie. The trauma of trying to detach itself from Eddie's nervous system knocked both Eddie and the symbiote unconscious, and they were re-incarcerated in the Vault.[50]

Eddie was placed in the same cell as the notorious serial killer Cletus Kasady, and the two developed an intense mutual hatred of each other.[54] On the night Kasady attempted to murder Eddie, the symbiote - which had survived Styx's lethal touch due to being immune to Earthly diseases - infiltrated the prison and rebonded to Eddie. Venom once more, Eddie escaped to resume his campaign of vengeance against Spider-Man, but the Venom symbiote unwittingly left an asexually produced offspring behind. Unaware of this development, Eddie captured Spider-Man and battled him on a deserted island in the Caribbeans, seemingly succeeding in killing him. With their revenge seemingly obtained, Eddie and the symbiote chose to peacefully settle down on the island,[55] though that peace was disrupted by arms-dealers,[20] Darkhawk,[56] Nightmare, and Wolverine.[57] Sometime later, Eddie was enraged when Spider-Man and Human Torch abruptly arrived on the island, the former revealing that he had faked his death. Venom attacked them but stopped when Spider-Man explained that Kasady had bonded to the Venom symbiote's offspring to become the monstrous Carnage and begun rampaging through Manhattan, killing hundreds of people, and that Spider-Man had been easily overpowered. Venom begrudgingly agreed to help Spider-Man stop Carnage in exchange for his freedom, to which Spider-Man reluctantly agreed.[58] While Carnage proved more powerful than Venom and Spider-Man individually, they managed to exploit the symbiotes' weakness to loud sounds using the Madison Square Garden's sound system. Afraid that Venom would betray him, Spider-Man attempted to incapacitate him as well, but their fight was interrupted by the Fantastic Four, who Venom realized were behind this plan all along.[59]

When Carnage escaped from prison and led a group of other supervillains in a massacre across New York City, Venom set out to stop him, allying with a reluctant Spider-Man and other superheroes in an effort to stop Carnage. Once Carnage and his allies were subdued, Venom returned to San Francisco and resumed his tenure as the Underground City's protector; crossing paths with other superheroes, anti-heroes, and villains such as the Punisher,[64] Juggernaut,[65] Darkhawk,[66] Daredevil,[67] Iron Man,[68] Morbius,[69] Mace,[70] Hulk,[71] Vengeance,[72] and a second encounter with Darkhawk and Wolverine.[73][74] Eddie fell in love with Beck Underwood, a lawyer who was fighting to protect San Francisco's homeless population, but when Eddie - at the time infected with a sentient virus that worsened his already unstable psyche and tormented by demons from the Realm of Madness - attempted to forcibly bond the Venom symbiote to her in a manner evocative of rape, Beck ended their romance; though she agreed to stay friends with him in recognition that he hadn't been in control of himself.[75]

Initially in-denial that the symbiote was turning him into a monster,[76] Eddie began to question his relationship with it - unwittingly kickstarting the Symbiote Hive's first invasion of Earth when Spider-Man persuaded him to reject it.[77] While Eddie re-bonded to the symbiote, its growing appetite for flesh - particularly brains - forced him to commit cannibalism and it abandoned him to hunt on its own when he refused to do so.[78] After Eddie was arrested, the villainous psychiatrist Doctor Thaddeus Paine informed Eddie of his theory that the symbiote required phenethylamine to survive, and after escaping Eddie acquired some and tracked the symbiote down. When it attempted to devour him in a feral state, Eddie subdued it and fed it the drug to restore its stability. Dr. Paine ambushed them and captured the symbiote, but Eddie rescued and rebonded to it, draining the phenethylamine from Dr. Paine's brain as revenge. Learning that chocolate contained phenethylamine, Eddie began satiating the symbiote's hunger with that, but the symbiote quickly grew dissatisfied with this solution and tormented Eddie until he begrudgingly agreed to let it take over.[79][80]

Placed on trial for murdering a police officer during one of his prison escapes, Venom was recruited via an ultimatum by the government's Overreach Committee to be a special operations counter-terrorist agent.[81] Eddie agreed, but was tranquilized and had a thermite bomb surgically implanted in his chest to assure complete and utter obedience. As a government agent, Venom was sent after threats such as neo-fascists and the Soviet terrorists Dr. Yes and Terachnid. However, he chafed against the orders of his handler Agent Daryll Smith and his other superiors, who saw him as a loose cannon due to his proclivity for extreme violence.[82][83] After misinterpreting a vaguely-worded order to intimidate J. Jonah Jameson, Venom attempted to kill the news mogul and came into conflict with Spider-Man. Venom called off their truce and declared his intent to reveal Spider-Man's secret identity to the public, but was knocked unconscious by a dynamite explosion and awoke with partial amnesia - having forgotten Spider-Man's secret identity.[84] Following this, the Overreach Committee decided to detonate the thermite bomb in Eddie's chest, but Eddie had the symbiote surgically remove the bomb and used the blast to escape.[85] Venom subsequently exposed the Overreach Committee to reporter Trish Tilby, but was subdued by Agent Smith with help from Spider-Man and injected with an overdose of dopamine inhibitor, forcibly separating Eddie from the symbiote and seemingly killing it.[86]

Free of the symbiote, Eddie came to fear its influence over him, but it forcibly rebonded to him.[87] Venom subsequently ripped the Carnage symbiote off of Cletus Kasady and devoured it to become stronger than ever, attacking J. Jonah Jameson and almost killing Spider-Man before departing to finish assimilating the Carnage symbiote.[88] For a brief period, Venom joined the Sinister Six but turned on them after they mocked the symbiote's mundane weaknesses.[89][90] Tiring of villainy, Eddie approached his ex-wife, but Anne had been severely traumatized by the symbiote and committed suicide after seeing Spider-Man wearing his black suit, intensifying Eddie's hatred towards Spider-Man even further.[91]

Relapsing into villainy again, Eddie became an unwitting pawn of the Ararat Corporation when they used a sample of the Venom symbiote to create a clone as part of a complicated scheme to wipe out all life on Earth. The clone symbiote eventually bonded to soldier Patricia Robertson, who travelled to New York to kill Venom. Venom eventually absorbed the symbiote clone into the original Venom symbiote to become more powerful than ever and decided to go along with the Ararat Corporation's plot, which ultimately never came to pass.[92] When the Hyborian sorcerer Kulan Gath resurfaced in the modern era and attempted to conquer the world by turning it into a medieval-esque version of itself, Venom was one of the villains he enslaved using his magic. Venom was sent after Red Sonja, who was indwelling the body of Mary Jane Watson, and attempted to devour her and Spider-Man before they escaped.[93] Gath attempted to take the Venom symbiote for himself, but Venom broke free of his control and attempted to eat him; though he was defeated and had his symbiote stolen by the sorcerer.[94] After Gath was defeated, the symbiote escaped him and returned to Eddie.[95]

When the Carnage symbiote was about to give birth, Venom tracked Carnage down wanting to raise the newborn as an ally, though Carnage felt threatened by this and attempted to first suppress the birth and then destroy the newborn. After Carnage implanted the baby symbiote in NYPD officer Patrick Mulligan, Venom named the new symbiote Toxin after himself but eventually realized that Toxin's first host being a police officer would influence it to be a hero, which would make it a dangerous enemy. Venom and Carnage agreed to a temporary alliance to kill Toxin but were defeated with the assistance of Spider-Man and Black Cat.[96]

Cured of his cancer by Martin Li's healing powers, Eddie became a volunteer at the F.E.A.S.T. center. Mac Gargan, who had become the Venom symbiote's host after Angelo's death, attacked the F.E.A.S.T. center having sensed the presence of a former host. Gargan mocked Eddie for having given up the symbiote, but it abruptly tried to leave Gargan and return to Eddie. A white symbiote - formed from the remnants of the Venom symbiote inside Eddie's body being altered and fused to his white blood cells by Martin Li's powers - emerged from Eddie's body and repelled it. Dubbing himself Anti-Venom, Eddie teamed up with Spider-Man to fight off the Thunderbolts and decided to call off his long-time vendetta after witnessing Spider-Man rescue an innocent old man. Anti-Venom was able to severely injure the Venom symbiote, forcing the Thunderbolts to retreat; and upon sensing remnants of the Venom symbiote in Peter's body he attempted to "cure" him as well. In doing so, Eddie almost ended up stripping Spider-Man of his powers, which began shorting out whenever they were in close proximity.[12] Anti-Venom helped Peter escape Osborn's plot to assassinate Spider-Man and infiltrate Oscorp, facing Gargan - who had been equipped with a Scorpion battlesuit to protect the recovering Venom symbiote - in a rematch. While "Ven-orpion" was able to incapacitate Anti-Venom using a toxin tailor-made to kill Eddie's new symbiote, the Venom symbiote refused to let Gargan kill Eddie and destroyed his Scorpion suit. Eddie's Anti-Venom suit reformed, and he planned to resume his former vigilante antihero career with an increased religious emphasis as the Anti-Venom; curing a young woman named Jenna Cole from her heroin addiction and direct her towards F.E.A.S.T.

After finding out that Martin Li was the super-villain Mister Negative,[103] Eddie's mental instability worsened, and he began working with Jenna Cole to fight street gangs and drug cartels in the sleazier areas of New York, coming into conflict with the Punisher, who he begrudgingly helped take down the Quintas cartel after they captured Jenna.[104] Cutting ties with Jenna, Anti-Venom later teamed up with Spider-Man and the new Wraith to take down Mr. Negative, exposing his identity as Martin Li to the public.[105]

Anti-Venom was recruited by Simon Williams to serve in his new Anti-Avengers team, the Revengers, but they were defeated by both the Avengers and the New Avengers and later imprisoned.[106][107] At some point afterwards, Anti-Venom was either freed or escaped from prison, returning to Our Lady of Saints Church. During the release of a virus that gave New York's civilians copies of Spider-Man's powers and ultimately mutating them into spider-monsters, Anti-Venom used his curative abilities to return people to normal. Agent Venom was sent to capture him so that the Anti-Venom symbiote could be used to make a cure, but Eddie sensed Venom's presence and a fight erupted between them. With the Anti-Venom symbiote having been weakened from Eddie overusing its healing abilities, the Venom symbiote abandoned Flash Thompson and re-bonded to Eddie. Flash managed to convince the symbiote to return to him and took Eddie to Horizon Labs. As an ultimatum, Reed Richards proposed that Eddie use his Anti-Venom symbiote as a cure to be distributed to everyone; although this would result in its destruction. Eddie agreed, and as a result was considered the hero of Spider-Island.[108][109]

Despite having helped to save New York, Eddie was left homeless and poor. Not being bonded to a symbiote anymore, Eddie obtained an arsenal of anti-symbiote weapons and intended to hunt down Carnage, Venom, Toxin, and the other symbiotes to prevent an event called the Spawning; starting with Hybrid and Scream.[110]

When Eddie tracked down and tried to kill Agent Venom, he was knocked out in battle and captured by the Crime-Master, who bonded him to the Toxin symbiote in order to serve in his Savage Six.[5] Dominated by the Toxin symbiote, Eddie tracked down Venom in order to kill him but was incapacitated by a sonic weapon and webbed up by Venom. He later recovered and returned to Crime-Master's hideout. When Agent Venom arrived there searching for Betty Brant, Megatak faced him but was devoured by Toxin. Agent Venom attempted to free Eddie from the Toxin symbiote and immolate it, but the burning symbiote grabbed Eddie and both seemingly perished in the flames.[111] However, both the symbiote and Eddie survived, feeding on numerous criminals and gang members to recuperate from their injuries, and agreed to work together as Toxin for the purpose of hunting down and killing Agent Venom.[112]

Using his investigative skills and the Toxin symbiote's superior sense of smell, Eddie tracked Agent Venom down to Philadelphia and found Thompson trying to reason with a man who had been parasitized by carnivorous alien machines called Symbiote Slayers. To prove his point that it was impossible to resist the predatory urges of the symbiotes, Toxin ate the cyborg before attacking Thompson and nearly killing him. Using the sedative, he was saving for the Venom symbiote, Flash incapacitated Brock, who left the scene vowing to return. Toxin tracked down Flash to the high school he now worked in, hypocritically berating Flash for endangering the innocent children with his symbiote; but the alien machines whose host Toxin had killed infected a group of homeless people and tracked Toxin and Venom down. In order to save innocent lives, Flash convinced Brock to temporarily team up and defeat the monsters, who were ultimately killed. Realizing that Flash was doing good as Agent Venom and re-evaluating his own relationship with Toxin, Eddie offered Flash a deal: he would let Agent Venom live as long as he had control over the symbiote but would mercy-kill him if he lost control.[113]

Eddie Brock bonded with three symbiotes over the years, formerly returning with Venom. The other two were Toxin, the offspring of Carnage; and Anti-Venom, a non-sentient symbiote composed of the remnants of the Venom symbiote in Brock's bloodstream fused with his white blood cells by Martin Li's Lightforce.