WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Absolute Carnage #2 by Donny Cates, Ryan Stegman, JP Mayer, Frank Martin and Clayton Cowles, and Absolute Carnage: Miles Morales #1 by Saladin Ahmed, Federico Vicentini, Erick Arciniega and Cory Petit, in stores now.
For months , Cletus Kasady has been secretly keeping tabs on every Marvel character who was ever bonded with a symbiote. Thanks to the new powers granted to him by the Grendel symbiote, Kasady has been able to create drones by infecting others with his Carnage symbiote. Accordingly, he now has an army that follows his every command, something which allows him to be everywhere at once and grows more powerful with every codex he absorbs froma former symbiote host.
And now, Carnage is on the hunt.
In Absolute Carnage #1, Kasady made his first move by going after Venom. Before long, Eddie Brock recruited the help of Spider-Man, and the two rushed to the Ravencroft Institute to get to Norman Osborn, who wielded the symbiote as the Red Goblin, before Carnage. However, they were too late to stop Kasady from recruiting another dangerous Spider-Man foe and to stop him from unleashing his troops on the world.
And now in Absolute Carnage #2, as Carnage makes his move to collect to codex out of every symbiote host past and present, a major Marvel hero has just fallen to the supervillain: Miles Morales' Spider-Man.
Before that happens, Absolute Carnage #2 picks up right where the previous issue left off, as Venom and Spider-Man only barely make it out of the Ravencroft Institute alive. However, Carnage isn't holding anything back now and unleashes his army of drones over New York, their numbers growing more and more.
Before long, these drones lock their sights on Mac Gargan, the Scorpion who wielded the Venom symbiote for a few years in the Thunderbolts. Although Scorpion and Miles were fighting ust moments before, they quickly start fighting side-by0side as they try to stave of the horde of Carnage drones.
Eventually, Venom swings in to lend a helping hand against the vicious, endless horde. However, in the thick of the battle, Carnage is able to get his hands on his intended target, Mac Gargan, and rips into Mac's spine, but before he can collect the codex, Miles makes a valiant save. Eddie Brock then takes the injured Scorpion up on his shoulder to carry him to safety. But just as he turns around to see where Miles is, he realizes it's already too late: Carnage's tendrils have trapped Miles, and the symbiote takes the young Spider-Man over.
As Absolute Carnage: Miles Morales shows, Miles is transformed into a Carnage drone, becoming a dangerous new addition in the supervillain's ever-growing army.
For the moment, it's unclear what this means for Miles. For the time being, we don't yet know if the people Carnage takes over can be easily freed -- if they can at all. Surely, this is not the end for Miles Morales, but his fall at the hands of Carnage still deals a heavy blow. Spider-Man and Venom have already recognized that they can't win without some serious help, and now they've just lost a powerful potential ally in this fight.
During Venom and Miles previous team-up in Cates and Stegman's Venom series, we saw that Miles' blast powers could actually hurt the Grendel and potentially the symbiote god Knull. But with Miles now under Carnage's control, the heroes may have just lost one of their biggest guns.