Marvel's latest crossover event, Absolute Carnage, written by Donny Cates and drawn by Ryan Stegman, kicks off Wednesday, Aug. 7. With less than a day before its debut, now is as good of a time as any for a crash course.
If you've been keeping up with Donny Cates' Venom series, you'll likely have a solid understanding of what to expect. If not, then this is the right place to grab a quick recap. Cates' Venom is where all of the "god of the symbiotes" and "Carnage is coming back" rumblings began. While most Venom books tend to have difficulty finding a direction, Cates cranks the knob to 11 and goes completely crazy with the storytelling and worldbuilding in this series.
In the first arc of this series, Cates revealed the entire secret history of the symbiotes. Before the universe was even created, there was Knull, a primordial being who inhabited the "living abyss." When the universe was born, he set out on a mission to destroy the light. He went about butchering gods, eventually realizing he could spread himself through hosts. Thus, the symbiotes were born.
Knull amassed an incredible horde of possessed creatures, including a dragon. This dragon was killed by Thor, which broke Knull's connection to all his symbiotes, allowing them to roam freely and take on hosts of their own. These new hosts showed the symbiotes the glory of the light Knull despised so strongly. They rebelled against their god, trapping him on their "homeworld," Klyntar (which is really just a symbiote cage).
Until recently, Knull was voiceless and mostly docile within Klyntar. But, when a bunch of human scientists found the remains of the same dragon Thor killed, they woke Knull. Now, he's got his sights set on universal corruption, starting with Earth. Eddie and Miles Morales held off Knull for a while, but he's still very much on the way.
So, where does Carnage come into play? In the pages of the Web of Venom: Carnage Born one-shot, readers learned of a cult that worshiped Knull. They were led by Tanis Nieves, also known as the symbiote Scorn. This cult found Cletus Casady's corpse and, with the remnants of Knull's symbiotic dragon, managed to revive him. To further aid him, Scorn offered her symbiote to Cletus, who proceeded to rip out her spine and eat it, thus consuming Scorn's piece of the symbiote codex.
This leads to Carnage's goal in Absolute Carnage. Carnage seeks to consume all of the remaining pieces of the codex scattered among everyone on Earth who has ever bonded with a symbiote. That's obviously a lot of people, including many in the superhero community. That's basically every current Avenger, a few X-Men, Ben Grimm of the Fantastic Four and, of course, Spider-Man and countless others. By completing the codex, Carnage hopes to fully awaken Knull and set him free. That obviously won't be good for anyone or anything.
Leading up to the event, Marvel has been including little after-credits sequences across various titles. These have all been used to show just how far Carnage's reach has grown. He's built up an army of drones, which he's using to seek out pieces of the codex.
In the pages of Amazing Spider-Man #24, we see Spidey relaxing and eating a slice of pizza, feeding his scraps to some pigeons. What he doesn't know, though, is that those pigeons are corrupted by Carnage. In Immortal Hulk #20, the corpse of Thunderbolt Ross has been stolen, with nothing but a red ooze left behind at the grave.
In Fantastic Four #11, we see a homeless woman accost a man in the streets, rambling about God and the coming change. She even specifically mentions Ben Grimm. That's not the only place you'll see Carnage infecting the downtrodden. At the end of Avengers #22, a group of homeless people creep up to the West Coast Avengers headquarters, where Clint Barton and Kate Bishop currently reside.
Eddie Brock is in a weird spot leading into Absolute Carnage. He's not currently bonded with the Venom symbiote as he wanders, trying to protect his son. Venom himself hasn't been seen since the end of Jason Aaron's War of the Realms, where the symbiote briefly bonded with Malekith the Accursed. This somehow cured Venom of whatever sickness corrupted him after his first encounter with Knull.
Eddie will likely be in an even worse spot when the event starts. Carnage framed Eddie for a handful of murders inside Ryker's Island Penitentiary as part of Marvel's Carnage special from Free Comic Book Day. Cross your fingers Eddie and everyone else involved in this crazy event makes it out alive.
Absolute Carnage #1, by Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman, goes on sale Aug. 7.