WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Venom #25 by Donny Cates, Mark Bagley, Andy Owens, Ryan Stegman, JP Mayer, Frank Martin and Clayton Cowles, available now.
Like all of Marvel's symbiotes, Carnage can take many forms. After taking on half of the Marvel Universe in the Absolute Carnage crossover, a piece of the symbiote stuck itself inside the mind of Eddie Brock, Venom's usual host. To deal with that, Brock absconded to a deserted island to deal with Venom's wayward symbiote offspring once and for all.
However, an island full of animals would provide Brock with an interesting set of challenges. The symbiote rivals use a host of other animal forms to duke it out with each other including gorillas, monkeys, birds, and snakes. And after the dust from their final battle on the island clears in Venom #25, Carnage takes his most terrifying form ever by transforming into a shark.
Throughout the storyline, Carnage has attacked Brock by possessing the island's animal population. Fortunately, Eddie had a veritable treasure trove of weaponry stashed away on the island from when he and Venom previously lived on the island.
Even with a flamethrower, a bandolier of grenades, and pain-inducing sirens, the horde of symbiotic jungle animals creates a unique set of problems that even costs Eddie his hand. Even after he cuts his hand off to escape Carnage, he's continually harassed by the island's animal population
However, Eddie's son, Dylan, finds out he has the ability to remote control other symbiotes, a power he shares with Knull, the god of the symbiotes. Using this power, he mind-links with Venom to save his dad. Venom aptly reminds Dylan he doesn't have to stick to the common bipedal form he takes when he's bound with Eddie. This sparks the young boy's imagination, and Dylan turns Venom into a giant black and white T-Rex symbiote. The prehistoric alien has Venom's signature white spider symbol, his long drooling tongue, and even has a second mouth with even more razor-sharp teeth.
As it emerges from the jungle, this T-Rex form gives Carnage more than he can handle, and it allows Dylan enough time to break Carnage's link over Eddie and reunites him with Venom, who gives Eddie a brand new symbiotic hand to replace the one he cut off.
While the symbiote rivals used a host of other animal forms to duke it out with each other, there's no doubt a symbiote shark is going to cause some problems whoever has to face it. While the symbiotes have usually bonded with humanoids, all of these transformations highlight just how alien they really are, and these examples show what can happen when the symbiotes' limits are stretched.
Venom and Carnage's respective T-Rex and the shark forms that leave a terrifyingly awesome memory in symbiote lore, even if their panel-time is relatively short. While Knull heading to Earth to take on Eddie, Venom, Dylan and seemingly the rest of the Avengers crew, It seems incredibly likely we will see Carnage and Venom stare each other down across a battlefield once again. And if Venom and Carnage take on animal forms again, they could unleash some truly primal rage on each other.