WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Extreme Carnage: Omega, available now from Marvel Comics.
Throughout the Extreme Carnage crossover, the return of Marvel's most vicious symbiote, Carnage, has been horrifying, and it's culminated in a brutal broad daylight attack at a political rally. While none of this is particularly surprising given the villain's penchant for over-the-top action and incredible violence, Carnage isn't the only one relishing in his bloody frenzy. As Extreme Carnage: Omega by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Manuel Garcia, Cam Smith, Guru e-FX and VC's Travis Lanham reveals, the serial killer symbiote's latest host is just as enthusiastic about all of the death and destruction as its last, and Arthur Krane might even be a bigger threat than Cletus Kasady ever was.
Flash Thompson and his symbiotic team of superheroes have been waiting for Carnage to make his move to attack the United States President amid growing ganti-symbiote sentiment, only to learn that the actual intended target is Senator Krane, the man they had all believed to be the villainous symbiote's host. Instead, it is the senator's son Arthur who has been harboring Carnage the entire time, putting him in the perfect position to assassinate the elder Krane in full view of the American public.
The gruesome murder is just the beginning of a full-on onslaught of similarly twisted symbiotes from the Life Foundation, all having been corrupted by Carnage's touch in his climb to the top of the political food chain. Of course, that climb stopped just short of Senator Krane himself, something that Flash Thompson still can't quite wrap his head around. Despite being in the heat of battle, the titular villain is still happy to explain his decision to stick the rest of his plan out with Arthur. In fact, it was an easy decision for Carnage to make, especially since it and its latest host already had so much in common.
Carnage tells Flash Thompson that when it bonded with Arthur Krane, it was exposed to someone more like Cletus Kasady than it could have ever anticipated. In his youth, Arthur Krane killed animals for fun, eventually moving on to human targets as he got older. Over time, Arthur Krane became a prolific enough killer that his father was left cleaning up the bloody messes his son made -- though that wouldn't save the senator from Arthur's wrath. Before bonding to the symbiote, Arthur was already working out his own plan to murder his father and turn that tragedy into a play for the same Senate seat.
The fact that Carnage has found another bloodthirsty sadist to latch onto is scary enough, but the possibility that either one of them could end up in a position of real political power is truly horrifying. Even if separated from Carnage, there is no guarantee that Arthur Krane's connection to the symbiote would be discovered. If it were, it would be easy enough for him to play the victim, leaving the heroes with no real winning outcome against the very serious problems they are now faced with. No matter what happens next, the Marvel Universe has a new killer on the loose, and there is nothing that anyone can do about him.