WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Extreme Carnage: Agony, on sale now from Marvel Comics.
Carnage's latest comeback has been his most horrifying to date, as he has secretly worked his way into the forefront of his own symbiote Hive. Over the past few months, Carnage has gradually reached out to more and more of his siblings, and he has gathered together every remaining Life Foundation symbiote for what is sure to be their most gruesome family reunion yet in Extreme Carnage: Agony #1, by Alyssa Wong, Fran Galan, Danilo S. Beyruth, Jim Campbell and Cory Petit.
While Flash Thompson and Andrea Benton have been busy trying to put together the pieces of Carnage's master plan, the villain himself has been expanding his forces. The fallout of Knull's invasion has left many with an anti-alien sentiment, one that Carnage has exploited by seeding his symbiotic agents into the same general populace which hates their kind. On top of that, he has even been gathering together his siblings from the Life Foundation to help him along in his conquest. Not all of them have been as willing to come back into the murderous fold, but with Agony in her seat at the table, the family reunion can finally begin.
First introduced in 1993's Venom: Lethal Protector #4 by David Michelinie and Ron Lim, the Life Foundation symbiotes were forcefully birthed from Venom by the shadowy organization they were named after. Initially the five symbiotes Phage, Agony, Lasher, Riot and Scream were bonded to mercenaries to act as the superhuman police force of the Life Foundation's planned utopian society. When the Foundation's plans were thwarted, the symbiotes found themselves turning to Eddie Brock for help before being murdered by Scream. Since then they have all been weaponized, bonded together as Hybrid, and turned into a grotesque version of their combined selves at the behest of Knull. Now the time has come for them to take on new roles as Carnage's inner circle, and Agony looks to be the key to his enterprises. Her latest host was already part of Krane's campaign before Carnage's return, and although she hasn't been all that receptive to her brother's maniacal influence, she has helped his plans along so far. As long as what Carnage is doing falls in line with what Agony wants, there is no reason to assume she won't keep helping him, especially when he has yet to break the mysterious promise he made to Agony and her host.
On their own, each of the Life Foundation symbiotes has something remarkable to offer, and the acid-spitting Agony has quickly become the most important of them all. Whether this is due to her secret dealings with Carnage or her place within the administration he covets is yet to be seen, though that might not matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. More important is what she and the rest of her brood are capable of when they all come together. Then again, there isn't much chance that they will be as strong as they once were now that Silence has replaced Scream. With any luck, that will be enough for the heroes to overcome Marvel's most gruesome family. If not, the Marvel Universe is in store for a whole lot of Agony in its immediate future.