Marvel's Carnage Gets a Powerful New Form

The penultimate issue of Marvel's Absolute Carnage event arrived on shelves Wednesday morning, delivering perhaps the wildest chapter of the story to-date. Issue #4 of Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman's twisted thriller put Eddie Brock and a few of Earth's Mightiest Heroes up against the nearly god-like evolution of Carnage, who is dead set on stealing Symbiote codexes from the spines of hosts and using them to make himself even more powerful. Unfortunately for the good guys of the story, Carnage took a major step toward his goal in this issue, setting up for a terrifying fight to the death in the upcoming finale.

WARNING: This article contains major spoilers from Absolute Carnage #4! Continue reading at your own risk...

The previous issue of Absolute Carnage ended with Eddie Brock's Venom Symbiote deeming him too weak to fight, instead taking up residence in the mind of Bruce Banner's Hulk. That's where the fight picks up here, and Carnage goes toe-to-toe with the not-so-jolly green giant. What no one realizes is that, if Carnage takes the Venom Symbiote from Hulk, he takes the upper hand in the entire war.

Surprisingly, Carnage does just that, absorbing Venom into his hive and becoming an instantly unstoppable force. This transformation also gives him some exterior upgrades as well, revealing a brand new look for the villainous Carnage.

Throughout the Absolute Carnage event, Carnage has been collecting Symbiote codexes one at a time. But Venom was the source of so many of those codexes, making it the most valuable and powerful piece to the puzzle.

"No, you don't understand," Miles Morales explains to Eddie in the issue. "Carnage gets stronger with every codex he takes. He gains a small piece of power from every one of them. So far, he's only been able to reabsorb them one at a time from the dead and from people like Deadpool and Gargan and Norman Osborne. But Brock, if he takes your Symbiote from Hulk, if he gets Venom, he'll be unstoppable."

Eddie is going to have his work cut out for him in the final issue of Absolute Carnage, and there's almost no way this ends well for everyone.

What do you think of Carnage's new look? Have you liked Absolute Carnage so far? Let us know in the comments!