Marvel Officially Reveals Its Most Powerful Symbiote Yet — Even Deadlier Than Carnage

Damn — you had better believe this is enough to make Knull raise an eyebrow, if he had any. The Elder God of Darkness and Marvel's creator of the symbiotes has experienced more than his fair share of family dysfunction thanks to offspring like Venom and Carnage, but what Torment just did has to leap to the front of Knull's interests.

Carnage, so powerful a symbiote that he and his human host, Cletus Kasady, that it took Venom with the help of Spider-Man (and their allies) to defeat him in Maximum Carnage, has just been leveled up to a level that, thanks to Torment in Spider-Man/Venom: Death Spiral, a psychotic serial killer the likes of which make Kasady look like a youth pastor.

Tormented Carnage Is The Definition of a Death Spiral

Thanks to Venom #256, we get our first look at the new pairing. The Carnage symbiote has split from Eddie Brock (recall that following The Amazing Spider-Man #22, Brock merged with Carnage after Venom split to bond with Mary Jane Watson — yeah, that happened).

And Carnage now possesses Torment, a diabolical pairing that looks as insane as it will inevitably prove to be.

"Spider-Man, Venom, Carnage, Mary Jane—they’re essentially a weird family unit, interconnected with gigantic amounts of history together," said Charles Soule, co-writer of Spider-Man/Venom Death Spiral #1 (Feb. 2026) alongside Joe Kelly and Al Ewing. "There’s an engine there, there’s a lot of emotional energy in there to break apart.” Kelly chimed in afterward: “And then we needed a serial killer."

Spider-Man, Venom Are Both Facing Annihilation

• Writer: Al Ewing
• Penciller: Carlos Gomez
• Primary cover art: Giuseppe Camuncoli
• Release date: April 1
• Length: 32 pages
• Price: $4.99 US/$6.99 Canada

With the new bonding comes some seemingly unfathomable powers, including Shocker's ability to create powerful vibrational shockwaves, having acquired those as well. Torment is sadistic, cunning, devoid of morality and hellbent on murdering Parker, Brock and their entire bloodline, and that's exactly what drew Carnage to him in the first place, their symbiosis promising no quarter, no escape and no room for division between Parker and Brock anymore — especially with the latter's son, Dylan, on Torment Carnage's menu.

Per Marvel: "DEATH SPIRAL PART SIX! The serial killer Torment is following the path of the Death Spiral...and it's led straight to Dylan Brock! Now the son of Venom is alone, injured and on the run...and Venom's other child might be his only hope. But will Carnage choose to help Dylan...or kill him all over again? Because SOMEONE'S got to die..."

Truly, is there anything more that needs to be said after that? Not really, and the only thing left to do now is to grab Venom #256 to see what can possibly be done to stop such a horrendous, yet tantalizingly demonic, pairing, the likes of which Marvel has rarely, if ever, seen before ... word to Knull.