Cult of Carnage: Misery is a 2023 limited series by Marvel Comics, written by Sabir Pirzada with art by Francesco Mortarino.
The series is set in the shared Marvel Universe and broadly linked into the Spider-Man and Venom franchises.
Liz Allan has a lot on her plate—being the single mother to troubled tween Normie Osborn, daughter-in-law and business rival of former supervillain Norman Osborn, mourning the second death of her husband Harry Osborn, and CEO of Alchemax—a position that requires her to be aloof and even treacherous towards those she once called her friends. When Liz rebukes his attempt to buy out Alchemax, Carlton Drake—CEO of the Life Foundation, Alchemax's rival in researching symbiote weaponization—hires terminally ill Guardsman Corwin Jones to steal Alchemax's stockpile of symbiote strains. In the wake of the heist, Liz finds herself bonded to a symbiote of her own, combining the Carnage and Anti-Venom symbiotes into an all-new hybrid called Misery. To recover her stolen property, Liz must not only confront Corwin—who has merged the stolen symbiotes into a hybrid of his own called Madness—but also her own flaws and insecurities to figure out who she truly wants to be.
Cult of Carnage: Misery provides examples of:
- Artificial Zombie: The Symbiotechs are corpses that the Life Foundation reanimated with symbiotes and cybernetics for use as Super Soldiers. They are quite powerful, but have a rather glaring weakness in the form of shutting down immediately if the tubes on their backs are severed, which is exactly what happens during their fight with Spider-Man.
- Blessed with Suck: Corwin Jones gets a combination of both third and fourth flavors of this trope when he bonds with six different symbiotes. At first glance, having multiple symbiotes bonded to you should make you much more powerful. But it turns out, having multiple symbiotes bonded to you has the side effect of creating a Mind Hive in Jones that he simply cannot keep under control, as opposed to if he had just bonded with one symbiote and been able to keep his own mind and simply one symbiote under control. Because of all the different symbiotes messing with him, Corwin is driven to madness and Liz adding the Misery symbiote to his Madness symbiote is enough to completely overload him.
- Blood Knight: Owing to it partially being comprised out of the Carnage symbiote, Dr. Steven notes that the Misery symbiote is extermely bloodthirsty and the only reason it's not having a negative affect on Liz Allan and Grace is that their inherent aggression lets them control it.
- Continuity Nod:
- Carlton Drake mentions having previously loaned Spearhead to Alchemax in order to help them capture Dylan Brock, the current host of the Venom symbiote, in reference to Venom (Vol. 5).
- A few allusions are made to Liz's eldest son Normie being the host of his own symbiote, Rascal, though Liz is completely unaware of this.
- A Day in the Limelight: This is the first series starring Liz Allen, a long time supporting character from all the way back in Amazing Fantasy #15.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Liz starts off maintaining an aloof and cold veneer as the perfect Osborn-adjacent CEO of a multi-billion dollar conglomerate involved in shady dealings and inhumane bioweapons research, and when she undergoes a Journey to the Center of the Mind after being captured her mindscape is even shown as a snowy fortress made of ice. After the Misery symbiote helps her come to terms with the different facets of her identity, as well as that she was a victim of abuse by Harry Osborn, she resolves to try to be a better person and shuts down Alchemax's symbiote weaponization projects in favour of rehabilitating them instead.
- Don't Make Me Destroy You: In the final issue, Liz Allan threatens to kill Carlton Drake unless he stops meddling in Alchemax's affairs and turns over all of the Life Foundation's symbiote research. He begrudgingly agrees, and the two them play nice when Spider-Man enters the room.
- Domestic Abuse: A significant portion of Liz's Journey to the Center of the Mind is dedicated to the Misery symbiote playing the role of therapist—even dressing in a suit with a Freudian Couch—and helping her admit and accept that Harry Osborn abused her; with several panels showing flashbacks to moments where Harry lashed out at her and their children.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The final issue reveals that Corwin Jones, who happily backstabbed his coworkers at Alchemax and killed several of them, and maimed Liz Allan and spat in her face when she offered to help cure his terminal illness... has a daughter who he cares deeply about, the Madness symbiote using this to blackmail him into doing what they want.
- Failure Hero: During their Journey to the Center of the Mind, the Misery symbiote points out that Liz Allan has been defined by her suffering and failures: she failed as a nurse to her brother and husband, she failed as a wife to both Harry Osborns, she failed as a mother to Normie and Stanley, and even her recent stint as a Corrupt Corporate Executive has been a failure. It then challenges her to rise above her failures and stop hiding behind her misery to become Misery.
- Happy Fun Ball: Corwin Jones has an affinity for disguising bombs and drones as stuffed animals and dolls. Liz notes how creepy his vast collection of toys is even before they start attacking her.
- Healing Factor: Due to the Carnage symbiote and the Anti-Venom symbiote constantly striving to destroy one another and regenerating, the Misery symbiote enables its host to recover from injuries as severe as being torn in half or spattering into a wall at terminal velocity.
- Heel Realization: After having been an antagonistic force towards symbiote characters post-King in Black,note the final issue ends with Liz Allan shuttering Alchemax's symbiote weaponization projects, instead intending to rehabilitate them after being disgusted by how far Carlton Drake was willing to go to create the Symbiotechs.
- Hybrid Monster: Alchemax has collected "strains" from numerous symbiotes that they've used to create clones, and has been working on hybridizing them.
- Dr. Steven notes that their sample of the Carnage symbiote is proving difficult to hybridize as it kills the other strains they try to combine it with, before hitting on the idea of mixing it with the symbiote-killing Anti-Venom symbiote. The result is the Misery symbiote, a red and white symbiote with the Carnage symbiote's weaponization abilities, the Anti-Venom symbiote's cleansing touch, and healing abilities superior to both.
- After Corwin Jones steals Alchemax's Scream, Agony, Phage, Riot, Lasher, and Toxin symbiote strains and brings them to the Life Foundation, Carlton Drake outfits him with a new suit of Guardsman armor that combines all six symbiotes into a gestalt called Madness. Keeping control of them proves difficult, and when Corwin tries to add the Carnage and Anti-Venom symbiotes to the mix it backfires badly.
- How Do I Shot Web?: When Liz tries web-swinging, which she assumes must be easy since the likes of Spider-Man and Carnage do it all the time, she immediately crashes into a water tower with so much force that she splatters all over the place (not that it matters).
- Jagged Mouth: Like Anti-Venom, Misery's maw is lined with black fangs that blend into the rest of its face.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: After being captured by the Life Foundation, Liz is placed in a stasis pod. In her mindscape, the Misery symbiote helps her come to terms with her failures as a nurse, wife, mother, and CEO, as well as the Domestic Abuse that Harry Osborn inflicted on her during his descent into mental illness as the Green Goblin.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Spearhead spends the entire series entirely unware that is fighting his own employer, the Life Foundation. This ends up possibly getting him killed when Carlton Drake sics his cyborg symbiote supersoldiers on the intruders.
- Mind Hive: Antagonist Corwin Jones, aka Madness, is bonded to six different symbiotes. All of their voices are in his mind and, as Liz points out, keeping them under control is no easy task. By the end of the series they're the ones controlling Jones, rather than vice versa.
- Modified Clone:
- The Misery symbiote is a merger of the Carnage symbiote and the Anti-Venom symbiote, granting it the weaponization powers of the former and the healing factor of the latter.
- The Madness symbiote is an amalgamation of Alchemax's copies of the Scream, Agony, Phage, Riot, Lasher, and Toxin symbiotes, with their heads jutting from Corwin Jones' body as a reference to Venom's mutated form from Venom: The Madness.
- Mythology Gag: Corwin's appearance as Madness is evocative Venom's mutated form from Venom: The Madness, where he bonded to a sentient mercury virus that mutated the Venom symbiote—causing it to sprout extra heads—while wreaking havoc on Eddie's sanity. Likewise, bonding to six symbiotes—who unlike the Hybrid symbiote or Misery symbiote have zero intention of playing nice—doesn't go well for Corwin.
- Only a Flesh Wound: Madness rams his entire arm (which is massive) straight through Queen Cat's torso. Lily not only survives this, but apparently sustains no lasting injuries, as Dr. Hakim is shown telling Liz that he will call her once (not if) Lily comes out of her Convenient Coma.
- Playing Nice for Now: After breaking free of her stasis pod and escaping Madness, Liz confronts Carlton Drake and threatens to kill him when he keeps pushing her buttons, forcing him to turn over the Life Foundation's symbiote research to Alchemax. When Spider-Man abruptly enters the room, Liz retracts her symbiote and the two pretend that they've just concluded a top-secret business deal.
- Pulling Themselves Together: Due to the Anti-Venom and Carnage symbiotes trying to kill each other and regenerating at the same time, the Misery symbiote's hosts—Grace the chimpanzee and Liz Allan—are able to be torn to shreds and reattach their severed body parts, or even liquify and reconstitute their bodies.
- Retcon: In Extreme Carnage, Doctor Steven told Andi Benton that the Scream symbiote was beyond saving and had died from its injuries, its remaining biomass being salvaged into the Silence symbiote. However, here it's shown that he lied and was able to create a clone of it, as well as other symbiotes, for use in Alchemax's bioweapons research.
- Sequel Hook:
- Grace, the chimpanzee who was bonded to the Carnage and Anti-Venom blend at the very start of the story, escapes at the very end. It's implied that she'll become a future threat for Liz or other superhumans.
- Corwin Jones and the Madness symbiote are still at-large, the latter blackmailing the former into complying with its wishes by threatening his young daughter.
- The final issue reveals that the Order of the Goblin—making a comeback for the first time since the Revenge of the Green Goblin arc in 2000 and now being led by Kolina Frederickson—was responsible for Lily Hollister's recovery from her amnesia, and has its sights set on Stanley Osborn.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Liz deliberately sends the Misery symbiote to amalgamate into the Madness symbiote, adding Carnage and Anti-Venom's consciousnesses into the mix on top of Scream, Agony, Phage, Riot, Lasher, and Toxin's. This—combined with Anti-Venom's general incompatability with other symbiotes, completely overloads Corwin Jones and causes him to have a Freak Out.
- Villain Respect: When Corwin asks why Carlton Drake doesn't want him to just kill Liz Allan, Drake responds that he respects her and is attempting to "help" her by taking the symbiotes off her hands, saying he knows from personal experience she can't afford to fail with them.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Once Grace masters the ability to speak, she berates Dr. Steven and Liz Allan for performing inhumane experiments on her—culminating in bonding her to a sample of the Carnage symbiote and then adding Anti-Venom to the mix—and vengefully attempts to kill them. Liz protests that the experiments were meant to find cures for human illnesses, but this only makes Grace angrier.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Spearhead was Carlton Drake's Number Two in Venom (Vol. 5), but is shown working for Alchemax on-loan from the Life Foundation. When Liz Allan mysteriously goes missing, Spearhead—seemingly unaware his boss is responsible—teams up with Spider-Man to find out what happened to her and ends up being seriously injured—and possibly even killed—when Carlton siccs a squad of symbiote-augmented cyborg supersoldiers on him and Spider-Man when they get too close to the Life Foundation's hidden base.
