Venom: Let There Be Carnage is bringing a double dose of villainy to Eddie Brock's world. Not only will Woody Harrelson's Carnage step into the spotlight, but Carnage will also be joined by his deadly lover, Shriek. Naomie Harris is playing the Marvel villain, so we're basically one six-armed Spider-Man clone away from a full-fledged Maximum Carnage movie at this point.
But if you're not a hardcore Spider-Man comic reader, you may be unfamiliar with who Shriek is. That's why we're breaking down everything you need to know about the character and her history in the Spider-Man franchise. These are the topics we'll be covering here:
- Who Is Marvel's Shriek?
- Shriek's Origin
- Shriek's Powers and Abilities
- Shriek's Relationship With Carnage
- Naomie Harris' Role in Let There Be Carnage
- Shriek in TV and Games
Who Is Marvel's Shriek?
Many of Spider-Man's most deranged villains make their home at Ravencroft Institute, basically the Arkham Asylum of the Marvel Universe. That's where Shriek got her start. And after a chance run-in with fellow inmate Carnage, Shriek's path to supervillainy was cemented. Whether teamed with Carnage or on her own, Shriek is easily one of Spider-Man and Venom's deadliest foes.
Tragically, though, Shriek's criminal rampages all stem from a traumatic childhood. Her lack of a strong mother figure feeds into Shriek's criminal insanity and her compulsive need to create a twisted supervillain family of her own.
Whether teamed with Carnage or on her own, Shriek is easily one of Spider-Man and Venom's deadliest foes.
Shriek's Origin
Shriek's real name is Frances Barrison, though she's also used the cover identity Sandra Deel. As a child, Frances was neglected and abused by her mother, driving her into a life of crime and drug addiction.
Frances also happens to be a mutant, though she's one of the rare mutants whose abilities didn't manifest naturally with age. Instead, it took the combination of being shot in the head by a police officer and exposed to the Darkforce Dimension (thanks to a run-in with the hero Cloak) to awaken her dormant powers.
Newly reborn as Shriek, she was imprisoned in Ravencroft at first, but was soon freed during Carnage's jailbreak and joined forces with the powerful offspring of Venom. That alliance has caused no small amount of misery for the heroes of the Marvel Universe.
Shriek's Powers and Abilities
In a nutshell, Shriek's mutant powers allow her to manipulate sound energy. She can deploy that power in a number of interesting ways. As her name suggests, Shriek can fire destructive blasts of sound at her enemies. She can also use this energy for defensive purposes, such as creating sonic shields or even flying.
What truly makes Shriek a dangerous opponent, however, is that she can see the darkest parts of a person's mind and use her powers to manipulate their emotions accordingly. She literally plays on a person's worst fears. And because symbiote-powered heroes like Venom are especially vulnerable to sound, Shriek is more than a match for Eddie Brock. Though as Carnage eventually learned, the same applies to him as well.
Shriek's Relationship With Carnage
Shriek made her debut during the iconic Maximum Carnage crossover in 1993, and that story set the tone for her relationship with the titular villain. With Carnage often being described as the Spider-Man franchise's answer to the Joker – a deranged lunatic villain motivated by a love of chaos and bloodshed – it's not a stretch to describe Shriek as the Harley Quinn to Carnage's Joker. Both Shriek and Harley are mentally unstable women who fall hopelessly in love with a dangerous supervillain inmate. Once freed by Carnage, Shriek declares him to be her husband. As for the other villains they recruit to their cause in the Maximum C – Doppelganger, Demogoblin and Carrion – Shriek considers them to be their children. At her core, Shriek desperately wants to create a family to make up for a terribly unhappy childhood.
The key difference from the Joker/Harley relationship is that Carnage seems to genuinely care for his "bride," despite his otherwise nihilistic views on life. This is most clearly seen in the miniseries Deadpool vs. Carnage, where the Merc With a Mouth defeats Carnage by tricking him into believing he's killed Shriek.
Shriek's profile in the Spider-Man comics has also tended to rise and fall with that of Carnage himself. The character temporarily faded into obscurity after Carnage was ripped in half and seemingly killed by the Sentry in 2004's New Avengers #2. When Cletus Kasady returned in 2010's Carnage, readers learned that Frances Barrison was well on the road to recovery thanks to Ravencroft psychiatrist Dr. Tanis Nieves. Sadly, her lover's return brought a swift end to that. She even briefly bonded with a fragment of the Carnage symbiote and gained new powers, though that symbiote quickly found a different home in Dr. Nieves, spawning a new symbiote character named Scorn.
Shriek's love for Carnage ultimately proved to be her undoing. In her most recent appearance in Absolute Carnage: Lethal Protectors, Shriek willingly sacrificed herself so that Carnage could remove the traces of the symbiote codex contained within her body, bringing Carnage one step closer to communing with the symbiote god Knull. Shriek now lives on in death as the demonic Demagoblin.
Naomie Harris' Role in Let There Be Carnage
So what role will Naomie Harris' Shriek actually play in Venom 2? The first Venom movie ends with a post-credits scene featuring Hardy's Eddie Brock visiting an incarcerated Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson), and the first trailer for Let There Be Carnage confirms that Kasady somehow acquires a piece of the Venom symbiote (or a symbiote of his own), transforming into Carnage and breaking out of prison. Carnage will recruit his fellow inmate to his cause, and director Andy Serkis even confirms the film will be a twisted love story.
The end result will surely be a formidable new threat to Eddie and his symbiote partner. Shriek's sonic powers directly play into one of the symbiote's two weaknesses (sound and fire). We wouldn't even put it past Venom 2 to subvert expectations and position Shriek as the true villain of the story, one whose power threatens both Venom and Carnage alike eventually.
It's also possible the movie will emphasize the twisted husband/wife relationship between Carnage and Shriek. It may even set the stage for a full-blown Maximum Carnage-inspired team-up movie. However, we wouldn't expect the entire Carnage Family lineup to assemble until Spider-Man officially enters the picture, whether that happens in Venom 3, a Spider-Man/Venom crossover, or some other upcoming Sony project.
Catch up on the history of Venom villain Carnage with the video below:
Shriek in TV and Games
- TV: Surprisingly, Shriek never made it into the '90s Spider-Man animated series or its symbiote-heavy spinoff, Spider-Man Unlimited. She did appear in several episodes of Ultimate Spider-Man (voiced by Ashley Eckstein), including the multi-part storylines "The New Sinister 6" and "The Symbiote Saga."
- Games: Shriek made the jump from comics to video games not long after her initial debut. Shriek is one of the main bosses in the SNES/Sega Genesis brawler Maximum Carnage, which directly adapts the comic book storyline of the same name. She would return to the video game realm in the Wii/PS2/PSP version of Spider-Man 3. While ostensibly an adaptation of the Spider-Man 3 movie, that version of the game includes several characters and storylines not featured in the film. One of those involves Shriek, who is re-imagined as the wife of Michael Morbius and acquires her powers after being exposed to Spider-Man's symbiote costume.
Shriek will now make her live-action debut in Venom 2, with Naomie Harris taking on the role. No doubt the film will focus on her relationship with Cletus Kasady and her troubled background. Maybe a movie based on the Maximum Carnage storyline will follow. After all, Sony needs some reason to bring Tom Hardy's Venom and Tom Holland's Spider-Man together!
For now, be sure to check out IGN's review of Venom: Let There Be Carnage
September 30, 2021: This story has been updated with the latest information regarding Venom: Let There Be Carnage.
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