As Extreme Carnage falls into the Marvel Universe, a genie may be Earth’s last hope to stop Spider-Man’s deadly symbiote villain from taking over.
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Marvel Comics’ Extreme Carnage: Phage, on sale now.
Extreme carnage has brought the most brutal symbiote to the forefront of the Marvel Universe in a truly terrifying way. In the event, Carnage has made his way to the top of the food chain by infiltrating American politics, and has also begun amassing his own army of symbiotes incognito. Although the world’s heroes are already on the offensive, Carnage’s latest transformation has left them wondering how to start fighting him.
And now, Marvel’s top symbiote expert, Alechemax’s Dr. Steven, has returned. Extreme Carnage: Phage, by VC’s Steve Orlando, Gerardo Sandoval, Victor Nava, Chris Sotomayor and Travis Lanham, and he might be the only one who can figure out how to stop Marvel’s latest symbiote rampage.
First introduced in 2017 Poison # 151 by Mike Costa and Gerardo Sandoval, Dr. Steven is the head of Alchemax’s astrobiology department, and he has gotten quite used to working with symbiotes. During his first appearance, Doctor Steven worked alongside Liz Allan to discover why Eddie Brock’s Venom symbiote was becoming increasingly violent, eventually deducing that the symbiote was suffering from toxic shock syndrome. Although he has never been linked to a symbiote, his experience and understanding of them on a scientific level made Doctor Steven an important figure in defending himself against Poison’s invasion, delivering the Sleeper symbiote at birth and even removing the Young Normie Osborn’s Carnage symbiote.
After Carnage took control of her symbiote and forced her to burn it with hellfire, Andi Benton became one of Alchemax’s captives, he too has a chance to help her. Dr. Steven knows that Scream is on the brink of total destruction and harshly reminds another of Alchemax’s top lackeys that this is indeed a rescue mission above all else. This kind of dedication to empathy, as well as science, has made Doctor Steven such a remarkable ally to Earth’s symbiote heroes.
Unfortunately, the doctor has never been good at a fight, and that doesn’t change when Phage infiltrates Alchemax here. Dr. Steven is happy to point Flash Thompson in the right direction once the symbiotic superhero arrives, but there is little doubt that he will be accomplishing much more than that before. Extreme carnage it’s over.
When Phage and Andi finally get to the blows, the symbiote shrugs off his hellfire and assures him that Carnage will do the same from now on. This, coupled with Carnage’s recently demonstrated ability to force its way into the minds of other symbiotes through the hive, points towards a worrisome adaptability between symbiotes. If that’s true, then Doctor Steven could be exactly the person to call to find a way to stop Carnage in his tracks.
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