Awesome Fan Art Imagines What Carnage Might Look Like In Venom 2

The internet's digital artists never rest.

One such artist by the name of @spdrmnkyxxiii recently took to Instagram to post a terrifying rendition of what Cletus Kasady/Carnage — who is to be portrayed by Woody Harrelson — could look like in the upcoming Sony Universe of Marvel Characters sequel Venom 2.

Now, we all know that Venom, the symbiote which has a complicated relationship with its host Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), is scary enough; we certainly wouldn't want to bump into him in a dark alley. Carnage, though, is just a bit different. Rather than bonding with a morally complex but basically good guy like Brock, the symbiote which would become Carnage bonded with Kasady, a remorseless serial killer who (in Venom's mid-credits sequence) promised to slaughter innocents the moment he could find a way to escape from prison, and this before bonding with an entity that could make him practically unstoppable. The hell with dark alleys; we wouldn't want to bump into Carnage anywhere, and @spdrmnkyxxiii's rendering of the character is truly ghastly. Check it out:

@spdrmnkyxxiii/Instagram

Yes, that right there would be enough to make anybody in their right mind run away screaming, unless they are Spider-Man, in which case they would at least be sorely tempted to web-sling away, screaming. This character design seems pretty well in line with how Venom himself was designed for his smash hit 2018 solo outing, only more tentacle-y and somehow even more menacing. 

Fans have been looking forward to the first onscreen appearance of Carnage seemingly forever — and even though he's plenty formidable enough on his own, when he arrives to wreak havoc in Venom 2, he won't be alone.

Also announced to be part of the festivities for Venom 2 is Naomie Harris as Frances Barrison/Shriek, who in the comics is a superpowered drug dealer-turned homicidal maniac who joins Carnage in one of his many rampages. Her power set makes her a formidable enemy to symbiote-enhanced foes, as they are typically sensitive to sound; she can produce sound waves with enough intensity to enable her to literally fly on a wave of sound, and her sonic attacks can be powerful to incapacitate a symbiote and drive it from its host.

In the comics, she's also capable of telekinesis, and her exposure to the Darkforce Dimension (typically associated with the Marvel hero Cloak of Cloak and Dagger) also enables her to... well, to drive people to the Dark Side by bringing out their worst impulses and tendencies. She's a real piece of work, in other words, and in tandem with Carnage, she'll make sure that Venom has his hands full.

Harris is a gifted, veteran actress who is sure to bring complexity to her portrayal. She's perhaps best-known for playing Moneypenny in Skyfall, Spectre, and the upcoming No Time to Die; she earned raves for her portrayal of Winnie Mandela in the biopic Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, was nominated for an Oscar for her role in the Best Picture-winning drama Moonlight, and proved that she's more than comfortable helping hold down a massive tentpole flick with a featured role in 2018's Rampage, opposite Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

While Carnage and Shriek should be more than enough to give Eddie Brock a giant pain in the rear end, fans are beginning to wonder in earnest if there's any possibility that the character responsible for more of Venom's headaches than anyone else might finally make an appearance in Venom 2. It's well-known that, to this point, Peter Parker/Spider-Man has been kept from appearing in Sony's Universe of Marvel Characters, thanks to Sony Pictures shared custody deal with Marvel Studios. Under the terms of this deal, Sony produces solo vehicles for the web-slinger (portrayed by Tom Holland) while Marvel gets to use him in its team-up flicks; there have been recent indications, though, that this could be changing. 

First and foremost, Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige made some provocative remarks after the two studios came to an agreement to extend their deal last summer, characterizing a Spidey/Venom crossover as "likely," and describing ol' web-head as "the only character with the power to cross cinematic universes." We didn't necessarily expect anything to come of this anytime soon — but then came the recent trailer for the Jared Leto-starring Morbius. The spot made explicit references to Spider-Man's MCU-set solo movies, with the wall-crawler appearing on a poster and Michael Keaton apparently showing up as Adrian Toomes/Vulture, whom he portrayed in Spider-Man Homecoming. Does this mean that we're getting prepped for Spidey to finally show up in one of the SUMC's films?

Probably so, but that doesn't mean Venom 2 will be that film. We find it more likely that the events of the upcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will set the stage for the merging of the two universes — but this is one instance in which we wouldn't mind being proven wrong.