The trailer for Sony's Venom: Let There Be Carnage is finally out, giving fans a look at what fresh ideas and characters the film is bringing to the table. Cletus Kassidy, better known as the mass-murdering symbiote psychopath Carnage, was known to be featured in the film (just look at the movie title). But Carnage may not be going on a lone killing spree as it's been revealed his comic book love Shriek will also make an appearance. Fans of the comics recognize Shriek and Carnage's twisted love as similar to the infamous romance of Joker and Harley Quinn in that destruction follows wherever the pairs go. However, Carnage and Shriek's love life goes so completely off the walls that even Joker would be left in awe.
Joker and Carnage's relationships share a common beginning: both met their lovers in an asylum. Joker met Harley Quinn during one of his stays at Arkham Asylum, back when she was still working there as Dr. Harleen Quinzel. Over time, Joker manipulated and got his claws into Quinzel, twisting her into the supervillain fans know and love today. In a similar fashion, Carnage first encountered Shriek, originally named Frances Barrison, at the Ravencroft Institute during the events of Maximum Carnage.
Unlike the DC Comics couple, both Carnage and Shriek were incarcerated patients of the institute. Carnage was making his escape when Shriek asked to join him on his murder spree. Carnage agreed, probably seeing the destruction he could cause with Shriek's mutant abilities to manipulate sound and drive people to their darkest thoughts. Deciding to jump a few steps ahead of Joker and Harley, Carnage and Shriek "adopted" Doppelganger, Demogoblin and Carrion as their "sons." The twisted, little "family" decided to spread fear and death through New York. Unfortunately for the newly formed family, Papa Carnage ended up killing Doppelganger, with the whole group brought down thanks to the efforts of Spider-Man, Venom and the Avengers. After, Shriek was sent back to Ravencroft.
Love has ways of reuniting people, though. Eventually, Shriek escaped and committed another attack on New York City. Carnage took part and even gave his lover her own symbiote, though the symbiote left her out of fear and bonded with Shriek's former psychiatrist Dr. Tanis Nieves to form Scorn. Scorn forced Shriek to use her powers to take down Carnage, resulting in another end to the power couple's rampage. Shriek was left in a coma, though she later awoke and aided Carnage in a battle against Deadpool. Deadpool actually managed to break Carnage by disguising Shriek as Deadpool, tricking Carnage into nearly killing his lover. Carnage suffered a mental breakdown from the experience and willingly turned himself in while Shriek was left hospitalized.
After recovering and having several misadventures, including working with Kraven the Hunter, Shriek reunited with Carnage and Doppelganger to form the Cult of Knull during the lead up to the King in Black comic event. With the singular goal of collecting symbiote codexes from former hosts of the alien race, the three tracked down and collected the codexes by violently ripping out the hosts' spines.
Shriek eventually experienced this fate, having once been the host of the Scorn symbiote. Unlike her fellow symbiote bearers, Shriek willingly chose to sacrifice herself to the cause, her love for Carnage ultimately overriding any sense of self-preservation. Shriek was killed by her lover and fell dead -- until she wasn't. Shriek's death was actually meant to accomplish two tasks: the retrieval of her codex and the use of her body as a host. Instead of hosting a symbiote, however, Shriek's corpse became the host of the demonic Demogoblin, who apparently inherited Shriek's love for Carnage.
Joker once revealed to Harley that he allegedly had other "Harley Quinns" prior to her that he beat and killed for his own amusement. That's just one of the many terrible things the Joker has done to Harley. However, even the Joker has never ripped out Harley's spine and stuck a demon in her corpse before. As such, Carnage and Shriek's relationship will be remembered as one of the most twisted and violent pairings to ever come out of comic books.
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