Appearing in 1st story
Featured Characters:
- Scream (Andi Benton) (Bonds to the Scream symbiote) (First appearance as Scream)
Supporting Characters:
- Scream (Trish Robertson) (Loses the Scream symbiote) (Death)
- Scream symbiote
Antagonists:
- Carnage's Hive
- Knull (Behind the scenes)
Other Characters:
- Numerous unnamed New Yorkers (Corpses)
- Flash Thompson (Mentioned)
- Cult of Knull (Mentioned)
- Carnage doppelgängers (Controlled by Carnage) (Mentioned)
- Mary of Nazareth (Invoked)
- Donna Diego (Referenced) (Deceased)
Races and Species:
Locations:
Items:
- Dark Carnage symbiote
- Mania symbiote (Mentioned)
- Hell-Mark
- Hellfire
Synopsis for 1st story
Looming over Scream and Andi Benton, Carnage mockingly asks if they thought he was too busy to come and handle things himself - noting that killing Andi is personal. Andi hesitantly asks Scream for help, but Scream - marked by Knull's spiral sigil - retorts that she has no choice but to obey Carnage's orders. With a cry of despair, Andi runs - leaving Carnage and Scream watching her until Carnage asks what Scream is waiting for, ordering her to bring Andi back so that he can feed the beast.
Fleeing down an alley, Andi laments that she's not powerful enough to stop Carnage on her own, having barely gotten away the last time they faced each other. Skirting past the corpses of some civilians killed by Carnage's doppelgänger horde, Andi decides to hide and wait out the storm. Sliding under the shutter of a slaughterhouse facility, Andi wonders aloud what Flash Thompson would tell her to do were he still alive. Walking through the sides of beef suspended from meat hooks, Andi notes that it looks like the employees fled when the chaos started. Spotting a large knife embedded in a chunk of meat, Andi pulls it out and says she just needs to lay low until she can figure out how to pull off one of Flash's trademark hail Marys.
Outside the slaughterhouse, Scream rips through the shutter, the symbiote sneering that Andi thinks she can hide from it and that her tithe to Knull and Carnage - which she accepted when she first bonded to a symbiote - will not be denied. Crawling along a wall past the sides of beef, Patricia Robertson's consciousness speaks up, urging the Scream symbiote to resist Carnage's control and Knull's corruption, reminding it that once Carnage has consumed Andi's codex they will be next. Scream stops and clutches at her head, the symbiote overwhelmed by the cacophony of voices inside its mind as Patricia urges it to be a hero.
Hearing Scream's shriek of agony, Andi panics and makes for the exit. Carnage blindsides her, lifting her by the throat and sneering that she must be lonely without her symbiote, but that soon she'll be joining something bigger as part of him. When Carnage mockingly disparages Scream for being a woman, Andi retorts that she knew he was a redneck serial killer, but she never pegged him as being sexist. As Carnage raises Andi towards his jaws, Scream - having overcome Knull's influence - slashes him from behind. As Carnage transforms his arms into blades, Scream snarls at him to leave Andi alone; Carnage retorting that his "sister" doesn't get a say in the matter. As they lash out at each other with their tendrils, Carnage remarks that he can see Scream is questioning her faith in Knull. Calling out to Carnage, Andi activates her Hell-Mark and wreathes her knife in hellfire, but Carnage nonchalantly disarms her, telling Andi to be patient and wait her turn before impaling her on a meathook.
Lunging at Carnage, Scream snarls that she'll kill him; Carnage retorting that better people than her have tried and failed. Snarling that she'll die just like Andi, Carnage impales Scream through the back with a massive bladed tendril, mockingly taunting her as he sends dozens of smaller tendrils erupting out the front of her body - adding that her pain will become his own once he consumes her codex. As Scream vomits blood and tries to stagger to her feet, the symbiote notes that all its mental voices are fading. Determined to not go gently and take Carnage with her, she snares him with her tendril-hair and tries to cocoon him; but he transforms his arms into blades and contemptuously cuts himself free. Scream collapses, the symbiote sloughing away as Patricia laments her impending death. Looking down at Patricia's corpse, Carnage remarks that she was a worthy opponent and that he wishes he could have played with her for longer; but that he's got codices to collect and a dark god to unleash. As Carnage approaches Andi, the Scream symbiote reaches towards her foot with tendrils, snapping that it's not dead yet and bonding to her just as Carnage says he's been looking forward to butchering her.
Transformed into a black-haired version of Scream, Andi breaks free of the meathook and feels the Scream symbiote healing her wounds; reveling in the power of being bonded to a symbiote once more. Andi notes that she can feel not only the Scream symbiote's mental voice, but those of Carnage's doppelgänger horde. She feels Carnage trying to compel her to obey his will, but sneers that she never liked doing what she was told. Snaring Carnage's arm with tendril-hair, Scream unleashes a torrent of hellfire from her maw - blasting Carnage in the face. Retorting that he thought she would have remembered his immunity to fire after their last encounter, Carnage attempts to impale the new Scream like he'd done with Patricia, but she leaps over him. Lunging at her, Carnage impales Scream with his hand and snarls that he's the voice inside her head telling her to stay and die. Scream snares him with tendril hair and slams him into the dangling meat, Andi noting that even with a symbiote she's not powerful enough to fight him. Lamenting that she hadn't even known Patricia Robertson's name before the Scream symbiote bonded to her, Andi vows not to let her sacrifice be in vain. Cocooning Carnage in her hair, Scream tosses him into a meat locker, slams the door, and flees. Smashing the door off its hinges, Carnage notes that Andi has escaped and grouses that he'll have to wait for another rematch with her before turning to harvest the Mania and Scream codices from Patricia's corpse.
Solicit Synopsis
• Between Knull’s growing psychic influence and Patricia Robertson serving as its host, the Scream symbiote is being psychologically torn apart!
•But there’s no time for weakness as Cletus Kasady unleashes an onslaught of infected inmates on an unsuspecting New York.
•Scream and Carnage may be symbiotic siblings, but that won’t stop ‘em from SLAUGHTERING one another!Notes
Continuity Errors[]
- The comic's dialogue and editorial box indicates that the Carnage in this issue is Cletus Kasady, despite him having Norman Osborn's Carnageized appearance rather than Cletus' current appearance as Dark Carnage.