Carlton Drake (Earth-688B)

Riot
Name	Dr. Carlton Drake
Current Alias	Riot
Affiliation and Relationships
Affiliation	Life Foundation, Symbiote invasion
Host of	Riot (former symbiote, deceased)
Marital Status	Single
Physical Characteristics
Gender	Male
Height	5′8″ (1.73 m), 7′6″ (2.29 m) (as Riot)
Eyes	Irises: Brown White (as Riot)
Hair	Black, No Hair At All (as Riot)
Unusual Features	Claws, fangs, and a prehensile tongue as Riot.
Origin and Living Status
Origin	Human bonded to a symbiote
Living Status	Deceased
Reality	Earth-688B
Cause of Death	Killed by Venom
Personal Information
Identity	No Dual
Citizenship	American
Occupation	Businessman, entrepreneur
Base of Operations	San Francisco, California
Creators and Appearances
Creators	Sean Ryan, Szymon Kudranski
First	Venom (Sony) #1 (September, 2018)
First	Venom (Sony) #1 (September, 2018)
Death	Venom (October 5, 2018)
Death	Venom (October 5, 2018)

What's insane is the way humans choose to live today. Think about it. All we do is take, take, take. It can't go on. We've brought the planet to the brink of extinction. We're parasites. You're a good example. Think about it. All you do is take. You took my symbiote. You take potshots at a great man trying to get something done. Didn't you take from the person you loved the most, who trusted you the most? That's insane. What I've initiated is a whole new world, a new species! Man and Symbiote combined.

—Doctor Carlton Drake[source]

History

Born to British parents, Doctor Carlton Drake was a genius entrepreneur and visionary who - by the age of 24 - had developed revolutionary gene therapies and was the CEO of the Life Foundation, a corporation dedicated to the advancement of humanity. However, Drake's ambitions led him to sanction and conduct unethical experiments to achieve the Life Foundation's advances. Concerned that climate change would render the Earth uninhabitable and believing space to be the solution for humanity's problems, Drake financed the construction of several deep-space probes in order to find a way for humans to survive on planets aside from Earth. When one of the probes came across a comet teeming with amorphous extraterrestrial creatures, Drake recovered four of them and brought them to Earth.

Carlton Drake without the Riot Symbiote

After one of the creatures escaped containment and caused the shuttle to collapse, Drake recovered the remaining three - terming them symbiotes due to their need to bond to a host - and began experimenting on them. In the wake of the shuttle crash, Drake conducted an interview with investigative reporter Eddie Brock, but when Eddie confronted him with allegations regarding the Life Foundation's illicit experiments, Drake shut the interview down and saw to it that Brock's career and that of his fiancée Anne Weying - a lawyer whose firm worked for the Life Foundation - were terminated. When Dr. Dora Skirth succeeded in bonding one of the symbiotes to a rabbit, Drake immediately ordered for human testing to begin - abducting homeless people who wouldn't be missed.

When the lab was broken into and one of the symbiotes escaped, Drake sent Roland Treece - the Life Foundation's head of security - to hunt it down. Discovering Dr. Skirth had been involved, Drake persuaded her to tell him who she had let into the lab so that he could save them; but after she told him it was Eddie Brock he infected her with one of the symbiotes, though she proved an incompatible host and died. After the inattentiveness of his scientists led to the two remaining symbiotes perishing, Drake became increasingly desperate to bring Eddie in alive. While wandering the halls of the Life Foundation's lab, Drake was confronted by a young girl who was the host of the escaped symbiote, Riot. Riot bonded to Drake, who agreed to help it bring more of its kind to Earth - corresponding with his own desire to harvest more symbiotes from the comet. When Eddie was captured, Drake and Riot were outraged to learn that he'd separated from the Venom symbiote and refused to divulge its location. Drake told Treece to dispose of Eddie while he prepared the second Life Foundation probe for launch.

Death

When his launch crew refused to obey his orders, Riot transformed Drake and killed them. Venom - who had rescued Eddie - confronted Riot and refused to obey his orders, leading to the two symbiotes and their hosts fighting to the death. Separated from Riot by Anne, Drake and Eddie brawled on the launch platform before Eddie managed to catch Drake monologuing and knocked him off. The Riot symbiote rebonded to Drake, and Riot impaled Eddie through the chest, leaving him for dead. Riot boarded the rocket, but the Venom symbiote saved Eddie and Venom used the arm-blade to puncture the rocket's fuel tank, causing the rocket's liquid fuel to spill out. The liquid fuel in turn contacted the burning (and superheated) engines of the rocket, thus exploding, the blast from the explosion and the burning leaked fuel also rupturing the tanks, the engines, and mostly the structural elements of the rocket, and killing Riot and Drake in the process.

Personality

While he is undeniably a genius and a man with bright potential, Carlton Drake is defined by his social Darwinism and hatred of mankind. He strongly believes that mankind is chaotic and too weak to exist, and therefore he wants to bring the symbiotes onto Earth because he deems them as much better than humans. Due to his extreme misanthropy, Carlton never hesitates to murder friends or workers of his own, such as when he fires his security guard, experiments on Skirth by making her unwillingly bond with a symbiote, and uses Riot to murder a scientist who was planning on exposing Drake's true goals and then killing every other worker there as well for no reason but his misanthropy (or possibly to eliminate witnesses).

Drake is also clearly psychopathic, as he often presents himself as a warm and likable person for publicity, such as when he happily talks with a bunch of kids, but behind the facade is a cold and calculating man who cares for nobody. This is especially proven by the fact that basically everyone who Drake interacts with in the film, even if he is nice to them, will sooner or later be affected by his ultimate goal of causing a near genocide of humans.

Attributes

Powers

Riot Symbiote: While bonded with the Riot symbiote, Drake acquires the following powers.

• Superhuman Strength
• Superhuman Speed
• Superhuman Durability
• Superhuman Stamina
• Superhuman Agility
• Superhuman Reflexes
• Regenerative Healing Factor
• Wallcrawling
• Size Alteration
• Constituent-Matter Manipulation: Riot is capable of extending its biomass into tentacles, firing projectiles formed from its biomass, and transforming its host's limbs into a variety of weapons - including swords, axes, and flails.
• Genetic Memory
• Hive Mind: The symbiote has access to the symbiotes hive mind, enabling it to communicate with the symbiotes on their homeworld and access information about the species' past and hence Drake can too.
• Symbiote Assimilation: The Riot symbiote is capable of assimilating others into its own constituent mass in order to vastly increase its size and strength.
• Constituent-Matter Generation

Weaknesses

• Intense Sound: The symbiote is extremely sensitive to sonic frequencies in the 4 to 6 kilohertz range.
• Intense Heat: The symbiote is also vulnerable to intense levels of fire and heat.

Notes

• Riz Ahmed portrays Carlton Drake in Venom.

Trivia

• Paolo Giandoso, a senior concept artist working for the DNEG special effects studio, released concept art indicating that Carnage was originally planned to be the film's antagonist before being replaced by Riot early in development.

See Also

• 2 appearance(s) of Carlton Drake (Earth-688B)
• 12 image(s) of Carlton Drake (Earth-688B)
• 2 quotation(s) by or about Carlton Drake (Earth-688B)
• 2 victim(s) killed by Carlton Drake (Earth-688B)