Eddie Brock: Carnage #8: A Killer Pair!

Artist Juanan Ramirez provides the interiors for September’s Eddie Brock: Carnage #8, bringing a stylishly erratic sketchiness to the comic, fitting for a story about a unkempt man on the run. Ramirez and writer Charles Soule give Eddie a bit of his bad boy edge back; he may be falling apart at the seams on his directionless cross-country journey, but there’s no reason he can’t unravel with attitude.

Buying an all-American muscle car off of a small-town dealer with cash and only a minor death threat, Eddie continues his trek to the West Coast as he chases the mysterious “Green Phoenix” who appeared to him in a dream. Carnage is none too happy about this, as it seems like a desperate distraction from their murder mission. The symbiote grows so fed up with its ever-dismissive host that it imagines spearing him through the brain and careening the car off a cliff. Carnage then leaps away to freedom only to disintegrate within a few steps.

As the two’s inability to survive without each other has been stated time and time again, it is refreshing to see a visual exploration of the story’s stakes rather than another exposition dump. Soule doesn’t make it immediately clear that it is a fantasy, letting the reader bask in the shock of its suddenness before pulling the curtain back. It’s a fun way to keep everyone on their toes and play into the psychological thriller vibe this comic has had sprinkles of since issue one.

Brock isn’t the only one with a sick new ride, as the serial killer Muse is hot on his trail in a personalized police cruiser. Ramirez draws him with eerily cavernous eyes and an offputtingly muscular build which, as a man who clearly spends more time painting than lifting, makes him an even more mysterious villain. He comes a few clues closer to Eddie and Carnage’s location and, considering that Eddie ends the issue gunned down by the very woman from his dream, perhaps he will finally catch up to his target. The creative team has been teasing this confrontation for quite a while now so, when these sociopaths finally meet, one can only expect the unexpected.