Eddie Brock: Carnage #3: Bushwacked

If “trouble in paradise” implies the disruption of a peaceful state, then “trouble in purgatory” would more accurately describe what goes down in Eddie Brock: Carnage #3. If writer Charles Soule has not made it obvious already, it now becomes certain that what Eddie and Carnage have is not a bond, not a partnership, but instead a deadly game of Chess. The symbiote continues to egg on his host’s violent tendencies, and if it cannot convince Brock to become a full-fledged killer, it will simply break his sanity until the man becomes a monster. In turn, Brock is keeping Carnage on a short leash, indulging in murder just enough to keep it satiated while threatening to off himself should it attempt anything crazy. But Eddie underestimated his dark passenger’s influence, and now one loss of consciousness has allowed Carnage to gain the upper hand.

The passengers from issue #1’s downed flight are revealed to be alive, held in stasis in some undisclosed location, and Carnage promises to pick them off one-by-one should Eddie attempt to break from their agreement. On top of that, Carnage is persistent in its attempts to pick the lock guarding Brock’s darkest secrets. Eddie finds himself trapped between a rock and a hard place: he must continue killing serial killers to keep himself alive while knowing that, if he loses, his opponent will become the new, deadlier host of this parasite. It’s a crushing sense of hopelessness that Soule masterfully passes on to the reader, as all will surely be left scratching their heads, wondering how he can possibly find a way out of this one.

At its forefront, this issue is a concise follow up to #2, but the art, like the writing, is committed to the tone of a horror thriller. Bushwacker, whose abilities have always been more visually exciting than most minor villains, is in the capable hands of penciller Jesus Saiz, who interprets him as more creature than man. Carl Burbank’s very essence is nightmarish and every movement: from the way he unhinges his jaw to swallow live ammunition, to how his face pulls taught as he grows in size, feels as if a ghastly machine is wearing a suit of human skin. He’s a nightmarish figure worthy to rival the protagonists, but Carnage proves the greater evil and dispatches him with gruesome ease. And while Bushwacker’s victims have been avenged, nothing about this outcome feels like a victory; yet the comic’s purveying unease remains ever captivating.