The first trailer for Venom: Let There Be Carnage promises a lot of exciting things for the next installment of the Venom films. In addition to the titular Carnage, there are hints at other characters spread throughout the trailer, notably one Carnage associate by the name of Shriek.
Shriek is a member of Carnage's team in the books, known as Maximum Carnage. She has a powerful supersonic scream – and sonics are a primary weakness of symbiotes. However, there is even more to Shriek that only a Marvel fan would know. Here are a few such facts about this dangerous Carnage associate.
10 Her Mom Was Abusive
Shriek's real name is Frances Barrison, and a major cause for her later madness lies in her childhood. Her mother was an abusive woman, who bullied her daughter for being overweight. This ultimately pushed Frances to cut off all ties to her mother and foster a drug addiction.
Later, Frances became a drug dealer herself. This led to further trauma, as she was shot in the head by a police officer. She was also later consumed by the Cloak of Tyrone Johnson, aka Cloak of Cloak and Dagger. Tyrone has a deep connection to the unholy Darkforce Dimension, and this exposure to the Darkforce worsened Shriek's mental health.
9 Her First Appearance
Shriek's first appearance was in the quarterly Spider-Man anthology series, Spider-Man Unlimited. It was the first issue of the Maximum Carnage storyline, which mainly featured Carnage himself. Spider-Man Unlimited continued to focus on larger stories like Maximum Carnage and, later, The Clone Saga. It lasted until 1998, when it ended at #22.
Shriek's first appearance shows her already locked away in the Ravencroft Institute, a home for dangerous patients with mental illnesses. Carnage was in the process of breaking free when he heard Shriek cheering him on. This prompted Carnage to free her as well, and the two go on to spread mayhem across New York. Eventually, the Avengers got involved to stop them.
8 Shriek Is A Mutant
Few fans know about Shriek's status as a mutant. This puts her in the same subspecies of humans as Wolverine, Cyclops, Magneto, and the rest of the X-Men.
So far, this has never really come up, since Shriek has never joined up with the X-Men or the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. She's not yet been shown on Krakoa in the current X-Men line of comics.
7 The Dark Empathy
Shriek's ability to emit sonic blasts from her throat is her primary power as well as her namesake. However, that's not Frances' only superpower.
Frances is also telekinetic, allowing her to manipulate objects with her mind. However, Shriek's most interesting hidden ability is her "Dark Empath." This allows her to manipulate people's minds, bringing out the worst side of others. She prompted people to become killers and thieves all across New York during the Maximum Carnage story.
6 She's The Object Of Carnage's Affection
Despite being a remorseless psychotic killer, Cletus Kasady has always had some measure of affection for Shriek – or at least as much affection as Carnage can muster. Fans got to see this during a showdown between Deadpool and Carnage.
Deadpool injured Shriek in a car accident, which kicked off the prolonged battle. Later, Deadpool got a symbiote of his own and used it to disguise Shriek as himself, leading Carnage to attack and wound Shriek. This caused Carnage to have a mental breakdown, allowing Deadpool to win the day.
5 She Wants To Be A Mother
One of the lasting effects of Frances' mother's abuse is Shriek's fixation on becoming a mother herself. Most likely, this desire derives from an urge to do better for a child than her own mother did for her.
This has led Shriek down some odd paths in the comics at times, some of which probably haven't aged too well. There's not room to list them all, but one such story is detailed in the following entry.
4 The Weird Carrion Episode
Carrion is another member of the Maximum Carnage crew, whose name is Malcolm McBride. He has the Carrion Virus within him, giving him a degenerative touch that allows him to rot people through contact. His body also pushes away anything living, and he change his own density at will.
During a breakout, Shriek and Carrion tried to become a family, while perceived Carrion as her own child for some reason. This bizarre episode led to Carrion trying to use his own powers to kill himself, but Shriek used her powers to absorb the Carrion Virus out of Malcolm. She then believed that the Carrion Virus was her child-to-be inside her. Later plot lines never followed up on this, and later Shriek stories seemed to forget this detail.
3 Scorn
Shriek briefly had a symbiote of her own. While once again teaming up with Carnage and Doppelganger, viewers discovered that Carnage had spawned another symbiote child. This one was called Scorn.
Shriek and Scorn briefly bonded, giving her increased powers. However, Scorn didn't like being bonded to Shriek, and ultimately rejected her, leaving Shriek in a coma with brain damage. However, this became another dropped plot thread in Shriek's story.
2 Doom Maidens
Shriek was briefly on an all-woman supervillain team called the Doom Maidens. This team was formed by the villain Caroline Le Fey, to fight Misty Knight and Valkyrie's Fearless Defenders team.
The Doom Maidens consisted of Caroline Le Fey, Shriek, Anaconda, Scorpia, Mindblast, and Titania. The team didn't last very long in this form, and Caroline later changed the lineup. As an aside, this was also one of Titania's final appearances before she reformed and later joined Gamma Flight alongside her longtime boyfriend, the Absorbing Man.
1 She Became A Goblin
Shriek's final appearance took place during the Absolute Carnage story. Carnage broke her free from Ravencroft, and she is now bonded to a Grendel symbiote. These symbiotes are the vanguards to Knull, God of the Symbiotes. Carnage tried to reunite the Maximum Carnage team, but the interdimensional demon known as Demogoblin wasn't present.
In order to give Demogoblin a vessel in this dimension, Shriek offered herself as a sacrifice. Carnage killed Shriek, giving Demogoblin a new vessel. In doing so, the body of Shriek became the Demagoblin, the new name reflecting the different gender.