Published Jun 27, 2026, 12:01 PM EDT
Jared is a writer, editor, and Communications Studies graduate who loves popular nerd culture (almost anything to do with Marvel, DC, Star Wars, or The Lord of the Rings) and the interactive storytelling medium. Jared's first console was the PS1, wherein he fell for Spider-Man, Spyro the Dragon, and Crash Bandicoot.
Warning! This article contains major SPOILERS for The Amazing Spider-Man: Spider-Versity #3.Carnage endured a bad beating in the Amazing Spider-Man/Venom: Death Spiral crossover event that saw the symbiote passed around between Eddie Brock, Torment, and Peter Parker. Licking its wounds, the blood-red, murderous symbiote resorted to making a cockroach its host—an appropriate match, due to how resilient and unkillable Carnage tends to be—and has washed ashore in the Amazing Spider-Man: Spider-Versity miniseries.
The Amazing: Spider-Man: Spider-Versity comprises Spider-Man’s thriving Spider-Hero family—Miles Morales’ Spider-Man, Gwen Stacy’s Ghost-Spider, Jessica Drew’s Spider-Woman, Aña Corazón’s Araña, Bailey Briggs’ Spider-Boy, and Makawalu Akana’s Spider-Girl. And, while it’s been teased that their educator and leader, Norman Osborn, will become Red Goblin again in this limited series, the symbiote has first chosen a far more cherubic candidate.
From One Spider To Another, Spider-Girl Is The New Carnage
At the end of The Amazing Spider-Man: Spider-Versity #3, Maka Akana’s Spider-Girl mistakes Carnage for some sort of insect or creature that she’s unfamiliar with, and adorably assumes it isn’t dangerous due to the symbiote not triggering her spider sense. Carnage happily takes advantage of Maka’s innocence to replace the bug with her as its host, and the last panel of the issue reveals half of what Spider-Girl’s Carnage appearance will look like, pigtails and all.
Norman has described Maka as “the most powerful person” among them at Spider-Versity, explaining that she was trained by Bullseye and can “absorb anyone’s abilities” via eye contact. Therefore, imbued by the symbiote, it might require the entire Spider-Versity family to defeat her.
Fortunately, this issue also shows that the children have been trained to wield anti-symbiote weaponry, meaning they have a decent chance to separate Spider-Girl from Carnage before she’s able to unleash too much chaos if the Spider-Heroes all band together.
There’s a ton of neat horror potential that Spider-Girl/Carnage could have, such as having her creepily crawl along walls and sneakily attack each Spider-Hero one by one. Of course, The Amazing Spider-Man: Spider-Versity’s tone has been light, and there isn’t much hope for Spider-Girl/Carnage to instill so much terror or literally kill anyone (no matter how much Carnage would love to murder someone as a child) unless the book suddenly makes a sharp genre recourse in its upcoming penultimate issue.
Carnage Is Getting Schooled In Spider-Versity
The fourth issue’s cover features the red symbiote taking over Norman, with the fifth issue’s cover featuring a climactic Spider-Versity vs. Red Goblin bout. That said, these covers could turn out to be deceptive, since the cover of The Amazing Spider-Man: Spider-Versity #3 was wholly misleading.
Not only does the Spider-Versity squad not battle Carnage in this issue, but Carnage also doesn’t appear the way that the supervillain is depicted on the cover. Still, if the covers and solicitations for issues #4 and #5 are to be believed, it seems as if Spider-Girl won’t be the red symbiote’s host for long.
Whether or not Norman becomes Red Goblin in The Amazing Spider-Man: Spider-Versity, there is a low likelihood that this miniseries’ events will have a terribly long-lasting effect on the Marvel universe, and it wouldn’t even necessarily mean that Norman is regressing into a new era of villainy. Spider-Girl becoming Carnage could be fun, too, yet it’s tough to get too excited about when Carnage has been incredibly promiscuous lately in terms of how many hosts it has had in such a short span, and the symbiote is apparently destined to go to Norman by the end of The Amazing Spider-Man: Spider-Versity #4, anyway.
The Amazing Spider-Man: Spider-Versity #3 is out now.
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