Carlton Drake

* Civilian
* Riot

"*Look at the world. What do you see? War, poverty, a planet on the brink of collapse. I would argue that God has abandoned us.*"
—Carlton Drake[src]
Dr. **Carlton Drake** is the secondary antagonist of 2018 film *Venom.* He is the leader of the Life Foundation, who comes into contact with extraterrestrial lifeforms, called Symbiotes. Once Drake begins experimenting symbiotes on numerous people, he finds himself under legal lawsuits that calls attention from reporter Eddie Brock. In an ensuing confrontation, Drake is accused of murder by Eddie, after which he orders Eddie to be promptly removed from the building. Drake continues to experiment in order to seek a higher lifeform, believing man and symbiote is the next step of evolution. He soon finds out that one of his symbiotes were stolen by Eddie, so he orders men to hunt him down. Drake would ultimately be bonded with a symbiote named Riot, and have no more use for Eddie. His last act is an attempt to launch a rocket that would bring more symbiotes back to Earth, but he is stopped and killed by Venom.

## Biography

Carlton Drake is born to British parents and at nineteen years old, he discovers gene therapy that triples the amount of a person's life expectancy. At the age of twenty four, Drake becomes the CEO of the Life Foundation.

While leading a new space program, Drake takes four samples of extraterrestrial lifeforms from a comet. The probe crash lands in Malaysia, and one of the aliens escapes. Drake sees these human-possessing aliens this as opportunity for humans to evolve. At a field trip for the Life Foundation, he is scheduled for an interview with reporter Eddie Brock. The two talks about his achievements, including the creation of the Life Foundation. Eddie then confronts him squarely about allegations on his human experiments. Carlton acts confused and has his security throw Eddie Brock out.

Six months later, Carlton Drake decides to first bind a symbiote with a rabbit, with assistance from Dr. Dora Skirth. He then attempts to bind the blue symbiote to a mentally unstable human volunteer named Isaac. Drake tells Issac about how God had abandoned them and that he will not do the same. Isaac is spurred on by this, but gets killed when the symbiote rejects him, much to Drake’s anger. He goes on to further experiment with other people who are all rejected and killed by their symbiote.

When Eddie finds out that his homeless friend Maria is one of the human subjects, he sneaks into the Life Foundation to save her. He gets attacked by Maria, whose symbiote Venom then leaves her for dead and binds itself to Eddie. Carlton Drake deploys Roland Treece and other mercenaries to hunt Eddie down, believing him to be stealing “his symbiote”. He then discovers that Brock had achieved symbiosis and urges Treece even more get it back for him. Treece names Dora Skirth as the traitor, who Drake then kills by releasing the blue symbiote on her. The blue symbiote dies with her, leaving one last symbiote in Drake’s possession.

Drake loses the possession of Venom, realizing it after it enters Eddie Brock's body. Due to this, Drake sends a number of thugs after Brock to eliminate him and take back the symbiote. Despite his dismay of his symbiote being stolen, Carlton notices a successful trial was set by another symbiote with one of their test subjects named Jacob. After a numerous days, Carlton questioned his scientist about the only successful trial they had and discovered that host was affected by the ultrasound and further testing would result in killing him. Despite his best efforts, Carlton failed on keeping the remaining host to alive which also kills the last symbiote in his possession.

Alone at the facility, Drake notices a little girl walk into the Life Foundation, and asks if she was lost. She was possessed by Riot, the fourth symbiote which had escaped the probe in Malaysia. Riot then possesses Drake. Eddie gets captured by the mercenaries, but he just had Venom removed. Carlton Drake asks where Venom is, and when Eddie refuses to tell him, Drake transforms into Riot to intimidate him. With no answer, Riot transforms back into Drake, then orders Treece to finish him off. Riot converses with Drake about how he would lead the other symbiotes to take over the world, with Drake’s leadership.

Drake plans to bring more symbiotes to Earth with a shuttle. During the space shuttle launch, Riot attacks his Life Foundation members, who all refused to cooperate with him. He engages the shuttle’s ignition, then transforms into Riot and attempts to enter the shuttle, only to be blocked by Venom. Venom shows his betrayal by saying he would not let Earth get destroyed, and the two fights. Riot, larger symbiote, Has an upper hand and seems to defeat Venom by absorbing him.

As Riot almost reaches the entrance to the space shuttle, Anne Weying unleashes a loud screeching noise from the shuttle speakers to cause pain to Riot. Venom and Riot separate from each other, and also from their hosts. Drake and Eddie engage in a fistfight, where Drake mocks at Eddie for his ignorance of the next stage of human evolution. Drake gets kicked off the edge of the platform, and seems to have fallen to his death. But Drake is bonded again with Riot and fatally stabs Eddie, then leaves for the shuttle. Venom saves Eddie by fusing with him again, and he uses the blade that stabbed Eddie to cut the shuttle‘s rockets as it launches. The rocket explodes mid-air, killing Drake and Riot.

## Personality

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## Powers and abilities

### Powers

"*He has got shit that you have never seen.*"
—Venom to Eddie Brock[src]
* **Superhuman strength:** With Riot, Carlton can effortlessly throw grown humans across a room.
* **Superhuman durability:** With Riot, Carlton can withstand numerous impact forces that can cause any sort of discomfort, such as withstanding numerous attacks from Venom.
* **Superhuman speed:** With Riot, Carlton can move faster than the average human who engages moderate exercise. As Riot, Carlton was able to move faster than a group of scientist that attempt run away from him and attack Venom at high speeds.
* **Superhuman agility:** With Riot, Carlton has superhuman levels of agility far greater than regular humans. As Riot, Carlton was able to leap off from a window from far distances.

* **Tentacle extension:** With Riot, Carlton can extend the symbiote substance at will, allowing him to transform the substance into different shapes and slaughter down numerous people. Using the symbiote's capabilities, Carlton can form into different weapons that can kill a human being and stun another symbiote host, such as bladed hands that can spread out its surroundings and a spiked ball to throw around.

## Relationships

### Allies

* Life Foundation
	+ Roland Treece † - former employee
	+ Rosie Collins - former employee
* Riot † - symbiote

### Enemies

* Anne Weying - former employee
* Dora Skirth † - former employee turned enemy and victim
* Eddie Brock - enemy
	+ Venom - killer
* Lloyd Emerson † - former employee turned enemy and victim

## Trivia

* In Marvel Comics, Carlton Drake was the former leader of the Life Foundation who extracted five Symbiotes from Venom in order to kill Spider-Man.

## References

Pinkner, Jeff, Rosenberg, Scott, Marcel, Kelly (writers) & Fleischer, Ruben (director) (October 5, 2018). *Venom*.
Ryan, Sean (w), Kudranski, Szymon (a), Herring, Ian (col), Sabino, Joe (let), Sanchez, Darren (ed). *Venom* (September 14, 2018), New York, NY: Marvel Comics.