Carlton Drake

*"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. He didn't keep his end of the bargain, Isaac, so now it's down to you and me to put this right. And this time, Isaac, we can. We will. This time, I will not abandon us."*
―Carlton Drake to Isaac[src]
**Carlton Drake** was the founder and CEO of the Life Foundation, who came into contact with a race of extraterrestrial lifeforms, dubbing them Symbiotes.

Once Drake had begun experimenting symbiotes on numerous people, he went under legal lawsuits that took attention from Eddie Brock. Getting interviewed, Drake was accused of murder from Eddie claims, resulting into him being kicked out of the building. Drake would continue to experiment in order to seek a higher lifeform, believing man and symbiote was the next step of evolution, only to notice one of his symbiotes were stolen by Eddie, leading to him searching. Once his men found Eddie, Drake would ultimately bond with a symbiote, Riot. Having no use for Eddie, Drake continued to launch a rocket to space that led to more symbiotes, only to be stopped by Venom and being killed alongside Riot once Venom destroyed the rocket.

## Biography

### Early Life

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Born to British parents, Carlton Drake was a genius entrepreneur and visionary. When he was 19, he discovered a gene therapy that triples the life expectancy of pancreatic cancer patients. At the age of 24, he became the CEO of the Life Foundation, a corporation dedicated to the advancement of humanity. Drake's ambitions led him to sanction and conduct unethical experiments to achieve the Life Foundation's advances.

### LF1 Crash

Concerned that climate change would render the Earth uninhabitable and believing space to be the solution for humanity's problems, Drake financed the construction of several deep-space probes in order to find a way for humans to survive on planets aside from Earth. When one of the probes came across a comet teeming with amorphous extraterrestrial creatures, Drake recovered four of them and brought them to Earth.

After one of the creatures escaped containment and caused the shuttle to collapse, Drake recovered the remaining three, terming them "symbiotes" due to their need to bond to a host, and he began experimenting with them.

### Experimenting on the Homeless

#### Interviewed by Eddie Brock

*"You're finished, Mr. Brock."
"Is that a threat?"*
―Carlton Drake and Eddie Brock[src]
In the wake of the shuttle crash, Drake conducted an interview with investigative reporter Eddie Brock, but when Brock confronted him with allegations regarding the Life Foundation's elicit experiments, Drake shut the interview down and saw to it that Brock's career and that of his fiancée, Anne Weying, who was a lawyer whose firm worked for the Life Foundation, was closed down. When Doctor Dora Skirth succeeded in bonding one of the symbiotes to a rabbit, Drake immediately ordered human testing to begin by taking homeless people who would not be missed.

When the lab was broken into and one of the symbiotes escaped, Drake sent Roland Treece, who was the Life Foundation's head of security, to hunt it down. Discovering Skirth had been involved, Drake persuaded her to tell him who she had let into the lab so that he could save them; but after she told him it was Brock, he infected her with one of the symbiotes, though she proved an incompatible host and died.

### Becoming Riot

After the inattentiveness of his scientists led to the two remaining symbiotes perishing, Drake became increasingly desperate to bring Eddie Brock in alive. After hours, Drake was confronted by a young girl, who was the host of the escaped Symbiote. It bonded to Drake, who agreed to help it bring more of its kind to Earth corresponding with his own desire to harvest more symbiotes from the comet. When Brock was captured, Drake and his symbiote were outraged to learn that he had separated from the Venom symbiote and refused to divulge its location. Drake told Roland Treece to dispose of Brock while he prepared the second Life Foundation probe for launch. When his launch crew refused to obey his orders, Drake transformed into a big monster and killed them.

#### Battle at the Life Foundation Headquarters

*"You are too late. This is the next stage..."*
―Carlton Drake to Eddie Brock[src]

Venom, who saved Eddie Brock, confronted Riot and refused to obey his orders, leading to the two symbiotes and their hosts to fight to the death. Separated from Riot by Anne Weying, Drake and Brock brawled on the launch platform before Brock managed to catch Drake monologuing and knocked him off. The Riot symbiote rebonded to Drake, and Riot impaled Brock through the chest, leaving him for dead. Riot boarded the shuttle, but Venom saved Brock and used the arm-blade to puncture the rocket's fuel-tanks, causing the rocket's liquid fuel to contact the burning and superheated engines, causing the liquid fuel to ignite, and the rocket's fuel tanks to explode and rupture from the ignited fuel, and the rocket to also rupture, the ensuing explosion killing Riot and Drake in the process.

## Personality

*"I'm not insane. What's insane is the way humans choose to live today. Think about it - all we do is take, take, take. It can't go on. We've brought the planet to the brink of extinction. We're parasites. You're a good example, think about it. All you do is take. You took my Symbiote. You take potshots at a great man trying to get something done."
"Who?"
"Didn't you take from the person you loved the most, who trusted you the most?* That's *insane. What I've initiated is a whole new world, a new species. Man and Symbiote combined."*
―Carlton Drake and Eddie Brock[src]
Carlton Drake is an egotistical, devious narcissist by nature. He sees himself as a visionary and does not hesitate to sacrifice innocent people to achieve his goals. He threatens his employees who oppose his cruel methods and does not care about his employees, as seen when he sacrifices Dr. Dora Skirth. He also likes to taunt and threaten people by reminding them of their past personal experiences and lives.

Drake is also shown to be hypocritical, telling Allie to ignore the people who tried to silence them while she asked a question but then tried to silence Eddie Brock when he asked about the Life Foundation's illegal activities.

Despite his malevolent nature, he is shown to have a soft spot towards children. He gives his own badge to Allie who had come to visit his foundation and tries to help the Riot-possessed Suzy.

## Powers and Abilities

### Powers

* **Symbiotic Enhancement/Symbiotic Grey Suit**: Drake had several superhuman attributes as the result of his merger with his symbiote, Riot, which covered his body in grey biomass. This increased his abilities, such as strength, durability, speed, agility and healing at superhuman levels along with the access to other powers it provided. Even in his normal state he can deploy the symbiote as a weapon.
	+ **Superhuman Strength**: Just like Eddie, Drake has developed superhuman strength with the help of the Symbiote. Additionally, Riot demonstrated the ability to separate other Symbiotes from their hosts through physical contact, as it was able to rip Venom off Eddie's body for a short time.
	+ **Superhuman Speed**: Drake seems to have moved faster with the help from the Symbiote just like Venom.
	+ **Superhuman Durability**: Drake was able to stand in a fight against Venom.
	+ **Shapeshifting**: With Riot, Drake can generate portions of the symbiote out of his body to form various constructs.
		- **Symbiotic Costume**: Riot has the basic ability to fully emerge from Drake while remaining attached to him, enveloping its host's body to form its own as a sentient, malleable but durable suit complete with eyes, claws and a mouth with powerful jaws and sharp teeth while increases the body mass, turning him into powerful opponent.
		- **Construct Creation**: With Riot, Drake can manifest an arsenal of weapons from his body, including blades, flails, spikes and claws. Some of these constructs can even detach and shoot out of its body, such a sword impaled through Eddie Brock's torso, and the spikes it made sprout out of a catwalk while in physical contact with it. By slamming his hand on any solid surface (ex. ground and catwalk), he can create a trail of spikes that will ram a desired target. In fact, Venom is skeptical about the chance of it and Eddie to win the fight against Riot.

### Abilities

This section is a stub or requires expansion. You can help by adding some information.

* **Expert Businessman**: *To be added*
* **Skilled Combatant:** Drake was somewhat skilled in unarmed combat, at least skilled enough to contend with and briefly get the better of Eddie Brock in a scuffle, only to be bested by Brock.

## Relationships

### Allies

* Life Foundation
	+ Roland Treece †
* Riot † - Symbiote

### Enemies

* Life Foundation
	+ Dora Skirth † - Former Co-Worker turned Victim
	+ Rosie Collins - Former Employer
	+ Lloyd Emerson † - Victim
	+ John Jameson †
* Eddie Brock/Venom - Killer and Attempted Victim

## Trivia

* In the comics, Carlton Drake is the leader of Life Foundation group, who used the Venom symbiote to create five new symbiote offsprings, and the Riot symbiote was one of them. Drake bonded Riot to some of his employees as an experiment. Drake then later injected himself with a spider serum, which transformed himself into **Man-Spider**.

## Behind the Scenes

* Before Riz Ahmed was cast as Carlton Drake, Matt Smith, Pedro Pascal and Matthias Schoenaerts were in early talks for the role. Smith would later go on to play Milo in *Morbius*.
* Cory DeMeyers were stunt double for Riz Ahmed in the role of Carlton Drake.

## References

The Sony's Spider-Man Universe Wiki has a collection of images and media related to **Carlton Drake**.

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 *Venom*