Shriek (comics)

Shriek
Interior artwork from Spider-Man: The Jackal Files vol. 1, 1 (August 1994 Marvel Comics). Art by Michael Blair.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Spider-Man Unlimited Vol. 1 #1 (May 1993)
Created by	Ron Lim Mark Bagley Mike W. Barr Tom DeFalco Jerry Bingham Terry Kavanagh
In-story information
Alter ego	Frances Louise Barrison
Species	Human
Place of origin	Earth
Team affiliations	Doom Maidens Carnage Family Sinister Sixteen
Partnerships	Carrion Carnage Demogoblin Doppelganger Caroline le Fay
Supporting character of	Spider-Man
Notable aliases	Sandra Deel
Abilities	Flight Sound manipulation Ability to tap into people's minds and bring out their inner darkness (fear, anger, hate) making them act violent, shield herself with a sonic field, and shoot sonic energy blasts from her hands

Shriek is a fictional character, a supervillainess appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. She is usually depicted as an enemy of Spider-Man.

Shriek first appeared in Spider-Man Unlimited Volume 1, #1 (May 1993) and was created by Tom DeFalco, Mike W. Barr, Terry Kavanagh, Ron Lim, Jerry Bingham, and Mark Bagley.

Shriek is a dangerous and criminally insane villainess with the ability to manipulate sound. During the events of Maximum Carnage, she allied herself with Carnage and several other supervillains who went about New York on a killing spree.

Shriek's origins and real name were, at first, uncertain. She was named Sandra Deel in her earliest appearances, but named Frances Louise Barrison in later appearances. According to the Spider-Man Encyclopedia, she was born Frances Louise Barrison, but used Sandra Deel as an alias.

During her childhood, Frances was abused by her mother for being overweight, driving her to drugs and leading to her later fixation on becoming a mother herself. She became a drug dealer, which exposed her to situations that ultimately damaged her sanity; namely, being shot in the head by a police officer, and being put in Cloak's dark dimension, which gave Shriek her abilities.

Shriek debuted at the start of the Maximum Carnage crossover. During Carnage's violent escape from the Ravencroft mental institution, he came across Shriek, who was also incarcerated and wished to join him. He freed her, and the pair embarked on a killing spree. They attracted the company of several other homicidal supervillains (Demogoblin, Doppelganger, and Carrion), and formed a "family," with Carnage and Shriek as the "parents" and the others as their "sons". (Although it is clearly obvious that Shriek had love for Carnage, it is uncertain whether he felt the same for her; it is implied many times that he did.) Shriek also used her mental powers to increase the chaos by causing a number of New Yorkers to violently turn on one another, although the heroes were able to calm the people down before they did anything too serious, such as killing their own children. The killers fought a number of heroes, led by Spider-Man, but succumbed to in-fighting. Carnage slew the Doppelganger and left the others to their defeat and capture, although he was subsequently contained by the Avengers after a clash with Spider-Man, Venom and Black Cat.