Carl Mach was a mercenary who worked for the Life Foundation. There he was fused with the Phage symbiote. Phage attempted to kill Spider-Man and Venom but his symbiote was destroyed in the battle when Spider-Man used Life Foundation technology to age the symbiote to dust. However traces of the symbiote remained in Carl's bloodstream and regenerated. Phage teamed up with his symbiotic siblings to kidnap Venom to force him to teach them how to control their symbiotes. Unfortunately one of his fellow Life Foundation symbiote hosts, Scream, went insane and killed Carl with a sonic knife.