Carnage (Marvel)

"I was hollowed out inside... Empty... Just like my other. We were both sick... Because we were incomplete... But not anymore. We healed each other... Made each other whole. Neither one of us can survive without the other. Forget host. Forget symbiote. There is only Carnage."

- Carnage

Carnage (real name: Cletus Kasady) is a fictional character and a major antagonist from Marvel Comics, most commonly serving as one of Spider-Man's most evil and most dangerous enemies. Unlike other members of Spider-Man's rogues gallery, who were ordinary people before becoming super villains, Cletus Kasady was already a very dangerous serial killer before the symbiote made him the powerful psychopathic supervillain known as Carnage. Carnage is an archenemy to Venom including Eddie Brock and Flash Thompson, and wishes to destroy both of them so he can cause mass-murder without end. He is also one of the (if not the) darkest, most insane, and most disturbing villains Spider-Man ever faced.

History
Even when he was a toddler, Kasady, the man whom would become Carnage, has already become a homicidal and psychotic killer with a dark past: as a child, he killed his grandmother by pushing her down a flight of stairs, tried to murder his mother by throwing a hair dryer into her bathtub, and tortured and killed his mother's dog. Worse, Kasady even tried to kill his mother with a drill. When his father caught his mother trying to kill Kasady in a mix of self-defence and rage at his crimes, he beat her to the brink of death and received no defense from Kasady during his trial.

Due to his extreme bloodlust, Kasady was sent to the St. Estes Home for Boys, where his antisocial behavior made him the target of abuse from both the other orphans and the staff. The abuse that he received not only made Kasady gone further and further to the dark side, but also made him more violent than when he was toddler: Kasady eventually gained revenge by pushing a girl (who laughed at him for asking her to date him) in front of a moving bus, murdering the disciplinarian administrator (where police suspect she died due to falling during a fire), and burning down the orphanage. It was during his brutal years at St. Estes that Kasady acquired his philosophy that life was essentially meaningless and futile, that "laws are only words", and came to see the spreading of chaos through random, unpatterned bloodshed as "the ultimate freedom".

Eventually, Kasady was caught and convicted of eleven murders; he bragged about a dozen additional killings while in custody, which the police presumably could not find sufficient evidence for. Now imprisoned for 11 consecutive life sentences, Cletus Kasady met Eddie Brock when the latter, separated from the Venom symbiote by the toxic touch of the supervillain Styx, became his cellmate. Learning of Brock's grudge against Spider-Man, Kasady tried to convert him to his nihilistic philosophy, mocking Eddie over his claims to have once been the supervillain Venom. Repeatedly rebuked, Kasady decided to murder his cellmate, but before he could the Venom symbiote entered the cell and rebonded to Eddie. Venom broke free, leaving the terrified and jealous Kasady behind.

Sensing his desire for the power Eddie possessed, a scrap of the symbiote left behind, none other than Venom symbiote's offspring, dripped onto Cletus' hand and bonded with him, transforming him into the monstrous Carnage. A security guard whom notice his transformation was killed with his body somehow "pulled through the bars of his cell" before escape, and commit around a dozen of murders in far more extreme methods.

As Carnage, Kasady proved stronger than Spider-Man and Venom combined, and his symbiote was not only less susceptible to sonics than its progenitor but infinitely more difficult to remove, having bonded to his bloodstream. In his first appearance, Carnage forced Spider-Man and Venom to call a temporary truce to defeat him, and in his next major appearance Carnage rounded together numerous other super villains and nearly succeeded in taking over New York before being defeated.

Despite supposedly being irremovable, the Carnage symbiote left Cletus twice of its own volition, once to bond to Spider-Man's clone Ben Reilly, and the second time to bond to the Silver Surfer, but both times returned to its original host. Fed up with Carnage, Venom once devoured the symbiote, leaving Cletus powerless for a time, though the serial killer somehow managed to obtain an exact duplicate of it in the Negative Zone that has since merged with the remnants of the original.

When Cletus realized the Carnage symbiote was about to give birth, he passed the offspring on to a police officer named Patrick Mulligan, exhausted from trying to suppress the process and intending to kill them both later. This backfired when the offspring Toxin, teamed up with Spider-Man and Black Cat to defeat him and Venom. While imprisoned on the Raft, Carnage participated in a breakout but was apprehended by the Sentry, flown into orbit, and torn in half.

Presumed dead, Cletus was actually cocooned by the symbiote, but missed out on the Civil War, Skrull Invasion, and Dark Reign. His body was eventually recovered by Hall Industries, which extracted the symbiote from him and used it to engineer unique prosthetics. Equipped with a new pair of legs, Cletus was eventually reunited with the symbiote and stronger than ever, but was repelled by Spider-Man and Iron Man with help from the symbiote's new offspring, Scorn.

Traveling to Doverton Colorado, Kasady took over the town by creating copies of the symbiote, even parasitizing the Avengers, but was defeated by the Life Foundation symbiotes, Scorn, and Agent Venom. Imprisoned, he was freed by servants of Marquis Radu, a tyrant in the Microverse who intended to use the Carnage symbiote to create an unstoppable army. Pursued by Agent Venom and the Scarlet Spider, Carnage betrayed Radu's forces but was captured and his symbiote cloned and fused to copies of the Venom symbiote. Intrigued by this, Carnage attempted to assimilate the Venom symbiote to become even more powerful, but was stabbed through the head by the Scarlet Spider's stingers and lobotomized.

Comatose and under the control of the symbiote, Cletus was eventually broken free by Klaw and the increasingly psychotic Wizard, who wanted to turn him into his own version of Agent Venom. Unable to do so due to Cletus being brain-dead, the Wizard has Klaw subdue the symbiote and transfers it into his old friend Karl Malus, blowing up his base with Kasady still in it. The Wizard's control over Malus proved tenuous at best, and during a fight with the Superior Spider-Man he lost control, allowing the symbiote to take over and go on a rampage, destroying Klaw's corporeal form in the process.

The resulting shockwave blasted the symbiote off Malus and onto the Wizard, who the symbiote promptly took control of and resumed its rampage. Superior Spider-Man learns Kasady survived the explosion, albeit badly injured, and has his body recovered to exploit the symbiote's preference for him. The symbiote eluded Spider-Man's attempts to capture it and rebonded to Kasady, curing him of his coma, but the reunion was short lived before Klaw directed a bolt of lightning towards Carnage, separating Kasady and the symbiote once more. Spider-Man takes the symbiote into custody while Kasady is reincarcerated... and revealed to have made a full recovery from his lobotomy.

Cletus undergoes psychotherapy and is integrated into the mainstream prison population, while without a host, the symbiote begins to die and escapes containment, seeking to reunite with him. Upon learning of the symbiote's escape, Kasady's psychologist, Dr. Jenner, hires a thug to shank him and then smothers him to death, offering himself to the symbiote as its next host. The symbiote refuses and resuscitates Kasady, rebonding to him, and the reunited Carnage returns the favour by smothering Jenner.

Carnage decides that his ambitions of conquest and transcendence have caused him nothing but grief and decides to get back to basics with another randomized killing spree. This attracts the attention of psychotic antihero Deadpool, who tracks Cletus down, much to Carnage's confusion and outrage. Deadpool gains an upper hand over Carnage until Shriek arrives. Carnage and Shriek escape, but Deadpool tracks them down and badly injures Shriek.

Personality
Even when he was a toddler, he showed psychopathic and sadistic traits: he was completely unemotional and remorseless individual who took great pleasure in killing his own mother's pet and grandmother, and even tried to killed his mother that encites the tense argument that led to his mother's death and his father's incarceration. The said negative traits escalated to more catastrophic scale over time during his stay in St. Estes Home for Boys, as abuse that he received further made him eviler that he acquired philosophy that life was essentially meaningless and futile, that "laws are only words", and came to see the spreading of chaos through random, unpatterned bloodshed as "the ultimate freedom".

When becoming Carnage, his sadism and depravity proved to be one of his greatest assets: his symbiote, which spawned from Venom's by the time it freed Brock from the prison, would feed on his hatred and rage over the world as fuel to enhanced its powers. Not just sadistic and cruel, Kasady also become a completely treacherous, horrifying, and depraved supervillain that proved to be an extremely despicable and dangerous advesary for both his worst enemies, Spider-Man and Venom.

Cletus Kasady is a Schizophrenic enabling him to activate extra-terrestrial episodes of paranoia and delusion to transform into the demonic alien symbiote of Carnage. The symbiote has a considerably stronger bond with Kasady then its father has with its hosts. This is indicated by the fact that Kasady has predominantly used the term "I", as apposed to his father's use of "we". However, even though the bond between host and symbiote is strong, it has left Kasady several times to find more powerful hosts. It has bounded with John Jameson, Ben Reilly (at the time referred to as Spider-Carnage) and the Silver Surfer (forming The Carnage Cosmic) but it always ended up back on Kasady. Eventually it and Kasady met their end while escaping "The Raft", a prison for super powered people. He was ripped apart by Sentry in outer space. The symbiote survived by becoming dormant and returned to Earth, but was found by Michael Hall, who used the symbiote to create prosthesis and super-guards. The Doppelganger and Shriek return, hoping to repair the symbiote.

Powers and Abilities
"Venom: He's a lout. An uncouth loner. Even when I invited him to join my hourly exercise sessions, he preferred to lie on his bunk to heavy metal music, so loud that I could hear it from his headphones! Spider-Man: He never exercised? So how come he seems even stronger than you? Venom: Perhaps my other spawn took our strength with it! Added it to Kasady's own maniacal might!"

- Discussion between Spidey and Venom about how Carnage is stronger than them.

As Eddie Brock explained, the Carnage symbiote was born with abilities even more singular than those of its progenitor due to the fact that it gestated in an environment alien to it—Earth. As result, Carnage is capable to utilize his powers in more tricky and deadlier manner than Venom would, in spite of inheriting latter's powers. Kasady himself lacked superpowers of his own, but his insanity and murderous urge acts as fuel to bolster his and symbiote's strengths, making them challenging adversary even for Venom and Spider-Man himself.


 * ESP (Spider Sense): Like Venom and Spider-Man, Carnage possesses ESP ability due to his symbiote can relay information to him from any angle and grants Kasady the ability to "see" in any direction, warning him of incoming threats. This power even more efficient than Spider-Man's (and even possibly Venom's) because it takes less time to sense the danger and conduct him in plenty time.
 * Immunity to Spider-Sense: Due to gestated from the very symbiote that once possessed Spider-Man, Carnage was capable of attacking Spider-Man without alerting him. Surprisingly, after encountered both Spidey and Venom, Carnage also able to adjusted this power so he also simultaneously not alarmed Venom whenever he attempted to attacked him.
 * Wall-Crawling: Much like Spider-Man and his symbiote parent Venom, Carnage has the ability to cling to virtually any surface. He can rapidly crawl, walk, or run across even slick/wet surfaces.
 * Haemokinesis: Because his symbiote also mixed with his bloodstream when bonding to him, Carnage gained the power to manipulate his symbiote-infused blood as weapons or other kind of constructs. Should the symbiote that covered his skin heavily damaged by either heat, soundwaves or both, Carnage can restore them by bleeding.
 * Blood Web Generation: Carnage can project a powerful, organic web-like substance similar to Venom's made of his symbiote-imbued blood. Surprisingly, in conjunction of his haemokinesis ability, he can manipulate his web like tentacles as they can track the target like guided missile and even coiled around them as opposed to be fired in the straight line. This was shown when he fires his webs on Venom, the webs surprisingly coiled his body like snakes before ensnaring him.
 * Blood Weapon Constructs: Along his symbiote-imbued blood webs, Carnage can create weapons, tendrils, and other objects out of his symbiote-imbued blood that he forms out of his body. He can even detaches his constructs to hurl them against his foes as thrown weapons, though those weapons would dissipates in mere seconds after separated from his body.
 * Stretching and Deforming: Carnage has full control over the size, shape, color (usually red and black), texture, and hardness of his symbiote (and any part thereof). He even able to use this ability in full effect both for defense by deflect bullets and other projectiles and offensive manner by uses his foe's strengths against them (an instance can be seen when Spidey goes for aiding Venom whom held Carnage as he beating him, Carnage retaliates by deformed his body to ensnare and tossed his opponent aside simultaneously).
 * Superhuman Durability: Carnage's ability to stretching and deforming his body also granted him durability in superhuman level.
 * Clothing Generation: Carnage can also morphed his symbiote to taking form of various outfits in rare occasions.
 * Regenerative Healing Factor: He is able to rapidly regenerate damaged body tissues much faster and more extensively than an ordinary human. It is not known, however, if he can fully regenerate severed limbs or missing internal organs; he was fitted with artificial legs after being torn apart by the Sentry, but this occurred while he was separated from the symbiote.
 * Disease Immunity: Kasady is also immune to the effects of all Earthly diseases and infections as long as he remains bonded with the symbiote.
 * Adaptive: Carnage's symbiote can rapidly adapt to new environments; when Kasady was taken into space by the Sentry, the Carnage symbiote was able to save his life by growing small sacks around his mouth that converted carbon dioxide into oxygen, allowing Kasady to stay alive long enough for him to be recovered.
 * Superhuman Strength: Carnage was surprisingly stronger than combined forces of Spider-Man and Venom. This quite interesting due to the fact that during the time he and Brock spent their time in prison, Brock stated that Kasady preferred to be lazy than performing exercize, which means his strengths purely came from his symbiote.
 * Superhuman Agility: Carnage's agility, balance, and bodily coordination are all enhanced to levels that are beyond the natural physical limits of the finest human athlete, even more than Venom or Spider-Man.
 * Memory Implantation: Carnage's tendrils can be used to plant thoughts into a person's head.
 * Insanity Empowerment: It should be noted that prior to bonded by newborn symbiote of Venom's, Kasady lacks superpower of his own, but has a maniacal will and insane worldview that he has had from the age of 8 years old onward. As result, when Kasady merges with the offspring of Venom's symbiote and become Carnage, the said symbiote would feed of his hatred and rage to the world, resulting him stronger tenfold, something which enable him to easily overpowered both Venom and Spidey at once.

Weakness

 * Extreme Heat: Carnage's symbiote, like Venom's was weak against extreme heat, but not as much as the latter: When Spider-Man electrocuted him on the electrified trail, Carnage was briefly weakened by the burns, but it's also angered him as he retaliates by slammed them against the wall.
 * Loud Vibrations: With loud vibrations on the other hand, Carnage was proved to be worse than Venom. For example, Vibranium is effective to the symbiote separating from its host.
 * Kasady's Insanity: While insanity is what empowered him as Carnage, Kasady's madness turned out to be his own weakness at the same time. His mental pathologies can also be exploited (if done properly), allowing people to manipulate his actions and even defeating him.

Ultimate Comics
The Ultimate Marvel Universe version of Carnage is self-regenerating form of life based on the symbiotic suit research of Richard Parker. He is created by Curt Connors to replace the missing Venom "suit" by using the the same process to create Venom, his own DNA, and the DNA of Peter Parker.

Using some of Peter's memories, it travels to Peter's home and kills Gwen Stacy. It battles Peter, and he eventually manages to kill it. Doctor Octopus later creates a new Carnage that takes on the form of Gwen Stacy. It has the memories of Gwen and attempts to reunite with Peter. It eventually returns to its Carnage form when confronted by S.H.I.E.L.D., and is eventually taken into their custody. Carnage later escapes during the Green Goblin's escape.

During the "War of the Symbiotes" arc, the Carnage symbiote squares off with it's forerunner in a no-holds-barred, one-on-one duel to the death that lasts an issue, which ends with Eddie defeating Carnage and absorbing the symboite, allowing total control over the suit.

Spider-Man (2000)
Carnage is one of the two main antagonists of the 2000 Spider-Man PlayStation video game. He is the right hand ally of Doctor Octopus.

Carnage helps Doctor Octopus cover New York City in gas so Spider-Man will use the rooftops. Spider-Man confronts Carnage and Spidey realizes that Carnage's weakness is fire and loud noises. Even though the Symbiote was removed from Cletus Kassady, it creates an even more terrifying evil.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Although he doesn't appear in the movie, Carnage is the main antagonist In the 2014 video game The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Ultimate Spider-Man
Carnage makes an appearance in the Ultimate Spider-Man video game. He's the final Venom Level boss. After Spider-Man and Venom were knocked unconscious and held captive by Bolivar Trask, Peter was injected Trasks' makeshift version of the symbiote. This transformed Peter into Carnage.

As Carnage, Parker caused destruction throughout the lab. This caused Eddie to wake up and he attempted to escape. Just when he was about to reach the door, Carnage appeared and attacked Eddie. Eddie somehow knew that Carnage was Parker, so Eddie became Venom and confronted him. Due to being smaller and having a longer range, Carnage was a powerful enemy against Venom.

When Carnage loses 3/4 of his health, he will retreat and suck the life out of the scientists. When Venom enters the room, Carnage will retreat into another room, and continue to suck the life out of the scientists to heal himself. When Venom entered the room, Carnage will fight him for a bit, but will retreat again into the last room. After a lengthy battle, Venom was able to defeat Carnage. With the defeat of Carnage, Venom drains the suit off of Peter and gains total control over the suit.

Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions
Carnage makes an appearance in the Ultimate Reality in Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions. He was one of the enemies that acquired a Shard from the Tablet of Order and Chaos. The Black Suited Spider-Man encountered Carnage when he was searching for a Shard on the Helicarrier. When he reached the Helicarrier, he notice red webbing and corpses that were completely drained of fluids. This is when he realized that Carnage was on the Helicarrier and needed to be stopped.

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
Carnage is one of the prisoners, seen escaping in the level Rock up the Lock up. He is also a playable character. He can swing around New York City like Spider-Man and he's able to shoot webs.

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2
In the level, Symbiote Surprise, Carnage and Venom merge together into a fusion known as Carnom, that was created by Goblin 2099, after the heroes arrive at Alchemax. During the boss battle, Carnom transformed itself into a bigger and monstrous form that Goblin 2099 named Maximum Carnage. However, in its defeat, Maximum Carnage had its tongue pulled on by Spider-Man, reverting it back to its previous form. Goblin 2099 then came in and prepared to deal with the heroes himself, as he was disappointed at Carnom's defeat, but then had himself subdued and the Nexus Shard taken away. Carnom angrilly chased Goblin 2099 after he called him a monster. During the final boss battle, Kang briefly summons Carnom to come charging at the heroes, while continuing his chase after Goblin 2099, before disappearing into another portal.

Television appearances
In the 90s animated series, Carnage is introduced as a dangerous criminal who tried to kill himself and others with a bomb but was caught and arrested before he could do any damage. However once Dormammu uses a symbiote to bond with him, this gives him enough power to fight the guards off and break out of prison. In the final episodes of the animated series, Carnage was sent through a portal into another reality, where he merged with Peter Parker of that world into Spider-Carnage, who intended to use a bomb and magnify its explosion to destroy all reality. The Beyonder brought many Spider-Men from other realities there, and they foiled his plan, though he went to another reality and tried to suck each reality into a disintegration portal. However, Spider-Man got Uncle Ben of that world to reason with him and convince him to try and drive Carnage out. He was unable to, however, so he opened a smaller disintegration portal and jumped into it, thus putting an end to Carnage.

Sony Marvel Universe
Carnage will appear as the main antagonist of the 2018 Sony Marvel film, Venom. He will be portrayed Woody Harrelson, who also portrayed Mickey Knox in Natural Born Killers, Colonel McCullough in War for the Planet of the Apes and Harlan Degroat in Out of the Furnace.

Miscellaneous
Carnage appeared as an co-icon for Halloween Horror Nights: Islands of Fear. In the scarezone titled Island Under Siege, which is what Marvel Super Hero Island was titled during the event, there was a maze called Maximum Carnage, based on the story arc of the same name. In this version, Carnage has murdered every single one of the superheroes that have came after him resulting in criminal gangs running the streets.

Reception
IGN ranked Carnage as #90th on their Greatest Comic Book Villain list.

Quotes

 * "Bring it on, grandpa!"
 * "Here I come!"
 * "Nice try!"
 * "Venom couldn't stop me. What makes me think you can!?"
 * "I bet you weren't expecting that!"
 * "I'm gonna paint the whole damn world red!!!"

Trivia

 * Carnage's personality drastically "changed" in AXIS storyline when he became a noble "hero" and sacrificed himself to stop Red Skull, but that is not his true personality. This "change" was merely caused by an altering spell cast by Doctor Doom and Scarlet Witch in order to gain allies for stopping Red Skull, not by a genuine change of heart within Kasady.
 * Carnage returned to his true personality of being a psychotic mass murderer as soon as he revived and freed from the spell. He soon completely abandoned his "heroic" traits during the time he was brainwashed, instead of accepting it as a change of heart.
 * Cletus Kasady's personality, and to a certain extent, his physical appearance while human, was derived from that of The Joker. Coincidentally, one of the villains in the TV series Gotham, Jerome Valeska (who is heavily implied to either be a younger version of the Joker himself or at the very least responsible for his eventual creation) has a passing resemblance to Cletus Kasady.
 * Carnage and Joker actually met in a Spider-Man/Batman crossover, where Carnage idol-worshipped the clown prince until he was insulted as to his "lack of art". Batman commented on the chilling effect Carnage's presence caused even him.
 * Cletus Kasady and Carnage had been primarily created to essentially create a darker version of Venom, as they had initially kill off Eddie Brock, the host of the venom parasite, although Venom and Eddie Brock's popularity ended up preventing him from being killed off (not to mention Venom and Eddie Brock being developed to be more anti-villains than true villains).
 * He was voiced by Scott Cleverdon in 1994 Spider-Man, and by Dee Bradley Baker in the 2000 Spider-Man.