carnage

Carnage is the result of a spawning of a separate extraterrestrial symbiote worn by Venom. This symbiote bonded with serial killer Cletus Kasady, creating one of Spider-Man’s most murderous adversaries.

Character history

Carnage was once serial killer Cletus Kasady, and became Carnage after merging with the offspring of the alien symbiote called Venom during a prison breakout. He was originally conceived as a purely villainous counterpart to Venom, who was becoming an anti-hero.

His past is uncertain. Kasady claims he killed his father, who apparently killed the boy's mother when she tried to kill him; however, he is unclear on the exact details ("...or is it the other way around?"). Kasady seemed to care for his mother, however, causing him to dig up her grave in Maximum Carnage. He also claims he killed his grandmother when he was younger, pushing her down a flight of stairs. Kasady tortured animals (including his own dog) when he was young. By his early twenties, Cletus had been convicted of eleven murders, although he bragged about dozens. His largely self-invented past and chaotic personality are two of the traits he shares with the Joker. Ironically, in a Marvel/DC Comics crossover between Spider-Man and Batman, Carnage actually had a very brief alliance with the Joker, but turned on him.

Kasady has been separated from and re-bonded with the symbiote several times. The Carnage symbiote, attracted to stronger hosts, has attempted to bond with Ben Reilly (Spider-Man at the time) to become Spider-Carnage, and the Silver Surfer. Later, Venom decided to absorb the Carnage symbiote "for good." Without the symbiote, Kasady retained the Carnage persona by costuming himself in red paint and continuing his killing sprees (albeit as a powerless human). Soon after, Kasady found an exact replica of the symbiote in the Negative Zone. Why this symbiote is an identical copy, or where it came from, has yet to be explained. However the issues in which Kasady discovered the replica, had references to the Spider-Man Unlimited TV series which had been airing at the time, and which featured the Carnage Symbiote as one of its villains. In this same issue, to continue the references to the show, Spider-Man himself briefly gained the costume the animated version of him from that series wore.

Maximum Carnage

Perhaps the most famous storyline in which Carnage appears is the 1993 Spider-Man event Maximum Carnage. Carnage, and a cadre of psychotic super-villains, overtook New York, but were driven back by Spider-Man, Venom, the Black Cat, and several other heroes.

Web of Carnage

In the 1996 "Web of Carnage" storyline, the Carnage symbiote escapes from the Ravencroft Institute where Cletus Kasady is incarcerated, seeking a stronger host. It takes over Ben Reilly, who had recently replaced Peter Parker as Spider-Man. Reilly has little previous experience with symbiotes, and is unprepared for an enemy that is immune to his spider-sense. Together, they become Spider-Carnage, and the symbiote attempts to force him, both mentally and physically, to kill Peter Parker (then powerless), and other innocent people. Reilly escapes the symbiote's control, barely, with help from Dr. Ashley Kafka and John Jameson, the administrators of Ravencroft.

Venom vs. Carnage

Carnage starred in the miniseries Venom vs. Carnage in 2005. The Carnage symbiote spawned a "child" symbiote, which he tried to kill without success and later bonded with police officer Patrick Mulligan. Carnage felt nothing but hate for the young creature and attempted to kill it, while Venom defended it (feeling protective of his "grandchild"). Venom named the new symbiote Toxin. Mulligan has since attempted to steer the symbiote towards heroism instead of murder.

Death

Carnage was one of several supervillains trying to escape from The Raft in New Avengers #1-2. The Sentry flew Carnage outside the Earth's atmosphere and ripped him apart.

Although Carnage has displayed a variety of death-defying feats in the past (false bodies, empty shells, etc.), it seems very unlikely that both the symbiote and/or Kasady survived this particular event. It has been stated that the symbiotes can die only by conscious degeneration (as revealed in the Planet of the Symbiotes arc), so it is likely that the symbiote, at least, will return. another highly speculated theory is that the suit completely merged with Kasady explaining why it continued too behave as he did. Some fans of the New Avengers say that the symbiote was devoid of Kasady when it was ripped apart, despite displaying qualities of him and being identified as Cletus in the course of the breakout. However during the story Carnage was also described as having several traits that were exclusive to the Ultimate version. Therefore, Carnage may return.

Ultimate Carnage

The Ultimate Marvel Universe version of Carnage is almost completely different from the Marvel Universe version, although both incarnations were initially designed by Mark Bagley. It was never in fact called "Carnage," though it left a trail of carnage behind.

Curt Connors had created a rejuvenating symbiotic suit using the work of Spider-Man's late father Richard Parker: the Venom "suit". After a series of mishaps, the suit went missing, and Connors worried that years of work had been destroyed. But a new opportunity presented itself. After being injured, Peter Parker sought out Connors' help in treating his wounds, and Connors ended up with a sample of Spider-Man's genetically altered blood. He used it to create a new organism based on the Venom project, known to the readers as the evil Carnage. Using his own, Peter Parker's, and Richard Parker's DNA, he developed a unique, self-regenerating form of life. This blood-red creature grew from a few inches long to the size of a child in a few days, before he escaped. Carnage started to absorb other people's vital fluids, reducing his victims to lifeless, mummified corpses. After the villain murdered a passing couple, he began to remember some aspects of Peter Parker's life.

Carnage went to his house (Peter later guessed that he was hoping to find him and drain his DNA in order to complete itself), and found Gwen Stacy. Thus, she was one of the villain's final victims. Desperate to halt Carnage's blindly murderous path, Peter dropped his clone to his apparent death in a smoke stack.

In the video game Ultimate Spider-Man, another Carnage is born after Peter Parker is injected with a mystery drug by the scientists of Bolivar Trask. The injection causes the Venom particles remaining in Peter's blood to overtake his body. The Carnage suit is soon absorbed by Venom, whose host (Eddie Brock) gains full control of the Venom suit.

Recently, someone claiming to be Gwen Stacy returned with no memory of her death, just waking up in a hospital room. When S.H.I.E.L.D. arrived to take Peter away (a clone of his was discovered earlier) 'Gwen' became agitated and transformed into Carnage, or a creature similar to it.

Cletus Kasady's name appeared on a list of known burglars at one point, but he has yet to appear in person.

The name Cletus was also mentioned as an "obnoxious fat guy" who's website criticises the Ultimates and other metahumans.

Powers and abilities

Main article: Symbiote (comics)

The alien symbiote suit is made of tough, flexible fibers of organic polymer which have the ability to mimic any type of clothing whatsoever (typically colored black or red in Kasady's case). It also makes him undetectable (like Venom) to Spider-Man's spider-sense. Similarly, Venom's ability to "detect" Kasady's presence can be blocked by the suit.

In addition, the suit gives Carnage the ability to adhere to most surfaces with his hands and feet, a power which the symbiote inherited, via Venom, from Spider-Man. Also adapted from Spider-Man is the ability to project a web-like substance from his body. Unlike Venom, Kasady can also separate parts of the symbiote costume from himself and use them as weapons, but they crumble to dust after about ten seconds. Carnage's symbiote originally had the power to "see" from any part of itself and relay the visual information to Kasady, although he appears to have lost this power.

The living costume endows Carnage with superhuman strength, sufficient to lift roughly 50 tons. Originally, he was stronger than Spider-Man and equal to Venom. This figure, though oft-quoted, was contradicted by Carnage's villain bio in the New Avengers Sentry TPB, which puts his strength at being able to lift 35 tons. Carnage also possesses levels of superhuman agility and reaction time comparable to those of Spider-Man.

Cletus Kasady is also a formidable hand-to-hand combatant as well as a merciless killer. Combined with the alien symbiote, Kasady is one of the most lethal and unpredictable of all Marvel supervillains.

Contradictions

Various stories often contradict one another as to whether the symbiote is permanently bonded with Kasady's DNA, due most likely to the symbiote's apparent death after its first appearance. In Maximum Carnage, it was stated that the symbiote had mutated Kasady's blood to allow him to produce a copy of the suit; later, the suit was again alive, but trapped in Kasady's body until he could release it from his bloodstream. During the Spider-Carnage arc, the symbiote chooses to leave Kasady and bond with Ben Reilly. Kasady, without the symbiote (and, apparently, his blood), rapidly ages and his body quickly deteriorates. In this state, Kasady was barely able to function, having a hard time operating a sink, let alone being a threat. The symbiote bonded with him again in time to save his life. However, in the story arc where Venom ate the symbiote, Kasady did not deteriorate, as the symbiote had fully healed all of his stomach cancer. He was later to gain another symbiote in the Negative Zone, but this story was quickly forgotten. The symbiote that spawned Toxin was clearly the original Carnage symbiote.

Other theorists argue that Kasady's cancer was not healed; rather, that a small amount of symbiote remained to keep it in check, and this later bonded with the symbiote from the Negative Zone, becoming fertile and achieving a child.

Appearances in other media

Television

In Spider-Man: The Animated Series, Carnage's creation was orchestrated by the evil demon Dormammu. The Venom symbiote had previously been launched into space aboard a probe by Spider-Man, but, learning that it was on the verge of asexually reproducing, Dormammu had his agent, Baron Mordo, bring the probe back to Earth. When the recently arrested Cletus Kasady witnessed Brock's reunion with his symbiote, he was soon offered the chance to merge with the symbiote's spawn. Becoming Carnage, he was sent out to capture enough "life energy" from human beings to provide Dormammu the strength to enter our world. This version of Carnage was quite noticeably tamer and less violent than his appearances in the comics, merely draining life from his victims, which was later restored, rather than killing them outright (although he still took a perverse pleasure in the action, and referred to it as if it were feeding). He was eventually defeated by Spider-Man and Venom, as he, Venom and Dormammu were sent hurling through a dimensional vortex. He was voiced by Scott Cleverdon.

In the series finale of the show, a Carnage symbiote - perhaps the original, perhaps not -emerged from a dimensional portal into an alternate reality, and bonded with the extremely emotionally unstable Peter Parker of that world. The joining of the two created the insane Spider-Carnage, who was threatening to destroy all reality and thus all existence using an invention mixing the dimensional warp generator and a huge bomb to destroy every dimension consecutively. The real Peter Parker, assisted by several other Spider-Men from other universes, were able to convince Spider-Carnage to fight the symbiote off. This was done by bringing in Peter's Uncle Ben from a reality where he was not murdered. Peter knew the symbiote was influencing Spider-Carnage to commit this genocide since they were in fact the same person and Peter could never kill another human being. Uncle Ben was able to convince Spider-Carnage he could still be a hero as long as he had the courage to reject the symbiote. However, the Carnage symbiote was too powerfully bonded and despite Spider-Carnage's best efforts, he could not get rid of it, so he threw himself into a dangerously unstable warp hole where he was killed.

The Carnage that took over the Spider-Man in the Scarlet Spider's reality was likely a different symbiote, as Carnage appears in Spider-Man Unlimited, the show that would be a spin-off to the previous Spider-Man show.

One of the show's makers in Spider-Man: The Animated Series confirmed if the show were to have a sixth season before its finale, Carnage would have been Jack the Ripper in a Colonial England as Spider-Man finds Mary Jane, after she fell into a dimensional portal in the third season finale.

Video games

• Carnage is an unbeatable foe in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 for the Game Boy. He cannot be killed or defeated, but must be avoided at all costs.

• Carnage appears with The Rhino as a boss in Spider-Man/X-Men: Arcade's Revenge for the Super Nintendo & the Sega Genesis. He awaits Spider-Man at the end of the second level and has attacks identical to Spider-Man's.

• Carnage appeared in both Spider-Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage (for the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo) and its sequel, Spider-Man & Venom: Separation Anxiety as the final boss.

• In the PlayStation/Nintendo 64 Spider-Man video game, Carnage was again one of the final bosses. He functioned as a subordinate of Doctor Octopus while Ock maintained the appearance of a reformed Dr. Otto Octavius. Spider-Man deduced that Ock was lying and while he first took on Ock, Venom and Carnage squared off where Carnage gained the reputation of the winner, beating Venom and wounding him badly just after Spider-Man defeated Ock. Venom, unable to speak clearly since he was brutally beaten by his symbiote "son", tried to warn Spider-Man that Carnage would attack, but Spider-Man couldn't understand him and he and Carnage battled near the conclusion of the game. After defeating him, the Carnage symbiote slithered away from a knocked-out Cletus Kasady and joined with Ock, creating the hybrid of the two, aptly named 'Monster-Ock'. Spider-Man fled from both Ock and the explosive destruction of Ock's base. The fire was sufficient to disable the hybrid villain, having Ock knocked unconscious and Spider-Man took him to jail after both of them were saved from Ock's blowing lair by the Black Cat, Captain America and Venom and the symbiote slunk back to Kasady (presuming he managed to escape the explosion).

• In the Ultimate Spider-Man video game, Ultimate Carnage is one of the final bosses for the Venom portion of the game. Spider-Man is captured and injected with a serum that stimulated the inactive Venom-suit particles in his body, turning him into Carnage. Venom and Carnage battle and Venom devours Carnage, assimilating the rest of the Venom suit and freeing Spider-Man.

See also

• Symbiote
• Venom

External links

• Carnage Rulz-A page of the Marvel World Order site
• Carnage's Profile from the Villains of Marvel Comics site
• Brief bio at Spiderfan.org
• MDP: Carnage - Marvel Database Project