Carnage[]
Carnage is a fictional character, a comic book supervillain in the Marvel Comics Universe. Created by writer David Michelinie and artist Mark Bagley, the character first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #361 (April 1992).
Carnage is the result of a spawning of a separate extraterrestrial symbiote by Venom. This symbiote bonded with serial killer Cletus Kasady, creating one of Spider-Man's most murderous adversaries. Kasady's bond with the symbiote is far more profound than that of Venom's; they have bonded so completely, they refer to themselves as "I" instead of "We".
His ultimate goal is for a society based on murderous hedonism, with no law or moral order, and for people to have the freedom to do whatever they want, something uncommon among supervillains who mostly desire wealth, power or world domination.
Life and powers[]
According to his introduction in the trade paperback book Spider-Man: Carnage (which reprints Amazing Spider-Man #361-363), David Michelinie created Carnage to be a darker version of Venom. Michelinie intended to have Venom's human alter ego; Eddie Brock be killed off in Amazing Spider-Man #400 (which he ended up not writing) and have the symbiote continue to bond with a series of hosts. However, as Brock and Venom's popularity grew, Marvel would not allow him to be killed. Thus, Michelinie decided that if he couldn't bond the existing symbiote with a different host, he should instead create a whole new one. He thought of making this new character a total psychopath who unlike Venom had no sense of honor. The character was originally meant to be named "Chaos" and then "Ravage" before being settled on "Carnage." Carnage's human component, Cletus Kasady was designed by Erik Larsen and was modeled on the Joker. Mark Bagley designed Carnage in symbiotic form.
Cletus Kasady was introduced in Amazing #344. He didn't appear as Carnage until a small cameo in Amazing #360 and finally; Carnage made his first full appearance in the following issue which started a 3-issue story arc with him as the villain. Carnage's first appearances sold out and he became a fan favorite. Carnage next appeared in what is considered to be his most famous story; the 1993 Spider-Man event "Maximum Carnage," a 14-part storyline crossover that spanned through all the Spider-titles. While highly popular, some fans contend that the storyline dragged on for too long and was nothing but a complete gore-fest with little value story-wise.
Carnage may have been meant as Spider-Man's equivalent to the Joker. This tag was once given to the Green Goblin. Incidentally, Maximum Carnage began on the same day as Harry Osborn's funeral; Harry being the second Green Goblin. Carnage had his most important stories set during the absence of the Green Goblin. The Spider-Man/Batman crossover featured Carnage meeting Joker, an apparent idol - though the two tried to kill each other when the two started disagreeing with each other's methods. This led many to wonder why Carnage had been chosen for the book rather than a more classic villain. Carnage began to be used less and less when Norman Osborn was brought back.
In 1996, two one-shot comics centered entirely around Carnage were released, entitled Carnage: Mind Bomb and Carnage: It's A Wonderful Life, both of which expand on his character.
Cletus Kasady was born in Brooklyn, New York and was a notorious serial killer even before he became Carnage. His first victim was his father, and he even claims to have murdered his mother, too. Cletus was raised an orphan at St. Estes Home for Boys in Brooklyn. A small and shy child, Cletus was often terrorized by the older residents. He was transferred to another establishment when a fire burned St. Estes to the ground, killing many of his classmates as well as the home's dean of discipline. As Cletus grew older, an alarming number of his acquaintances seemed to die under mysterious circumstances. A girl, who laughed at him when he asked her on a date, was pushed in the front of a bus, and an alcoholic foster father was found beaten to death in a neighborhood alley. By the time he reached his early twenties, Cletus Kasady had been convicted of eleven murders, but bragged of dozens more. "Carnage Unleashed" When Brock's symbiote returns and bonds with him to form the entity known as Venom, the supervillain unwittingly leaves behind a symbiote spawn, which bonds with Kasady, allowing him to transform into the red and black monster called Carnage.[5] One night, Kasady murders a guard and escapes prison,[6] beginning a series of gruesome and seemingly random murders. At the scene of each crime, he writes "Carnage Rules" on the walls with his own blood. He is found by Spider-Man, though the hero proves to be no match for Carnage's powers. Carnage then abducts J. Jonah Jameson. In desperation, Spider-Man makes what is, despite his expectations, only the first of many truces with Venom to fight Carnage.[7] Carnage is defeated with sonic weaponry, but the symbiote lives on by merging with Kasady's bloodstream.[8] Since becoming Carnage, Kasady's killing methods started becoming more akin to a mass murderer than a serial killer.
I mean, order's just a lie, right? Built on fantasies... like law, an' morals! I remember when I first realized that! How without those illusions, I could do anything! Up to an' includin' murder! Man, I never felt so free! An' once I help the rest o' this planet catch on... oh wow. Blood an' glory! – Carnage
In the Maximum Carnage story arc, Carnage returns and recruits a cadre of psychotic super-villains (consisting of Shriek, Demogoblin, Carrion, and Doppelganger) to overtake New York City, but are driven back by Spider-Man, Venom, Captain America, Black Cat, Nightwatch, Cloak and Dagger, Iron Fist, Deathlok, Morbius, and Firestar.
Despite his defeat and imprisonment, Carnage escapes again and goes against his trend of randomness by actually selecting a specific victim; his old childhood friend Billy Bertine. Spider-Man, this time alone, interferes and battles Carnage. Bentine helps Spiderman defeat the madman by tricking Kasady into retracting his symbiote into his body, allowing Spiderman to easy knockout the human Kasady with a simple punch.
Kasady, albeit having a stronger bond to his symbiote than Eddie Brock does, has been separated from and re-bonded with the symbiote several times as the symbiote looks for stronger hosts. 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 a powerless Peter Parker along with other innocent people. Reilly barely escapes the symbiote's control with help from Dr. Ashley Kafka and John Jameson, the administrators of Ravencroft.
The symbiote later bonds with the Silver Surfer (who had dropped into Earth to welcome the Fantastic Four back from the Heroes Reborn universe and seen the fight), which created the insane and vastly powerful Cosmic Carnage. In the process, it was revealed that the symbiotes have an instinctive knowledge of the Heralds of Galactus, with the Carnage symbiote initially terrified of the Surfer upon arrival. However, the Surfer and Spider-Man manage to return the symbiote to Kasady, who is subsequently encased by the Silver Surfer in an unbreakable material to spend the rest of his life reflecting on his sins.
However, the material is clearly not as 'unbreakable' as the Surfer believes; when next seen, Kasady has somehow escaped from the material, although he is trapped in a cell specifically designed to contain him and stop him transforming into Carnage. Venom later locates Kasady in prison and re-absorbs his Carnage symbiote into his own body "for good". Without the symbiote, Kasady retains the Carnage persona by costuming himself in red paint and continuing his killing sprees, but does so as a normal human, only for Spider-Man to easily defeat him in a fight (he claimed to still possess some of the symbiote's strength, but if he did, it was clearly not enough to allow him to win in a fight with Spider-Man).
Soon, however, Kasady finds an exact replica of the symbiote in the Negative Zone. How 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, Spider-Man himself briefly takes on the costume of the Spider-Man from Unlimited. Somewhere down the line, Cletus got his original symbiote back. It is not explained how he got it back or what happened to the one from the Negative Zone.
Carnage stars in the miniseries Venom vs. Carnage in 2004. The Carnage symbiote spawns a "child" symbiote, which he tries to kill without success, acting on the symbiote race's instinctive hatred for their immediate offspring. The "child" later bonds with police officer Patrick Mulligan. Carnage feels nothing but hatred for the young creature and attempts to kill it, while Venom defends it. Venom names the new symbiote Toxin. Mulligan has since attempted to steer his symbiote towards heroism instead of murder.
Carnage is one of several supervillains trying to escape from The Raft in New Avengers #1-2. Although Luke Cage, Matt Murdock, and Jessica Drew manage to keep him contained in the lower levels, it is the Sentry who finishes him off, flying Carnage outside the Earth's atmosphere and ripping him apart. He has not appeared since.
[edit] Powers and abilitiesThe alien symbiote is made of tough, flexible fibers of organic polymer which have the ability to mimic any type of clothing colored black or red. Carnage is an unrepentant killer and his powers make him a formidable combatant. The living costume endows Carnage with superhuman strength greater than that of Spider-Man. Carnage also has superhuman reflexes and reaction time superior to that of Spider-Man, although he has the disadvantage of having no spider sense. As with Venom, the symbiote is undetectable to Spider-Man's spider-sense. 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. Typically, Carnage's webs appear to simply be black/red extensions of his costume, instead of resembling webs.Like Venom, Kasady can also separate parts of the symbiote costume from himself and use them as weapons. Any portions separated from him for more than approximately 5 seconds lose their molecular integrity and disintegrate into dust. Like venom 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. Like Venom, Carnage can shoot tendrils from any part of his body. Carnage's symbiote (like venom) is also vampiric, feeding on and thus endangering his victims by mere touch. In addition, Carnage once demonstrated an ability to plant thoughts into a person's head using a symbiote tendril. In the one-shot Carnage: Mind Bomb, a psychiatric specialist named Matthew Kurtz attempted to treat Carnage. Thinking he had Kasady under control, Kurtz ended up having a symbiote tendril drilled in his head. Kasady then proceeded to pump mental images into Kurtz's mind to show him how he saw the world. As a result: Kurtz was driven mad and ran amok only to be gunned down by the Ravencroft guards. Like Venom, Carnage threatens to eat his enemies, and due to his psychopathic nature, it can be presumed that he does.