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Comic Book / Carnage

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Carnage Rules!

"But isn't that what you want to hear, Doctor? That I was a poor, abused child? That my mother beat me? My father molested me? That I was tortured and hung by my ankles above a pit of broken glass? Well, maybe that's all true. Or maybe... I'm just the inevitable aberration. The soul that's born so black, so twisted, so filled with unreasoning hatred... that there's no explanation. You can't make me sane, Doctor. You can't hope to redeem me. All you can do is kill me. Because, if you don't—I'll break out of here. You have my word on that. And the blood—the glorious blood—will flow like wine!"
— Carnage, Spider-Man and Batman #1

In the early 1990's, Venom's skyrocketing popularity as an antihero derailed co-creator David Michelinie's plan to kill Eddie Brock off and have the symbiote jump from host to host. Feeling Marvel had lost one of its most terrifying villains as a result of Venom's transition into the Lethal Protector, Michelinie decided to create a new symbiotic super villain, one with no redeeming features whatsoever. Erik Larsen came up with Cletus Kasady, inspired by Batman's The Joker, and Mark Bagley designed a red and black symbiote intended to emphasize the new villain's nature as a chaos-obsessed psychopath. Carnage debuted in 1991, when the Venom symbiote's newborn offspring bonded to serial killer Kasady. Carnage's defining storyline was the Maximum Carnage crossover, where he recruited several supervillains and declared war on New York, forcing Spider-Man to form his own alliance of superheroes and anti-heroes to combat him.

Since then, Carnage has become one of Spider-Man's most (in)famous villains, appearing infrequently in the comics before seemingly being killed off after Mac Gargan became a more monstrous version of Venom. After Flash Thompson became a heroic Venom, Carnage was brought back in 2011, and has starred in a number of his own miniseries since then. His popularity and role as a humanizing agent for Venom has led to his appearance in several video games and animated series.

Click here for the other Marvel Comics symbiotes

Carnage's appearances in various media:

Notable Mainstream Comic Appearances:
  • Carnage:
    • Carnage: Mind Bomb
    • Carnage: It's a Wonderful Life
    • Carnage Volume 1 #1-5
    • Carnage, U.S.A. #1-5
    • Minimum Carnage: Alpha and Omega
    • Superior Carnage #1-5 and Superior Carnage Annual
    • Deadpool vs. Carnage #1-4
    • Carnage Volume 2 #1-16
  • Spider-Man:
    • The Amazing Spider-Man #344-345
    • The Amazing Spider-Man #359-363
    • Maximum Carnagenote 
    • The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #28
    • The Clone Saga
      • The Amazing Spider-Man #403
      • Planet of the Symbiotesnote 
      • Web of Carnagenote 
    • The Amazing Spider-Man #430-431
    • Peter Parker: Spider-Man Vol. 2, #10 and #13
    • Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man #13-14
    • X-Men/Spider-Man #3
    • Marvel Knights: Spider-Man Vol. 2, #3
  • Venom:
    • Venom: Carnage Unleashed #1-4
    • Venom: On Trial #1-3
    • Venom vs. Carnage #1-4
    • Venom Vol. 2, #26-27
  • Other:

Alternate Comics

Literature

Theatre

Theme Park Attractions

Video Games
  • Maximum Carnage
  • Separation Anxiety: Despite having nothing to do with the comic arc, he appears as the game's True Final Boss.
  • Spider-Man: Carnage is fought as game's final boss; the symbiote then bonds to Doctor Octopus to become the unfightable Monster-Ock
  • Ultimate Spider-Man: Peter Parker is turned into the Ultimate version of Carnage during Venom's final boss fight
  • Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: Carnage was available as DLC from November 5, 2009 to December 31, 2009, and from July 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010. Ultimate Carnage was unlockable as an alternate costume. The DLC for him and the other characters was later brought back in 2016 for the game's PS4 and Xbox One-exclusive rerelease.
  • Spider-Man: Web of Shadows: Spider-Carnage is an unlockable alternate costume for Symbiote Spider-Man
  • Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions: The Ultimate version of Carnage appears as a boss.
  • The Amazing Spiderman 2: Cletus Kasady is a reoccurring antagonist, and becomes Carnage during the final boss fight; Spider-Carnage is an unlockable costume
  • LEGO Marvel Superheroes
  • Marvel: Avengers Alliance: Carnage appears as a boss.
  • Marvel Heroes: Carnage (during his hero phase) is an assist character.
  • Spider-Man Unlimited: Carnage and Spider-Carnage are planned to be added as part of a Symbiote event.

Western Animation

Tropes applying to Carnage:

  • Artistic License – Medicine: The Mind Bomb comic suggests that a simple overdose of Vitamin C affects the symbiotic bond because it severely alters brain chemistry. In reality, at best it might give him some light nausea or an upset stomach, it doesn't affect brain chemistry! The writers could've handwaved this by saying that Vitamin C affected the symbiote itself, or by saying it was some chemical mixture, but no, they specifically state that it affected brain chemistry of the host.
  • Arch-Enemy: Carnage is Venom's and Toxin's arch-nemesis: no matter how many villains Venom fights, Carnage will always be the one villain Venom hates the most. Carnage himself also has considerable grudges against Spider-Man and Deadpool.
  • Ax-Crazy: And that's putting it lightly.
  • Big Bad: Carnage is the chief antagonist of several of Spider-Man's and Venom's - both Eddie Brock and Flash Thompson - stories, as well as a number of his own.
  • Body Horror: When bonded to a host, the Carnage symbiote sometimes resembles a flayed human body.
  • Break Out Villain: Carnage was meant to replace Venom, but got so popular that they're both recurring mainstays.
  • Chaos Is Evil: Cletus is hailed as an archaist because he seeks to bring chaos to the world.
  • Depending on the Artist: Whether Carnage is red and black or just plain red, and whether he has a Jagged Mouth or discernible teeth, depends on who's drawing him.
  • Depending on the Writer:
    • As with Venom, how vulnerable the Carnage symbiote is to fire and sonics seems to depend on who's writing. The general consensus has been that it's the more flammable of the two, and has developed an increased resistance to sound, but this also depends on who's writing.
    • Beginning with the Carnage Vol. 1 series, Cletus was given a Southern hillbilly accent and a love of the Confederate flag and Lynyrd Skynyrd, while earlier stories pinned him as a native New Yorker of implied Scottish-Irish heritage and no trace of a Southern attitude or heritage.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Being exposed to the eldritch power of the Darkhold has augmented and altered Cletus's symbiote, making it immune to its former weaknesses but giving it a vulnerability to certain forms of magic.
  • Evil Counterpart: Venom states he seems him as his in Maximum Carnage. In practice, it's more something like ''Eviler'' Counterpart. And yes, it could be said that he is indeed ultimately an evil counterpart to a character who is himself already an evil counterpart. (Venom to Spider-Man)
  • Expy: He was explicitly stated to be inspired by The Joker. And it shows.
  • For the Evulz His motivation for wreaking havoc.
  • Genre Throwback: His post-Secret Wars series is one to the Marvel horror books that Gerry Conway wrote back in the 1970's such as The Tomb of Dracula and Werewolf by Night.
  • Half the Man He Used to Be: Was flown into space and torn in half by the Sentry in the opening arc of New Avengers. He later got better.
  • Hero with an F in Good: When he gets inverted in AXIS, Carnage tries to be a hero. The problem is that he doesn't know how to do anything heroic and has to get an ordinary woman he took hostage to teach him.
  • Lean and Mean: Depending on the Writer, but he is typically despicted as skinnier than Venom, and much, much worse.
  • Lovecraftian Superpower: Carnage can grow Combat Tentacles at will, and has the ability to consume biomass from its victims.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Carnage, not that Cletus Kasady is much better.
  • Red and Black and Evil All Over: His symbiote is red and black, and he's most definitively evil.
  • Replacement Flat Character: He was created as this; Since by this point Eddie Brock had developped into an Anti-Hero Noble Demon, Carnage was made to fill his former place as the creepy symbiote villain.
  • The Reptilians: With its gaping mouth, pointy teeth, flailing tongue and vertical pupils, his face, like Venom's, invokes this trope and plays it for all its worth.
  • Series Continuity Error: Despite Cletus' prosthetic legs being destroyed in Carnage #5, and him being shown with flesh-and-blood legs in the Superior Carnage and Deadpool vs. Carnage miniseries, he inexplicably has robotic legs again in Nova Vol. 5.
  • Serial Killer: Cletus is a diagnosed sociopath who was serving time for 11 consecutive life sentences because he killed so many people.
  • Villain Protagonist: His current series in an intentional throwback to The Tomb of Dracula.

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