Carnage appeared in 1990 Marvels comic book called Amazing Spider-Man. He's actually Cletus Kasady is a deranged and sociopathic serial killer and mass murderer who has bonded with an alien symbiote to become the notorious super-villain Carnage.
Following a dark and disturbed childhood which culminated in him burning down an an orphanage, Cletus became a serial killer and was eventually convicted for eleven consecutive life sentences. Incarcerated at Ryker's Island Prison, Cletus eventually became cellmates with Eddie Brock, who had been separated from the Venom symbiote. When the alien returned to rescued Eddie, it left behind its asexually-produced offspring. The newborn symbiote bonded to Cletus and amalgamated with his blood, transforming him into the monstrous Carnage.
Over the years, Carnage became a recurring enemy to Spider-Man, Deadpool, the Avengers, and most notably Venom. Notoriously, Carnage once led a group of other killers and monsters on a rampage across Manhattan. Seemingly killed by the Sentry, Carnage eventually returned more powerful than ever and began harboring megalomaniacal ambitions of conquest and godhood.
Cletus perished while separated from his symbiote, but a cult worshiping the symbiote god Knull bonded him to a new symbiote linked to the dark god, reanimating him. The undead Carnage's plan to free Knull from his interstellar prison was opposed by Venom, who killed Cletus but freed Knull in the process. After destroying Knull as well, Venom became the new King in Black, but Cletus enacted a plan from within the Symbiote Hive-Mind to overthrow him. Absorbing Iron Man's Extrembiote, eventually Cletus and the Carnage symbiote had a falling out, the serial killer expunging it from the Extrembiote; as Carnage pursued its own dreams of godhood, Cletus assimilated the ruins of St. Estes into the Extrembiote, turning it into an extension of himself, confident the Carnage symbiote would see the error of its ways and eventually return to him.
Having his bloodline tainted by his distant ancestor, Cletus Kasady was destined to be a nihilistic yet also gleefully sadistic, unhinged, deranged and ruthless sociopath with an insatiable bloodlust, ostensibly stemming from a vision he had of the dark elder god Knull when he was an infant. However, despite his insistence otherwise, Cletus was not born a monster and his nihilism and bloodlust have been hinted to be a smokescreen for a bitter and broken man lashing out at a world he feels abandoned him and denied him a normal life. While he displayed sociopathic tendencies as a child — namely mutilating and killing his mother's dog, and being enraptured by the Zapruder film — these were nurtured by the physical and psychological abuse at the hands of his grandmother, father, and the staff and other orphans at St. Estes Home for Boy; Despite his antisocial tendencies, Cletus was genuinely happy to have made a friend in the form of Billy Bentine. One of Cletus' repressed memories shows him as a teenager, distraught at being rejected by a girl who said he'd changed after dropping out of school.
As an adult, Cletus came to delight in wanton bloodshed — seeing murder as an art-form to be cultivated — and worship the ideal of chaos through random acts of violence; believing that laws and order are meaningless constructions, and that by killing others he is freeing them. Cletus gleeful bloodlust and extreme nihilism led many leading psychiatrists — including Ashley Kafka and Matthew Kurtz — to assume he was either simply born evil or that his symbiote had suppressed whatever humanity remained within him; and he cultivated his mindscape into a nightmarish charnel house, repressing any happy memories from his childhood — such as his friendship with Billy — within its depths and vehemently denying their existence. However, Cletus has repeatedly made attempts to form a family -- or at least his twisted perception of what a family should be, warped by the abuse he suffered as a child; and when he first met Eddie Brock he extended an offer of friendship, believing them to be kindred spirits.
As a result of his insatiable bloodlust, any alliances Carnage makes tend to be short-lived at best — usually ending in him turning on his allies in order to kill them. He once formed a team of bloodthirsty supervillains to assist him in conquering Manhattan, intending to kill them once he grew bored. He also briefly allied himself with Blastaar for the sake of aiding in his attempted invasion of Earth, later betraying him in the hopes of killing trillions of people at once. When briefly consumed by a Poison, Kasady's sheer bloodlust enabled his consciousness to subjugate that of the Poison; and he feigned loyalty to the Hive while in the presence of the Poison Queen, but quickly went rogue in order to pursue and fight against Venom and Spider-Man.
When struck by the Illuminizer Ray amplified by Iron Fist's chi, Dagger's Lightforce, and — unintentionally — Shriek's psionic abilities, Cletus was forced to experience hope, compassion, and the possibility of healing and redemption — concepts that were anathema to him after years of abuse and bloodlust. This experience briefly left him traumatized, causing him to flee in terror at the thought of being killed by Venom and hallucinate the ghosts of his past tormenters — who he had murdered years ago — mocking him.
After having his moral alignment inverted following World War Hate, Kasady desired to do good and repent for the monstrous acts he had committed, struggling to suppress his bloodlust and avoid killing. While he was able to "atone" by feeding his sins to the demonic Sin Eater, and attempted to sacrifice himself; his moral inversion ultimately wore off and became something Kasady considered a humiliation.
At various times, Cletus has shown greater ambitions than wanton slaughter — attempting to conquer Doverton, Colorado and the Microverse — but he later dismissed these megalomaniacal endeavors as fool's errands and opted to go back to basics. While he attempted to unleash the eldritch god Chthon in order to bring about the end of the world, expecting to be granted even greater power in exchange for his services; he made no effort to ally himself with the Darkhold Cult — largely because they intended to sacrifice him. After bonding to an offshoot the Grendel symbiote and being pronounced the Prophet of the Void by the Cult of Knull, Cletus zealously devoted himself to Knull; desiring to become the King in Black's lieutenant and take part in his annihilation of the universe, even to the point of allowing Venom to kill him in order to ensure Knull's revival. As his connection to Knull increased, Cletus developed a god-complex to the point of deifying himself even before the Grendel symbiote offshoot's godly power was fully restored, and according to the Carnage symbiote planned to betray Knull and take his power for himself.
Cletus has only shown genuine affection to two individuals -- Shriek and the Carnage symbiote. While Cletus originally intended to kill Shriek when he grew bored of her, he was enraged when Deadpool attempted to kill her and tricked him into nearly doing so, and was similarly outraged when the Jackal beat and forcibly removed the Carrion virus from her while the two of them were imprisoned in Ravencroft. Cletus sees his symbiote as his soul mate and part of his true self — to the point of referring to it with female pronouns and calling it his "missus" after it spawned the Toxin symbiote. When bonded to a new symbiote by the Poisons after being separated from the Carnage symbiote, Cletus was outraged and demanded that the new symbiote be removed and his original symbiote be returned to him; and he was distraught when the Carnage symbiote perished attempting to save him from atmospheric reentry. During the time he was inverted, Cletus latched on to Alice Gleason to the extent that he fantasized about marrying and having children with her, though this was one-sided and Gleason was revolted by him.
Powers and Abilities[]
Prior to their separation, the Carnage symbiote provided Cletus Kasady with a broad array of powers, some of which stemmed from its progenitor having been bonded to Spider-Man. Even without the symbiote, Cletus is still considered very dangerous, as his Antisocial Personality Disorder and obsession with chaos make him impossible to reason with and he has no trouble with killing with no motive. As a result of his symbiote and psychopathy, he is also immune to Ghost Rider's Penance Stare. After his death, Cletus became a codex within the Symbiote Hive-Mind, but was still able to act in the physical world by piloting the Carnage-ized offshoot of the Grendel, and by using the power he'd been granted by Knull to subjugate other symbiotes to his will.
- Knull's Empowerment: Being bonded to an offshoot of the symbiote-dragon known as the Grendel metaphysically connected Cletus to the dark elder god Knull, effectively turning Cletus into a demigod as that connection grew stronger. Even after his death, Cletus' codex was able to use the power he'd been granted by Knull to maintain a presence in the physical world.
- Symbiote Domination: Inspired by the newly-apotheosized Eddie Brock's ability to command and control other symbiotes, Cletus used the power bequeathed to him by Knull in order to do the same, subjugating many of the symbiotes left behind on Earth to his will and bloodlust in order to create a rival Hive.
Though he has had no formal training, the natural abilities granted to Kasady by the symbiote makes him a formidable combatant capable of holding his own against the likes of Spider-Man and Deadpool. However, even with the symbiote, his fighting skill is less refined than that of the experienced superheroes. Even Eddie Brock and Patrick Mulligan have had more practice.
Weaknesses[]
- Electricity: The Grendel symbiote is immensely vulnerable to high voltages of electricity, which easily incapacitates it.
- Sonics: The Grendel symbiote is vulnerable to loud noises, which incapacitate it and its offshoots.