A History of Uncontained Violence
Learning of the recent escape of Brock’s cellmate, Spider-Man identified Kasady as a former resident of St. Estes Home for Boys—an orphanage destroyed by arson. On a hunch, Peter returned to the ruined scene of that crime. There, Spider-Man battled Carnage—but the powerful entity easily defeated him and disappeared. Along with the Human Torch, Spider-Man traveled to the island on which he had sequestered Brock to inform him of Carnage’s rampage. Identifying a golden opportunity, Brock agreed to help defeat Carnage—but only in return for his own freedom. Spider-Man had little choice but to consent. True to his word, Venom helped the two heroes incapacitate Carnage. Spider-Man could not live up to the agreement; with help from the Fantastic Four, he ambushed Venom and took him into custody.
Carnage was remanded to Ravencroft Institute. Resisting all treatment, his powers made him nearly impossible to contain; shortly thereafter, he escaped. On the lam from Ravencroft, Carnage teamed with fellow lunatics Frances Barrison, AKA Shriek, Malcolm McBride, AKA Carrion, Demogoblin and Doppelganger. To battle this threat, a reluctant Venom again joined forces with Spider-Man. Aided by other heroes—including Deathlok, Black Cat, Captain America, and Iron Fist—they returned Kasady to Ravencroft. His incarceration did not last long. During a subsequent jailbreak, Kasady made it his mission to kill the only man who had ever befriended him, Billy Bentine—hoping to perpetuate his message of chaos and explode the conventions dictating that friendship should be repaid in kind. Spider-Man defeated Carnage only after Bentine tricked the creature into returning to human form, rendering Kasady vulnerable to a simple knockout punch.
With other Ravencroft escapes attempted and ultimately foiled, Kasady seemed to be reveling in the thrill of it all. But the symbiote had another trick up its sleeve: Attempting the unexpected, it abandoned Kasady and overwhelmed John Jameson, AKA Man-Wolf, chief of security at Ravencroft. Tracking down Spider-Man—Ben Reilly, at the time—the symbiote allowed the web-slinger to defeat its new host. With Jameson out of the picture, the creature overwhelmed Ben, creating the near-unbeatable Spider-Carnage. But Ben’s willpower won out; he was able to contain the symbiote’s murderous urges long enough to return it to Ravencroft, where it was subdued once more. The determined symbiote soon adopted another approach: It attempted to possess the space-faring Norrin Radd, AKA Silver Surfer, creating Cosmic Carnage. Already familiar with the deadly race of symbiotes, the Surfer overcame the creature and encased it in a container of ethereal energy.
The symbiote eventually escaped and returned to its host, only to be forcibly reabsorbed by Venom—leaving Kasady powerless. But just as the world began to believe Carnage was gone for good, Kasady escaped Ravencroft yet again—called into the other-dimensional Negative Zone by a distant voice. The voice belonged to another symbiote. Although not Kasady’s original parasitic partner, this creature was every bit as deadly. Merged again with an entity more evil than himself, Kasady battled Spider-Man and Blastaar. Though recaptured, the deadly Carnage had found its way back into the world.
Carnage was remanded to the Rykers Island prison for superhumans. During a breakout initiated by Maxwell Dillon, AKA Electro, Carnage was set free until Super Hero Robert Reynolds, AKA Sentry, seized him, carried him into outer space, and tore him in two.
Industrialist Michael Hall retrieved Carnage’s body from space and after extracting the Carnage symbiote, he combined it with a prosthetic arm and other exo-suits dubbed the Iron Rangers. While his body was held in a top-secret location, the prosthesis was given to Dr. Tanis Nieves, Shriek’s psychiatrist, after she protected Shriek from friendly fire. The symbiote in her arm possessed her and forced her to find Kasady. Once she did, Kasady was rejoined with the suit and as Carnage, he defeated the Iron Rangers which he took into himself, becoming Mass Carnage. Desiring revenge on Hall, he was stopped by Spider-Man and Iron Man. Meanwhile, Nieves cut off her arm to rid herself of the symbiote, only to be reunited with it, transforming into the cybernetic symbiote Scorn. She forced Shriek to use her sonic blast against Mass Carnage which defeated the creature. Though the real Carnage had already escaped.
Conquering the small town of Doverton, Colorado, Carnage used his symbiote to possess its citizens and a task force of Avengers who were dispatched to stop him. The only Avenger to escape was Spider-Man who teamed up with a small resistance group on the outskirts of town. The resistance found Doverton at war when a United States government task force of symbiote-enhanced soldiers led by Scorn were lured into battle with Carnage’s possessed Doverton citizens. The tide turned against Carnage when the newest Avenger, Flash Thompson was bonded with the Venom symbiote and as Agent Venom, he was summoned to rescue the Avengers. Venom, Spider-Man, and Nieves ultimately freed the town from Carnage’s control, but set both the Venom and Carnage symbiotes loose from their hosts. Flash and Kasady fought and soon Scorn captured the latter’s symbiote and he was taken into custody in the Thunderbolts Mountain.
When contacted by subatomic-sized alien assassins known as Microns, a race that resides in the Microverse, Kasady agreed to help them win a war for domination of their homeworld as his symbiote regenerated from his cells. They helped him escape to Houston, Texas, quickly dispatching the city’s resident vigilante, Kaine, AKA Scarlet Spider, on his way to his destination—the Prometheus Pit, an interdimensional transport and doorway to their world. Kasady then cornered his prey, Dr. Ketola, an expert in interdimensional transportation while she was being interviewed by Venom’s ally Katy Kiernan. He and his allies coerce Ketola to open the Pit, and in leaving her for dead, they take Kiernan hostage and head for the new dimension to escape the Scarlet Spider.
Meanwhile, Agent Venom tracked Carnage since his escape from Thunderbolts Mountain and teamed up with Scarlet Spider to rescue Kiernan and bring Kasady back. But while in the Microverse, Kasady turned on his allies, killing all but one, Raidus, as well as Kieran, who he wanted to document his tale. He then attacked Scarlet Spider who had met the enigmatic being known as The Redeemer, a healer in the Microverse, leader of the Enigma Force, and the target of Carnage’s new now dead allies. But the diabolical leader of the Microverse’s most evil factions, Marquis Radu (who had a hand in luring Carnage to the Microverse in the first place) had his forces capture Carnage and Agent Venom and used their symbiotes to create an army. Though the army was unstable, Kasady took control of them, escaping to his home universe. There, he was defeated by Venom and Scarlet Spider and left catatonic and eventually sedated.
Freed from sedation by The Wizard, who desired that Kasady join his new Frightful Four team, Kasady was not in control and instead his symbiote attacked Bentley Wittman, AKA The Wizard. Ulysses Klaw, AKA Klaw, stopped Carnage and The Wizard attempted to transfer the symbiote into Karl Malus. Then The Wizard blew up his base apparently with Kasady inside. Kasady survived and was taken by Dr. Otto Octavius, AKA Doctor Octopus'’ Spiderlings. At this time, Otto’s consciousness was in Peter Parker’s body, and he was acting as Superior Spider-Man. Despite the Carnage symbiote attaching itself to the Wizard, and Otto’s failed attempts at containing it, Kasady ultimately reunited with his symbiote and this bond righted Kasady’s mind and he was able to control his symbiote again. However, Klaw used his sonic abilities to separate Kasady from the symbiote and the two were taken into custody.
While imprisoned at Kramer Penitentiary, a fellow inmate attacked him on the orders of Kasady’s psychologist Dr. Jenner, who wanted to bond with the symbiote. Jenner suffocated him and contained the symbiote, however it escaped and re-bonded to its original host, Kasady. Kasady then killed the Penitentiary’s staff and prisoners to let the world know he was back.
Carnage reunited with Shriek but they ended up in a car chase with Wade Wilson, AKA Deadpool, followed by a near-fatal car crash with Shriek suffering injuries. Carnage attempted to get her help, but Deadpool had obtained a symbiote which he used to disguise Shriek as himself. Carnage attacked the real Shriek which resulted in a mental breakdown, and he turned himself into the proper authorities afterward.
Kasady became convinced by Magneto to help save the world when the Red Onslaught threatened it. When he saw Deadpool was part of Magneto’s team, he planned to enact revenge, but an inversion spell was cast which flipped the moral compass of many heroes and villains, Kasady included who parted from Deadpool without any hard feelings. With an inverted compass, Kasady desired to do good and capture criminals, but his nature still came through when he would brutalize them. He then saved Alice Gleason from an all-new Sin-Eater and in kidnapping her, he wanted to learn how to be a hero. Though the Sin-Eater caught up with them and ultimately eats Kasady’s sins, leaving Kasady with a conscience free from his past deeds. He gives the Sin-Eater his darkest sin which results in his demise. Alice then shot him in the head, but regenerating, Carnage discovered Alice’s true aim, that she used him for personal gain and ordered police who had arrived to open fire but escaped.
He joined other inverted Super Villains like himself and formed the Astonishing Avengers to go up against inverted heroes. True to his new form and outlook on becoming a hero, he dubbed the team the Axis of Evil and has the team shoulder the blame to ensure the reputations of the inverted heroes stayed intact. The heroes planned to release a bomb that would kill all non-mutants, but Kasady used his symbiote to contain the eventual explosion.
Despite surviving the explosion, Kasady lost his legs and with the inversion spell undone he was back to his old murderous self. He contacted Sam Alexander, AKA Nova, a friend he had made during the inversion. Kasady desired to prove that he was indeed morally corrupt again by killing a random person to get Sam’s attention. He then kidnapped Sam’s mother and just before he was about to murder her, Sam arrived and fought him, leading him away from innocent bystanders. They fought, with Kasady insisting he knew Nova’s secret identity, but Nova Force blasted Carnage from above with a ray beam which damaged his host body. When police arrived, Kasady fled since he was already hurt but promised it wasn’t over between him and Nova. Kasady then attacked Sam at school but soon saw Nova flying around, dispelling his belief that Sam was Nova, and all thanks to Sam’s mother who donned his helmet to trick Carnage. Carnage redirected his attention to “'Nova” but lost her trail which allowed Sam to attack Carnage while he was hurting innocents. Nova eventually defeated Carnage using loud sounds from a concert nearby and after capturing him, Nova delivered Carnage to Ryker’s Island.
After Carnage escaped Ryker's, he was lured to an abandoned mine where FBI task force leader Claire Dixon set out to capture him with the help of astronaut turned beast Man-Wolf, Eddie Brock, now host to the Toxin symbiote, and Manuela Calderon--the sole survivor of Kasady's first homicidal rampage. But her plan backfired, and Carnage discovered the Darkholders, a cult worshiping the Darkhold—a mystical book that granted him the power to control the cultists, which he absconded with and found that it significantly enhanced his abilities.
Floating adrift at sea, he’s found by lone sailor Jubulile Van Scotter who saw only Kasady, knocked-out and in need of aid. Carnage came to and quickly infected her with his symbiote, but Jubulile escaped on a life raft and set her ship on fire, leaving Carnage for dead. He survived and discovered he needed a sacred stone altar to unlock the full potential of the Darkhold. Making his way to an island near Indonesia, he caused destruction on his way to Brother Gregori and the Chthonic Brotherhood, who knew more about the altar. They agreed to ferry him to the island on a freighter. Though the task force was close behind him thanks to picking up Jubulile who was psychically connected to Kasady and had in the meantime also consulted Victoria Montesi, a Darkhold expert.
When the task force boarded the freighter, they found its crew transformed into mindless monsters by Kasady. Taking Dixon hostage, Kasady turned her into the deadly symbiote known as Raze and they beelined it to the island. Kasady was soon captured by the island’s inhabitants, a race of vicious creatures prepared to kill him, but Raze soon rescued him. On their way to the Temple of the Darkhold, they both suffer from the connection with Jubulile, as does Jubulile. Once at the temple, they successfully released the full potential of the Darkhold in the form of Chthon the Elder God. Kasady, hoping to gain more power from Chthon found himself disappointed. The task force confronted Carnage and Chthon and defeated them both using Jubulile’s connection to Carnage’s symbiote, who was also empowered by Toxin and Raze, and Montesi’s knowledge of the Darkhold.
Separated from the symbiote, Kasady was remanded to the FBI while his symbiote was stolen and taken to Norman Osborn, AKA Green Goblin. Despite bonding with it, and about to kill his foremost enemy Spider-Man, the wall-crawler convinced him that Carnage and Kasady would get the credit. Knowing who he was, he tore the symbiote suit off him, but was captured and taken to the Ravencroft Institute. Now, with an imprint of Kasady’s psyche on his mind, Osborn had an additional split personality.
Meanwhile Kasady was placed back into Ravencroft’s custody but was soon contacted by members of the Poison Hive, a multiversal species that harvests Klyntar symbiotes and consumes their human hosts and led by a Queen. The Poisons, in the forms of Sergei Kravinoff, AKA Kraven the Hunter, Doctor Michael Morbius, AKA Morbius, the Living Vampire, and Yuriko Oyama, AKA Lady Deathstrike, invited him to join them if he’d become Carnage again. Unaware of their goal to eat him, Carnage accepted wanting to be reunited with his symbiote. They bonded him to a new symbiote which the remnants of his symbiote in his body rejected. He broke free but was soon nearly consumed by a Poison. Kasady pretended to be on their side but eventually escaped them only to face Eddie Brock’s Venom and Spider-Man, who fought a brutal battle that left him floating in space.
When the Poison’s Queen perished, the Poison Carnage disintegrated and left Kasady restored. Still in space, the Carnage symbiote that remained in his cells shielded him from his re-entry to Earth but didn’t survive the journey and left Kasady burnt. Dying from his injuries, authorities claimed his body. Though the Cult of Knull, who worshiped Knull, the God of Symbiotes recovered his body and with Scorn’s help, bonded it with a primordial version of the Grendel symbiote. Kasady, now reanimated, was connected to Knull, a connection he fought and relieved himself from when he consumed Scorn’s spine, taking back his Carnage symbiote remnants—the traces of genetic material called codices located within the spines of their hosts. Kasady altered the Grendel symbiote to resemble Carnage and set out to awaken Knull by consuming as many codices as possible. Leading the cult, he directs his new minions to seek out these codices in former symbiote hosts, dead or alive, through bloody and brutal means.
He teamed up with Shriek and Doppelganger to bond with the townspeople of Doverton, Colorado but was stopped by Spider-Man, Venom, Captain America, Clint Barton, AKA Hawkeye, Ben Grimm, AKA the Thing, James Howlett/Logan, AKA Wolverine, and Dr. Tanis Nieves, AKA Scorn.
Later, during the War of the Realms, with Knull’s spiral symbol on his head, Carnage covertly infected homeless people and animals. He used his new minions to gain more codices. He then exhumed those deceased who had previously bonded to a symbiote, harvesting them. With all these codices inside him, he became Dark Carnage, replete with Knull’s signature white dragon emblem emblazoned across his chest and a towering 13-feet tall.
After infecting John Jameson with the Grendel symbiote to keep his enemies like Venom and Spider-Man busy, Shriek volunteered to sacrifice herself, giving her codex to Dark Carnage and her body to resurrect Demogoblin. Once resurrected, it referred to itself as Demagoblin to honor the female host body. Then the Shriek/Demagoblin hybrid and Carnage shared a passionate kiss.
Deadpool interrupted their activities, but Kasady escaped and went on to claim additional codices including his own that lived in Misty Knight, Normie Osborn, and Scorpion who possessed both the Mania and Venom codices. He sent his comrades Demagoblin, Man-Wolf, Riot, Agony, Lasher, Phage, and Scream after all the remaining codices but Scream betrayed him. Carnage murdered Scream’s host, Patricia Robertson but the symbiote survived in Andi Benton who escaped Carnage.
Using his symbiote, Kasady imitated Eddie Brock to sneak into a warehouse full of previous symbiote hosts who were seeking to remove their codices safely using a machine devised by Earth-1610’s Reed Richards, AKA the Maker. But the real Eddie soon showed up and Carnage revealed his true form. Eddie fought Venom from coming forth at first, worried about who would care for his son, Dylan, and Venom recognizing he wasn’t strong enough to face Dark Carnage chose to bond instead to Bruce Banner, AKA the Hulk. The Venomized Hulk fought Dark Carnage, a battle that left Kasady feeling the blows more than normal but eventually he removed the Venom symbiote from Banner. Taking the Venom symbiote into himself, he transformed into a more dragon-like skeleton with horns, more closely resembling Knull. With his combined symbiotes, Carnage, Grendel, and Venom, he could now free Knull from his imprisonment. Taking to the skies, Dark Carnage was pursued by Eddie Brock who had taken in all the codices from the Maker’s machine which created a copy of the Venom symbiote.
They fought each other only to be interrupted by several heroes including Carol Danvers, AKA Captain Marvel, Cloak and Dagger, Deadpool, Deathlok, Angelica Jones, AKA Firestar, Iron Fist, Morbius, and Scream. Overpowered, Dark Carnage ended up in a tunnel where Dylan and Normie Osborn were hiding out. Taking hold of Dylan, he threatened Venom that whatever choice he would make would awaken Knull. Caring only for his son, Venom materialized a sword from his chest and used it to slay Carnage once and for all, which did indeed awaken and free Knull.
Despite the death of his body, Kasady’s mind was saved in the Symbiote Hive-Mind, and he remained in control of the Carnage/Grendel symbiote which had bonded to Eddie, allowing him to control him as well. When Dylan and the Venom symbiote saved Eddie, Kasady bonded the Carnage/Grendel symbiote to a shark and made his escape. When Knull invaded Earth, Kasady attempted to join but failed when Eddie defeated Knull and became the new King in Black, the God of the Symbiotes. With control over the Hive-Mind, Eddie sent hundreds of symbiotes to attack and devour Kasady which worked to a point. Kasady survived with a portion of the Dark Carnage symbiote and transferred himself to another shark.
With power from Knull, Kasady used it to recruit, or rather psychically corrupt, its younger siblings, the Life Foundation symbiotes, by using their telepathic link: The Hive. As usual, he left a trail of bodies in its wake using Riot, Lasher, and Agony as his emissaries while Toxin refused Kasady’s call and defeated him in the Void. His endgame: to make Friends of Humanity member Senator Peter Krane his host, who plotted to run for president on an anti-alien platform. But when Kasady’s Carnage symbiote bonded to Krane’s son Arthur, he found a like-minded individual, a sociopathic killer who plotted to assassinate his father and take over his career. Meanwhile Agent Anti-Venom put the pieces of Carnage’s evil plot together and with his war buddy Hank, Andi Benton, who had bonded with the Scream symbiote and became Silence, and Bren Waters, AKA Toxin, they teamed-up to stop Carnage.
Finding a connection with Arthur, Kasady usurped his plot and his body, and Carnage successfully slayed Peter on live TV. Agent Anti-Venom and his team of symbiotes were too late but still engaged Carnage in battle with an assist from Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, who wore his Extrembiote suit. He was able to separate Carnage from Arthur, though Carnage attached itself to the suit and became stronger, fleeing the scene with Agony and fulfilling his goal, which was to have Arthur take his father’s place.
