A spawn of the Venom symbiote, the offspring attaches itself to serial killer Cletus Kasady. Bonded to Kasady, they call themselves Carnage and become the nightmarish murdering menace that plagues Earth and its heroes.
Symbiote Spawn
Hailing from the alien Symbiotes, otherwise known as Klyntar, and addicted to strong emotions, the Other is an aberration who desires to join with its host rather than dominate and destroy it. When the Other is transported by the Beyonder to Battleworld during the Secret Wars, it bonds with Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man, providing organic webbing and responding to the web-slinger’s thoughts. Later, Spider-Man wears the Other back to Earth and is soon separated from it by Reed Richards, AKA Mister Fantastic’s sonic blaster and imprisoned. Though it escapes confinement and reattaches itself to Parker, tolling bells force it to flee from the hero, leaving him unconscious. The Other ultimately saves Parker, having learned humanity from him.
Though, the Other’s humanity fades when it comes into contact with Eddie Brock, whose hatred and cancer create the Venom symbiote, a vicious Spider-Man opponent. In one battle, the Other is seemingly slain when touched by the life-draining Jacob Eichorn, AKA Styx, but it soon regenerates and breaks Brock, AKA Venom, out from prison, unaware that it produces another offspring that eventually bonds with Brock’s cellmate, the sociopathic serial killer Cletus Kasady who believes that chaos is reality while order an illusion. Kasady and the spawn name themselves Carnage and go on a killing spree until the combined powers of Spider-Man and Venom stop them.
Vicious and Viscous
Like other of its race, the Carnage symbiote is composed of viscous protoplasm, allowing itself to bond with the blood cells and nervous system of its host. As such, the Carnage symbiote absorbs their host’s memories, traits, emotions and DNA to complement their own incomplete DNA. In return, the Carnage symbiote grants their host superhuman strength (capable of lifting 50 tons) and speed superior to those held by either Spider-Man or Venom. Although it is not clear how this is the case, the augmentation may have been due to this particular spawn being incubated on Earth, and/or due to being the “child” of the Venom symbiote, which adopts Spider-Man’s powers, including his strength and agility. With the replacement Carnage symbiote, which was not incubated on Earth nor directly linked to Venom, superhuman strength reduces to 35 tons, but the exact causality of this differential in abilities is unknown. However, the new symbiote appears to adopt all of the original Carnage’s powers, presumably via some form of transference from Kasady.
Like Spider-Man and Venom, Carnage possesses the power to stick to walls at his hands and feet, and to generate “swing lines” or “tendrils” from the alien material’s tough, flexible fibers of organic polymers. He uses these tendrils for travel like how Spider-Man uses his webbing.
Like Venom, Carnage generates “snares” to trap and entangle foes and extends the costume into elongated claws and teeth. In addition, the Carnage symbiote can separate parts of itself and project bladed weapons, such as ax blades and sharp sword-like protrusions. These portions of the symbiote costume, when separated from Kasady for more than approximately 10 seconds, lose their molecular integrity and disintegrate into dust.
Similar to Venom, the Carnage symbiote shares a telepathic bond with its host and is capable of absorbing bullets from small-arms weapons firing conventional ammunition. However, the symbiote was vulnerable to both sonics (to a much lesser degree than the Venom symbiote), and to heat-based attacks (to a much greater degree than the Venom symbiote). The Carnage symbiote can mimic any type of clothing, but unlike Venom, Carnage has not been seen using the costume’s “chameleon” ability as camouflage.
Carnage can deaden Spider-Man’s spider-sense to a certain degree, though it cannot neutralize it completely. The original Carnage symbiote can apparently also block the Venom symbiote from its natural parental ability to track its offspring. It is unknown if the second symbiote can mimic this ability.
Avenging Adversaries
Spider-Man and Venom are the Carnage symbiote’s most persistent enemies. Other foes include Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, the Avengers, one of the most powerful heroes in the world, Robert Reynolds, AKA Sentry, a clone of Spider-Man, Ben Reilly, AKA Scarlet Spider, and former bully turned Super Hero Flash Thompson, AKA Agent Anti-Venom. The Carnage symbiote proves resilient, surviving several fatal encounters.
Blood Bonds
Carnage forms a unique bond with Kasady, taking on most of the killer’s unsavory personality traits. While the Carnage symbiote is often bonded to Kasady, the symbiote is known to jump around to other hosts. For a time, he bonds to Normie Osborn, Norman Osborn, AKA Green Goblin’s grandson.
Carnage is psychically linked to the Life Foundation symbiotes through his parent symbiote Venom. These symbiotes include Leslie Gesneria, AKA Agony, Ramon Hernandez, AKA Lasher, Carl Mach, AKA Phage, Trevor Cole, AKA Riot, and Donna Diego, AKA Scream. Often these symbiotes are his allies and sometimes he uses them to accomplish his own deadly deeds.
Carnage creates numerous offshoots of itself and spawns on numerous occasions, such as Raze and Toxin. Many of Carnage’s other symbiotes haven’t been named, but Carnage uses them to control such heroes as Miles Morales, AKA Spider-Man.
A Bloody History
After being captured by Spider-Man and Venom, Carnage was remanded to Ravencroft Institute, where he resisted 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. Venom and Spider-Man, with the help of their super-powered allies, soon captured Carnage. Though Carnage found a way to escape containment again and helped its host Kasady kill Billy Bentine, a man who befriended the killer.
The Carnage symbiote soon abandoned Kasady and tracked down Spider-Man—Ben Reilly, at the time—the symbiote allowed the web-slinger to defeat its new host. The creature overwhelmed Ben, creating the near-unbeatable Spider-Carnage. But Ben contained the symbiote’s murderous urges long enough to return it to Ravencroft, where it was subdued once more.
The determined symbiote soon 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 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 half. Retrieved from space, industrialist Michael Hall extracted the Carnage symbiote from Kasady’s body and combined it with a prosthetic arm and other exo-suits dubbed the Iron Rangers. The prosthesis was given to Dr. Tanis Nieves, Shriek’s psychiatrist. The Carnage symbiote in her arm forced her to find Kasady and once reunited, they defeated the Iron Rangers by taking them into himself, becoming Mass Carnage. Wanting revenge on Hall, Carnage was stopped by Spider-Man and Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, while Nieves cut off her arm to rid herself of the symbiote, only to be reunited with it and subsequently becoming the cybernetic symbiote Scorn. As Scorn, she forced Shriek to use her sonic blast against Mass Carnage, defeating the creature. Though the real Carnage had already escaped.
Carnage soon possessed the citizens of Doverton, Colorado where the Avengers took a stand against the symbiote along with a government task force of symbiote-enhanced soldiers led by Scorn. The newest Avenger, Flash Thompson, was bonded with the Venom symbiote and as Agent Venom, came to the rescue to help defeat Carnage. Due to Thompson’s intervention, the Carnage symbiote was captured and taken to Thunderbolts Mountain.
Kasady soon helped the Microns—a subatomic-sized alien race of assassins from the Microverse—to win a war as the Carnage symbiote regenerated from his cells. His new allies dispatched vigilante Kaine, another clone of Spider-Man. Though true to form, Carnage turned on its new allies, killing all of them save Raidus and Katy Kiernan, an ally to Brock. Carnage was soon captured by Marquis Radu as was Agent Venom, and used their symbiotes to create an army. Though the army was unstable, Kasady took control of them and escaped back home where he was defeated by Venom and Kaine.
Soon, Kasady was freed by Bentley Wittman, AKA The Wizard, who wanted him for his new Frightful Four team. However, Kasady was not in control and instead his symbiote attacked the Wizard and ultimately attached itself to Bentley. The Carnage symbiote eventually reunited with Kasady who regained control of the symbiote but not for long as Ulysses Klaw, AKA Klaw, used his sonic powers to separate the two and they were taken into custody.
While imprisoned at the Kramer Penitentiary, the Carnage symbiote and Kasady weren’t separated for long and soon killed all the staff and prisoners, making a comeback. Carnage and Kasady were soon impacted by an inversion spell that flipped the moral compass of many heroes and villains, including his own. The Carnage symbiote was used by Kasady to contain a bomb and prevent many deaths. The spell was soon reverted as were Carnage and Kasady to their true terrible selves. He soon terrorized Sam Alexander, AKA Nova, a friend he made during the inversion, and was lured into a trap by FBI task force leader Claire Dixon. He then discovered the Darkholders and absconded with the Darkhold—a mystical book that granted him the power to control the cultists and enhanced his abilities. To unlock the full capabilities of the Darkhold, he traveled to a sacred stone altar on an island near Indonesia. On the way he was found by sailor Jubulile Van Scotter whom he infected with his symbiote and transformed a freighter’s crew into mindless monsters. Dixon, having consulted Darkhold expert Victoria Montesi, and her task force arrived but Carnage took her hostage and transformed her into the symbiote known as Raze. They beelined it for the island but the island’s inhabitants captured Carnage . Raze liberated him and once at the stone altar, they 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. Carnage and Kasady were separated once more.
The symbiote was stolen and taken to Norman Osborn, and despite bonding with it and nearly killing Spider-Man, the wall-crawler convinced him that Carnage and Kasady would get the credit for killing him. Osborn tore the symbiote off him but was captured and taken to Ravencroft Institute, leaving him with an imprint of Kasady on his psyche. The Carnage symbiote and Kasady were again parted, though there were remnants of Carnage within his body, which protected him for a time while he was in outer space but his body died as he re-entered Earth. The Cult of Knull who worshiped Knull, the God of Symbiotes, recovered his body and with Scorn’s help, bonded it with a primordial Grendel symbiote which reanimated him but left him connected to Knull. He fought the connection, relieving himself from it, and consumed Scorn’s spine, taking back the 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 directed his new minions to seek out these codices in former symbiote hosts, dead or alive, through bloody and brutal means.
After gaining even more codices, he became Dark Carnage. He soon fought Brock as Venom who bonded to Bruce Banner, AKA the Hulk, which left Kasady feeling the blows more than normal. He removed the Venom symbiote from Banner and taking it 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 Earth-1610’s Reed Richards, AKA The Maker’s machine, which created a copy of the Venom symbiote. They fought each other until several heroes interrupted them. With Dark Carnage overpowered, he absconded to a tunnel where Brock’s son Dylan and Normie Osborn were hiding out. Taking Dylan hostage, he threatened Venom that any action he’d take would awaken Knull. Venom materialized a sword and killed Carnage once and for all, which freed Knull.
Despite his body’s death, Kasady’s mind remained alive in the Symbiote Hive-Mind where he was still in control of the Carnage/Grendel symbiote, which had bonded to Brock, allowing him to control Brock. Dylan and the Venom symbiote soon saved Brock and Kasady bonded the Carnage/Grendel symbiote to a shark and made his escape. Kasady tried to join Knull when he invaded Earth but failed when Eddie became the new God of the Symbiotes.
The Carnage symbiote soon bonded to Friends of Humanity member Senator Peter Krane’s son Arthur, a sociopathic killer who plotted to assassinate his father. Though Kasady soon usurped Arthur’s plot and body, becoming Carnage once more. Flash Thompson, now Agent Anti-Venom, and his team of symbiotes were too late to stop Carnage from slaying the Senator, but engaged Carnage in battle with Iron Man, who wore his Extrembiote suit—one of Knull’s symbiote dragons fused with Iron Man tech. Iron Man separated Carnage from Arthur but Carnage attached itself to the suit, gaining strength and fleeing the scene with his emissary and fellow symbiote Agony.
