Carnage

Cletus Kasady
Series	Marvel Comics
Age	Unknown
Birthday	Unknown
Sex	Male
Species	Symbiote/Human Hybrid
Height	6'1"/186 cm (Varies)
Weight	190 lbs/86 kg (Varies)
Alignment	Chaotic Evil

“	We're gonna paint the whole damn world red!	„
	~ Carnage

Cletus 'Cortland' Kasady, more commonly known as Carnage, is a recurring villains in the Marvel Comics. He's one of Spider-Man's biggest foes and the offspring of Venom.

Background

Cletus Kasady is a psychopath and a homicidal sadist. He is a deeply disturbed individual with a dark past: as a child, he killed his grandmother by pushing her down a flight of stairs, tried to murder his mother by throwing a television into her bathtub, and tortured and killed his mother's dog. After the latter, his mother then tried to kill Cletus, and was apparently beaten to the brink of death by Kasady's father, who received no defense from Kasady during his trial. As an orphan, Kasady was sent to the St. Estes Home for Boys, where his antisocial behavior made him the target of abuse from both the other orphans and the staff. Kasady gained revenge by murdering the disciplinarian administrator, pushing a girl (who laughed at him for asking her to date him) in front of a moving bus, and burning down the orphanage. It was during his brutal years at St. Estes that Kasady acquired his philosophy that life was essentially meaningless and futile, that "laws are only words", and came to see the spreading of chaos through random, unpatterned bloodshed as "the ultimate freedom."

Kasady became a serial killer. He was then captured and sent to Ryker's Island prison for 11 murders—though he bragged about killing a dozen more—where he shared a cell with Eddie Brock, who had lost the alien symbiote that transformed him into the supervillain Venom. Brock's symbiote soon returned and bonded with him again, allowing him to escape prison. Unknown to Brock, the symbiote left its offspring in the cell. The new symbiote then bonded with Kasady, transforming him into Carnage. He escaped prison, and began a series of murders, and at the scene of each crime, wrote "Carnage" on the walls with his own blood. Kasady eventually formed a team named Maximum Carnage and became one of the deadliest criminals in the world.

Powers & Abilities

• Peak Human Physique: Even without Carnage, Cletus is still impressively strong and fast by human standards.
• Master Killer: Due to his experience as a serial killer, Cletus is highly skilled at murdering his victims, and was known for 11 murders (Or the 11 murders they knew about).
• Carnage Symbiote: Cletus has bonded with the Klyntar known as Carnage, which hides in his bloodstream until a cut opens up on Cletus' body that lets the symbiote manifest and alter Cletus' form, granting him a variety of abilities.
  • Superhuman Strength: Cletus Kasady was an individual of slightly above average conditioning. After bonding with his symbiote, he acquired physical strength exceeding that of Spider-Man and Venom combined, and acording to marvel can lift around 50 tons Additions to the symbiote's biomass make both the Carnage symbiote and its host infinitely stronger as it grows in size and gains in bulk. It can also be strengthened by feeding off the negative emotions of others around it, causing it to grow larger and exponentially stronger.
  • Superhuman Durability: The Carnage symbiote's biomass can withstand high caliber bullets, great impact forces, explosions, and powerful energy blasts without sustaining significant physical injury.
  • Superhuman Stamina: The Carnage symbiote augments its host's musculature and stamina well beyond peak human capacity, enabling Cletus to survive - albeit comatose - in the vacuum of space after his battle with the Sentry. It is able to survive in oxygen-less areas for long periods of time such as underwater or in toxic gases, the symbiote filtering breathable air to the host.
  • Regenerative Healing Factor: The Carnage symbiote possesses regenerative capabilities that enable it to fully regenerate from a few cells. It is capable of rapidly healing its host from would-be fatal injuries as severe as being torn in half, being decapitated, and healing the neurological injuries sustained by both the Wizard and Cletus Kasady after bonding to them for only a short period of time. It was also able to fix Osborn's deformities caused by excessive plastic surgery, restoring his original visage.
  • Genetic Memory: All symbiotes possesses the genetic memories of their ancestors, a rudimentary replica of the Symbiotes hive-mind. For instance, the Carnage symbiote possesses genetic memories of Galactus destroying a symbiote-conquered world, and of the symbiote invasion of the Microverse.
  • Wall-Crawling: Like its forbearer, Kasady's alien costume also replicates Spider-Man’s ability to cling to walls by controlling the flux of inter-atomic attraction between molecular boundary layers.
  • Telepathy: Carnage, like all symbiotes, has vast yet undisclosed psychic abilities it has yet to fully grasp. A unique property Carnage uses of it, is the ability to download the insanity and evil of both its host and the symbiote into another sapient mind through use of its tendrils. It can also force Cletus Kasady's memories onto its hosts in order to torture and corrupt them.
  • Technological Symbiosis: Due to its biomass being used in the creation of Tanis Nieves' prosthetic limb and the Iron Ranger suits, the Carnage symbiote was able to seize control of them, temporarily assimilating the latter to become "Mass Carnage". It was also able to reach into and upload its insanity into Tony Stark's Iron Man armor when the latter tried to hack the Hall Industries biotech.
  • Webbing: The symbiote can project a powerful, organic web-like substance similar to Spider-Man and Venom have. Typically using this viscous substance to swing from building to building or as a means of immobilizing someone. The webbing is exceptionally strong, much more than even the finest human athlete can break.
  • Fangs & Claws: While bonded to a host, the symbiote frequently manifests fanged jaws and razor-sharp claws on its fingers and occasionally toes; which can be used as weapons in combat.
  • Constituent-Matter Generation: The Carnage symbiote is capable of forming tendrils and tentacles of its amorphous red-and-black biomass, using this to strangle or impale opponents. The symbiote can also convert ingested organic materials such as flesh and blood into additional biomass.
  • Constituent-Matter Manipulation: The Carnage symbiote possesses the ability to shapeshift its biomass into various shapes and forms.
    • Regeneration: If he is ever damaged in battle, the Carnage symbiote will rapidly repair any injury it or Cletus receives in moments. It can heal from deep cuts in its face, a bomb that explodes in its mouth, being decapitated, or even having its entire head obliterated in mere seconds. Even if all of Carnage's symbiote body is somehow destroyed or removed from Cletus, it can instantly reform so long as there is a single drop of Cletus' blood Carnage is still attatched to and an open wound exists for the symbiote to escape.
    • Shapeshifting: By controlling its body, Carnage can shapeshift at will, even far enough to reach across an entire city in moments.
      • Weapon Creation: By forming its shape with precision, Carnage can manifest weapons from its body like swords, spikes, bludgeons, knives, claws, axes, maces, lances, or tendrils. It's not limited to just weapons, however, as Carnage can even form cages tough enough to trap Spider-Man or generate a parachute to slow its fall.
  • Aerokinesis: During the prison break-out, Carnage displayed the ability to create powerful tornadoes and air currents by rapidly spinning.
  • Madness Infection: Carnage possesses the ability to control people by infiltrating their minds with its body. It once did so to control a group of superheroes.
  • 360-Degree Senses: While lacking a spider-sense, the Carnage symbiote possesses a form of full-body receptory system, in that each individual cell is capable of acting as an eye, ear, mouth, nose, or tastebud.
  • ESP Immunity: The Carnage symbiote is able to bypass Spider-Man's Spider-Sense, and can also suppress its presence to evade Venom's ability to detect its offspring and strike at him without triggering alarm.
  • Camouflage Capabilities: The symbiote is capable of mimicking the appearance of any form of clothing, camouflaging with its surroundings, and even mimicking other people. Kasady's clothing is largely red due to the symbiote's biomass coloration.
  • Digital Immersion: Carnage once figured out how to spread his symbiotic biomass into the Internet by splicing his molecules through Ethernet cables to travel between hard-wired computers systems.
  • Symbiotic Expansion and Psychic Control: Following being experimented on by Hall Industries, the symbiote developed the ability to create duplicates of itself that could be controlled by its main body. The symbiote's excess biomass can be remotely piloted through large communities or vast expanses to take control over countless individuals with but a gesture. This power was initially lost after the Superior Spider-Man had the creature chemically neutered; but the symbiote regained an altered version of this lost facility via exposure to The Darkhold - though this required an altar to Chthon to work properly. After bonding to Norman Osborn, the Carnage symbiote regained this ability in full, transferring part of its biomass to Normie Osborn to turn him into the Goblin Childe.
  • Symbiote Assimilation: A trait shared with other symbiotes, the Carnage symbiote is capable of assimilating others into its own constituent mass in order to vastly increase its size and strength; and seemingly used this ability to restore itself after the majority of its biomass was devoured by Venom.
  • Vampirism: The Carnage symbiote is rarely depicted with vampiric abilities resembling those of its Ultimate counterpart. Its very touch is said to be caustic to others, making prolonged contact fatal to any unlucky recipient within the symbiote's grasp.
  • Stretching and Deforming: Even while bonded to a host, the Carnage symbiote can grow and expand to any size as long as it has the additional bodily mass to supplement its growth. The symbiote is also able to get inside of small areas such as electric wires and the insides of cars to completely disable them.
  • Empathic Empowerment: The Carnage symbiote can take any form of negative emotions around it and turn it into a fuel source both for the purpose of sustenance and a power boost. The Carnage symbiote's unusual power compared to other symbiotes has been attributed to it feeding off and amplifying Cletus Kasady's insatiable nihilistic bloodlust.
  • Immense Physique: While bonded with Carnage, Cletus is far stronger, faster, and tougher than before, even surpassing Venom's own physical capabilities.
  • Sonic Immunity: Though it used to be weakened by them, Carnage has become immune to sound-based attacks after he came into contact with the Darkhold.
  • Parasitic Inheritance: The symbiote can copy the powers and abilities of other beings by interfacing with their genetic code. The symbiote is capable of recalling that information from previous hosts and imprinting it upon it's current wearer, granting them a host of copy and assimilated powers.
    • Superior Carnage (Karl Malus):
      • Body Storage: When Karl Malus bonded to the symbiotes, he used it to hold and store multiple munitions, armaments, and other items and equipment on his person through dimensional apertures within it's biomass. He was able to extrude these objects through the biomass while maintaining an otherwise sleek, aerodynamic profile.
      • Attribute Absorption: The Carnage symbiote can adapt some of the stored objects' unique properties, as shown when Karl Malus once absorbed some Vibranium into the suit and incorporated it into one of its Constituent-Matter blades.
      • Repetitive Hosting Empowerment: The Wizard and Klaw both erroneously surmised that symbiotes are weakest without a proper host to be bonded to. After being dissipated, Klaw realized that the Carnage symbiote is more autonomous than many others of its kind, and by bonding to multiple hosts over time the symbiote has become more powerful.
    • Red Goblin (Norman Osborn):
      • Pyrokinesis: Infusion with the Goblin Formula gave the Carnage symbiote a form of pyrokinesis. It was able to breathe fire from its mouth - used offensively against Venom, and create explosive "Carnage-Bombs" from its biomass. The symbiote-augmented Goblin Glider was wreathed in flames, which could be used both offensively and for propulsion.
      • Symbiotic Expansion and Psychic Control: The Carnage symbiote was able to create remote-controlled symbiotic biomass constructs which were self-aware and sensory-linked to their progenitor. Examples of these constructs included the Carnage Bombs - flight-capable explosives that he could speak through; and the symbiote-augmented Goblin Glider, which he could either manifest out of his body or create by covering an existing Goblin Glider in symbiote biomass. The Red Goblin's control over the Carnage symbiote was such that he could remotely control projectiles of the symbiote's biomass, intending to use them to assassinate Spider-Man's loved ones.

Equipment

• Sharp Tooth: Because Carnage can't manifest unless its host has a bleeding wound for it to form from, Cletus has sharpened one of his teeth to a needle-point so he can cut his tongue with ease.

Feats

Strength

• He can tear through reinforced steel doors with ease.
• Ripped out the top of a car.
• He can break walls with no problem.
• He's able to tear Spider-Man off of walls.
• His maximum lifting strength is 80 tons.
• Shook off both Spider-Man and Venom at the same while he wasnt paying attention.
• Flung Venom across the city.
• Tears out an adamantium Sentinel's eye.
• Strong enough to make Magneto draw blood through his armour & shield.
• Pulverize a marble wall.
• Bites through Wolverine's claws.
• Can lift and throw a helicopter.
• Launched a guard through an armored truck
• Manhandled both Spider-Man and Venom at the same time
• Broke through a prison wall
• Punched a man's eye out of his skull
• Threw multiple cars
• Lifted a 50 ton tank
• Beat down the Wizard
• Knocked out Nightcrawler in one hit
• Fought his way out of Cloak's Darkforce dimension.
• Overpowered Luke Cage
• A cage made out of his fingers is strong enough to restrain Spider-Man.
• Tied up a group of villains with his webs.
• Smashes his way out of a church through the roof, causing stone rubble to fall.
• Slams Venom into a stone wall, breaking a large amount of it.
• Smashes a huge hole in the wall of a prison.
• Tears off prison cell bars.
• Throws a prison table to the side.
• Throws a car into stone pillars, destroying them.
• Breaks pews with an arm blade.
• Cuts a vehicle in two.
• Breaks a metal doorframe.
• Bites the head off a man.
• With new tendrils and extensions, hit a guard into a wall.
• Breaks out of a specially designed soundproof cell before breaking craters in walls in a prison.
• Throws a prison guard into a cell, breaking the bars off.
• Breaks stone with multiple tendrils before lifting cars to smash them into each other.
• Throws a pickup truck off a bridge.
• Impales spikes through people before throwing them through metal bars.
• Impales a spike through Venom before throwing him into a stone wall, cratering it.
• Smashes through and takes down a helicopter.
• After repeatedly wrapping tendrils around a soundproof cell for a person, crushes and breaks it.
• Bursts out an execution chamber.

Speed

• Stated that he's atleast 5x faster than a normal human
• He's faster than Spider-Man's Spider Sense.
• He killed an entire squad of symbiote soldiers before they could react.
• He eviscerated Deadpool before he could attack him once.
• Able to outspeed Iron Man with his biomass projectiles.
• Evaded Firestar's beam.
• Considered to be more agile than Spiderman & Venom.
• Avoided Shriek's sonic blasts.
• Disarmed several opponents of their magical weapons.
• Tagged Nova Corps member Sam Alexander
• Killed an group of thugs before they could react
• Traveled 2 miles in mere seconds
• Blitzed warriors from the Microverse

Durability

• He can tank a blast from all of Iron Man's weapons.
• Immune against gunfire and RPG ammo.
• Resisted a grenade explosion in his mouth.
• Immune against neck-snapping and decapitation.
• Got hit by a train and survived.
• Resisted getting electrocuted by thousands of volts.
• Survives a series of Nova Force Blast from Sam Alexander.
• Survived Dr. Doom and Genesis' blasts.
• Regenerate from getting blown to pieces created by Apocalypse.
• Got hit with the Fantastic Four's super sonic gun, tanked it perfectly fine until Heatwave blasted him as well, and then recovered in moments.
• Got thrown through every single floor of the Raft by the Sentry and later got torn in half; he survived, albeit with the need for prosthetic legs
• Survived being blown up by two missiles
• Took one of Spider-Man's strongest punches and no-sold it
• Got hit by Spider-Woman's bio-electric blasts
• Defended himself against a repulsor blast
• Tanked an all-out assault from Iron Man
• No-sold the Mark of Kaine
• Withstood beatings from the Scarlet Spider & Venom
• Once survived having a bomb meant to wipe out the human race explode inside his body
• Failed to be affected by a weapon designed to fight against evil emotions
• Survived a gasoline explosion
• Got hit by Sunfire's flames
• Survived the explosion of Klaw, a sound-based being
• Ask Cletus, fell down a church tower, hitting a mass of scaffolding on his way, and is incapacitated but conscious hitting his head on the ground.
• Exchanges blows with Venom, getting sent into stone hard enough to break it.
• Kicked a distance across a church and into stone, breaking it.
• Swung through multiple stone pillars.
• Falls to the ground while tangling with Venom, breaking stone.
• Unaffected by a pistol clip being unloaded into him.

Skill

• Is able to take on both Spider-Man and Venom at the same time.
• Defeated Man-Wolf and Deadpool.
• Once travelled through internet wiring.
• Considered to be the deadliest foe Spiderman ever faced.
• Once almost conquered Microverse.
• Fought the Avengers on multiple occasion.
• Often regarded as one of the deadliest members of Spider-Man’s rogues gallery, often to the point where he, Venom and other street-level heroes and villains have had to ally with each other in order to remotely stand a chance.
• Aside from Kasady, the Carnage symbiote has bonded with other hosts, such as Ben Reilly, Norman Osborn (its current host), the Wizard and the Silver Surfer.
• Used the symbiote to drive a psychologist insane with his thoughts.
• Once managed to take control of several Avengers, including Captain America, Wolverine, the Thing and Hawkeye.
• Can release his symbiote by cutting himself with a sharpened tooth.
• Grew to gigantic proportions after absorbing dead cattle.
• In Carnage USA, he took over the town of Doverton, Colorado by infecting the entire populace - including several Avengers - with the symbiote.
• Embarked on a long killing spree in New York City with several supervillains in the Maximum Carnage event.
• Was morally Inverted during the AXIS crossover and “attempted” to become a superhero, culminating with his sacrifice play to stop a bomb created by the Inverted X-Men meant to wipe out all non-mutant life on Earth. (The Inversion did not last, and Carnage resumed his villainous ways some time after.)
• Wraps multiple times around a specialized cell.
• Raises a car with a mass of tendrils, suspending it before lifting other cars.
• Covers a large amount of the top of a church tower.
• Shifts an arm into a blade.
• Shoots a mass of spikes.
• Pins Venom to a stone wall with a different form of restraint.
• Used to stop himself in the air after being thrown.
• Used by Cletus to leap high and far through the air without fully turning into Carnage.
• Hotwires a car by pulling tendrils into the ignition.
• Opens a hole in his chest for bullets to pass through him.
• Kills someone by shoving his tongue into their mouth.
• Spins at incredible speeds, creating what appears to be a tornado behind him.
• After discovering a person was secretly sent to a high-security prison, breaks his way in and to her cell without raising any alarms.

Weaknesses

• Mentally Unstable: Despite his raw power, Carnage is utterly insane and is prone to anger, which can cloud his judgement or lead him to violently outrage.
• Heat Vulnerability: Like all Klyntar, the Carnage symbiote is particularly vulnerable to extreme heat and fire. Exposure to flames causes it to feel intense pain and to retract into Cletus' bloodstream, leaving him vulnerable to attack.
• Sound Vulnerability
• Healing Factor: His healing factor also has its limits; while Carnage has survived a lot of things which should have likely been his end, the symbiote can take a lot of time to help him recover from especially grievous injuries.

Fun Facts

• He was created by David Michelinie and Mark Bagley.
• Woody Harrelson has stated that Cletus Kasady will be having a major role in the upcoming sequel to 2018's Venom, having been unable to read its script until signing for the first film.