Carnage

### Status

Deceased (Killed when Venom stomped on him and ate him at the end of the fight/battle)

## Behind the scenes

### Portrayed by

Woody Harrelson

**Carnage** was a Symbiote bonded with Cletus Kasady. At the moment of its birth, it despised its father Venom and sought to eliminate him with the help of Kasady, making a deal to free Kasady's lover Frances Barrison and then kill both Venom and Eddie Brock, Venom's host.

After Barrison kidnapped Anne Weying and Patrick Mulligan and brought them to a cathedral in order to lure Brock and Venom, Venom and Carnage then fought each other, with Carnage gaining the upper hand, but just as he was about to kill Venom and Brock, Venom made Barrison scream one final time to separate the two Symbiotes from their hosts. Carnage attempted to bond again with Kasady but Venom, who re-bonded much quicker, devoured it along with its host.

## Biography

### Venom: Let There Be Carnage

In 2019, police detective Patrick Mulligan contacted Eddie Brock to speak to Cletus Kasady, a serial killer who refused to talk to anyone other than Brock. After the visit, Brock, with the help of his symbiote Venom, was able to figure out where Kasady hid the body of his victims, which gave him a huge career boost and transformed Kasady's indefinite imprisonment into a death sentence by lethal injection. Kasady, invited Brock to attend his execution. However, Venom is provoked to attack Kasady via insults towards Brock. Kasady bit Brock's hand, ingesting a small part of the symbiote.

As Kasady's execution happened, a red symbiote, born from Brock's blood and the part of Venom that Kasady ingested, emerged and blocked the injection. It violently possessed Kasady and went a violent rampage through the prison, freeing inmates and killing the guards, and then broke the walls of the prison and escaped. Kasady, now free, stole a fancy costume and a red car and the symbiote, speaking via the car mirror, introduced itself as Carnage and told Kasady about his ambitions of killing his father Venom and proposed to make a deal: Carnage will help Kasady break out Barrison from Ravencroft, and Kasady will help him eliminate Venom, which Kasady accepted. Mulligan calls Brock and warns him about the situation. Meanwhile, Venom, wanting more freedom to eat people, had an argument with Brock and detaches from his body; they go their different ways. In Ravencroft, Kasady frees Barrison, and they travel to their old children's home to burn it down.

Mulligan, suspicious of Brock due to his interactions with Kasady before Carnage emerged, takes Brock to the police station. Brock refuses to answer Mulligan's questions and contacts Weying as his lawyer. Brock reveals that Venom has separated from him and needs the symbiote to fight Carnage together.

Determined to get married, Cletus and Frances captured Detective Mulligan and Anne Weying, Eddie's former fiancé, and took them to a cathedral to serve as bait. Just as Cletus' wedding to Frances concluded, Venom arrived and Cletus transformed into Carnage, terrorizing Venom into retreating into Eddie's body. After Eddie bribed Venom into transforming him again, Carnage lunged at Venom only to be blasted point-blank by one of Frances sonic screams. Carnage angrily backhanded her away, the symbiote forcibly dragging the horrified and indignant Cletus back into itself when he tried to rush to his wife's side. Carnage battled Venom and quickly overpowered him until Venom kicked him into a pillar.

Sending Frances to kill the officer and warning her to keep her mouth shut, Carnage devoured the priest who had wed Cletus and Frances to "power up" despite having previously assured the man he would be spared. Resuming his fight with Venom, Carnage easily trounced his progenitor until Dr. Lewis - Anne's fiancé - poured burning gasoline on him. Enraged, Carnage attempted to eat Dr. Lewis but was stopped by Venom. The two resumed their fight until the church's bell began to toll - intermittently forcing the two symbiotes back into their hosts until Carnage ripped out the clapper.

Deeming that Frances had outlived her usefulness, Carnage attempted to throttle her - causing Cletus to attempt to break the bond they share. With Frances seemingly dead, Carnage forced Cletus back inside itself; however the distraction had caused Venom and Eddie to realize that its bond to Cletus was inferior to their bond. Scaling the side of the church, Venom impaled Carnage through the head with a broken piece of scaffolding, lowering Anne to safety even as Carnage vengefully stabbed and impaled him dozens of times.

As Carnage arrogantly declared his victory, Venom caused Frances to unleash a final scream that separated both symbiotes from their hosts and caused the cathedral to collapse. The Carnage symbiote attempted to rebond to the incapacitated Cletus, but to Cletus' dismay it was grabbed by Venom and promptly eaten; followed shortly by Venom angrily devouring Cletus' head to end his threat once and for all.

## Personality

Much like its progenitor, the Carnage symbiote is a bloodthirsty predator that desires to be the only symbiote on Earth. Carnage is an incredibly arrogant being who cares about nobody at all. Carnage had a great amount of hatred for its father Venom and his host Eddie Brock, going above and beyond in it's attempts to kill them. Unlike, his father Venom - who genuinely cares about the wellbeing of Eddie Brock and a select few other people, Carnage is completely ruthless and sees its host Cletus as a means to an end.

Despite Cletus and Carnage's shared appetite for chaos and destruction, it is not above threatening to kill his lover Frances and forcing him to stay bonded to it when he twice attempted to forcibly separate from it. The symbiote also see Frances as a liability due to her sonic powers, twice attacking her when she accidentally injured it and later attempting to kill her when it deemed she had outlived her usefulness.

## Relationships

### Enemies

* Eddie Brock - Enemy
* Venom - Parent, Enemy and Killer
* Frances Barrison/Shriek † - Former Ally turned Enemy

## Powers & Abilities

### Powers

The Carnage symbiote is considerably stronger than other members of its species, namely the Venom symbiote, and confers the following abilities to its host :

* **Superhuman Strength:** Carnage was strong enough to overpower Venom in physical altercations, as well as create a tornado-like vortex by whipping its tentacles.
* **Superhuman Durability**
* **Superhuman Stamina**
* **Digital Immersion**: Carnage can hack into any computer systems using it's advanced intelligence.
* **Accelerated Healing Factor:** Carnage's host can heal themselves from most, if not all attacks.
* **Storm Generation**
* **Wall-Crawling**
* **Constituent-Matter Generation**
* **Constituent-Matter Manipulation**: Carnage is capable of extending its biomass into tentacles, firing projectiles formed from its biomass, and transforming its host's limbs into a variety of weapons - including swords, axes, and flails.

### Weaknesses

* **Sonics:** Sounds within the 4 to 6-kilohertz range cause extreme pain to the Carnage symbiote, and prolonged exposure could kill it.
* **Intense Heat:** The Carnage symbiote is also vulnerable to intense levels of heat and flames.

## Behind the scenes

* At the beginning of *Venom*, it's mentioned that there are five alien lifeforms being brought back to Earth. Given only four are shown, the fifth has been assumed to Carnage.

## Trivia

* The relationship between the Carnage symbionte and Kletus in the movie is much different from the comics: while in the movie the symbionte cares little about his host's desires, to the point of attacking Shriek with no second thought, in the comics Kletus, thanks to his deviant personality, has completely subjected the symbionte's will to his own, to the point that, on the contrary of Eddie Brock who refers to himself as 'us' when he's bonded with Venom, he keeps using 'I' and, also, he never talks with his symbionte.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 SSMU's Carnage on the Marvel Wiki