Carnage (symbiote)

The **Carnage symbiote** is an alien life-form that first appeared in the Spider-Man crossover episodes "Back in The New York Groove" and "Drive My Carnage" episodes of Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout. Despite having promotional artwork and a biography on the website for Marvel's Spider-Man, the Carnage symbiote and its host, **Cletus Kasady**, did not make an appearance in the show proper.

## Appearance

Carnage is a red symbiote, something that Drax of the Guardians of The Galaxy noted as being strange for the species.

## Personality

According to Thanos, the Carnage symbiote is just an empty vessel and unlike the V-252 and other members of their species, it has no mind of its own.

## History

Carnage is one of the many symbiotes Thanos weaponized on Groot's homeworld, Planet X.

At an unknown point in time, Thanos hid the symbiote inside of an asteroid that the Guardians of the Galaxy left in the care of the Avengers at Avengers Compound. Carnage attacked Iron Man and Ant-Man on its quest to free Thanos which led it to the New York Subways and eventually into a battle against Spider-Man and the Guardians.

After being used by Thanos to battle the Black Suit Spider-Man and the Guardians, the Carnage symbiote was turned into a solid and possibly died after Thanos broke free from its solid-state.

Despite bonding with Thanos, who had vas knowledge over the symbiotes, the two were defeated by the combined efforts of Spider-Man, the V-252, and the Guardians.

## Relationships

### Thanos

The Carnage symbiote is a mere tool to Thanos and was nothing more.

## Abilities

### **Body mass manipulation**

Carnage is able to manipulate his body to an assortment of things, such as forming weapons.

### **Mind-control**

Carnage was able to infect miners with his body mass and manipulate their actions. Thanos had the plan to use Carnage and the V-252 to mold the human race into a symbiote army until his defeat by Spider-Man and the Guardians of the Galaxy.

## Trivia

* This is the first time that the Carnage symbiote, as an alien, is not an offspring or created off of Venom.
* The reason Carnage has not been referenced on *Marvel's Spider-Man* is that this show and *Guardians of the Galaxy* have different production staffs. Despite this, it is obvious that Carnage's appearance takes place after the Venom episode in season one.
	+ The Road to Maximum Venom video would technically be Carnage's first appearance in the series.
* The Carnage symbiote is similar to the Synthetic-Symbiote Max Modell created from a piece of the Venom Symbiote.
	+ Both symbiotes can form a vast range of weapons through their host's mental control and cannot control their host's actions. The only difference is that Carnage was still sentient enough to track Thanos down to the New York Subway system while the synthetic symbiote is basically an object.
* The Carnage symbiote's appearance is very similar to its design from the *Ultimate Spider-Man* animated series.
	+ For the merchandise packaging, artist Patrick Brown created two designs for Carnage: one based on his design from the comic books and one similar to what was seen in the previous series, but without the black streaks that he described as being more "kid-friendly". Ironically, the design based on Carnage's comic book counterpart was used more than the kid-friendly design on all merchandise.

## References

1. ↑ [1]Despite only being mentioned as a passing reference, the synopsis from Marvel.com confirms that the red symbiote from Guardians of The Galaxy: Mission Breakout's crossover with Marvel's Spider-Man is the Carnage symbiote.