Cletus Kasady

Cletus Cortland Kasady is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer David Michelinie and artist Erik Larsen, the character first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #344 (March 1991) as the first and most infamous host of the Carnage symbiote, an offspring of Venom. Originally a deranged serial killer, Kasady bonded with the symbiote while sharing a cell with Venom's human host, Eddie Brock, and broke out of prison using the super-human abilities granted by it. Since then, he went on to menace both Venom and Spider-Man, resulting in various unlikely alliances between the two to defeat him. Kasady and Carnage are a perfect match, as they both have sadistic personalities, and the symbiote only increases Kasady's already existent violent tendencies. After being separated from the redeemed Carnage symbiote in Absolute Carnage, Kasady nonetheless continued calling himself Carnage, bonding with Grendel, Mania and several other symbiotes to become Dark Carnage. Since his original introduction in comics, the character has been adapted into several other forms of media, such as television series and video games. Woody Harrelson portrays Cletus Kasady in the live-action Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU) films Venom (2018) and Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), bonding with Carnage in the latter film. In 2009, the Cletus Kasady version of Carnage was ranked as IGN's 90th-greatest comic book villain of all time. Publication history Writer David Michelinie intended to have Venom's human alter ego, Eddie Brock, be killed off in The Amazing Spider-Man #400 and have the symbiote continue to bond with a series of hosts. However, as Brock and Venom's popularity increased, Marvel would not allow him to be killed. Michelinie decided to create a new character: a total psychopath who, unlike Venom, had no sense of morality. The human component of Carnage's first host, Cletus Kasady, was designed by artist Erik Larsen, who modeled the character after the DC Comics supervillain the Joker. Kasady was introduced in The Amazing Spider-Man #344 and first appears as Carnage in issue #361. As the host of the Carnage symbiote, he is the main villain in the 1993 "Maximum Carnage" crossover, a 14-part storyline crossover that spanned through all the Spider-Man titles.