Cletus Kasady When
Eddie Brock's
Venom symbiote soon returned to be bonded again, allowing Venom to escape prison, the symbiote left its offspring in the cell; due to its alien mindset, the symbiote felt no emotional attachment to its offspring, regarding it as insignificant, and thus never communicated its existence to Brock via their telepathic link. The new symbiote then bonded with
Cletus Kasady through a cut on his hand, transforming him into Carnage. The bond between the Carnage symbiote and Kasady was not as strong as the bond between Brock and the Venom symbiote. However, Cletus Kasady was also a serial killer and thought of as insane. As a result, Carnage is far more violent, powerful, and deadly than Venom. Kasady and the symbiote would then be the main antagonist in "
Maximum Carnage" and Kasady would continually be the most recurring character to use the Carnage symbiote in many publications.
Spider-Carnage (Ben Reilly) The Carnage symbiote briefly managed to escape Kasady by traveling through the plumbing in his cell. It briefly used John Jameson as its host, but eventually transferred itself to Spider-Man—
Ben Reilly at the time— when Ben bonded with it to prevent it from hurting any innocent people, creating Spider-Carnage. Ben's willpower held out against the symbiote's murderous desires long enough for him to return it to
Ravencroft. Reilly subsequently attempted to destroy the symbiote by subjecting himself to a potentially lethal blast of microwaves, but it escaped back to Kasady after the microwaves forced it to separate from Reilly.
Superior Carnage (Karl Malus) After Kasady was lobotomized, he was broken out of prison by
Wizard and
Klaw, who intended to recruit him into the Frightful Four and turn him into their version of Venom. After a failed attempt to control Kasady, Wizard transferred the Symbiote to Dr.
Karl Malus. Malus was enraged and under the influence of the Symbiote tried to kill his teammates, but he was subdued by Klaw and controlled by Wizard, who renamed him "Superior Carnage" and equipped him with weapons. The trio are confronted by the
Superior Spider-Man and during their battle Wizard loses his control over Carnage and he is fatally injured once Spider-Man accidentally drops him due to the shock of finding out Wizard read his mind and knows about Otto Octavius. Carnage, now free, goes on a rampage and starts to kill anyone in front of him. Klaw tries to stop him, but due to his weapon being damaged, he fails and realizes that the only way is for Wizard to take back control. Both Carnage and Klaw make their way outside. Carnage fights the Superior Spider-Man and admits that although he liked using weapons, for him ripping and slashing the bodies is better. Klaw tries to get Wizard to control Carnage again but is killed by Carnage and the explosion separates the Symbiote from its host, only to bond with the injured Wizard. He initially found himself overwhelmed by the symbiote's desire for mindless slaughter when he allowed it to merge with him, but he has been able to 'persuade' the symbiote to let him take control of Carnage's powers to show it something other than 'boring' mindless slaughter. Part of Carnage is later transferred to
Normie Osborn, turning him into a miniature version of Red Goblin. The Carnage symbiote is seemingly destroyed by Spider-Man when he hits it with an exploding gas tank, however, because the symbiote was attached to Norman when Peter destroyed it, he wonders what sort of effect that might have had on his old foe's mind. Later as Spider-Man visits Norman in Ravencroft, it is revealed that Norman's mind appears to have been completely fried and now believes that Spider-Man is Norman Osborn and he is Cletus Kasady. Meanwhile, Harry manages to remove the Carnage symbiote from Normie.
Eddie Brock Following the defeat of Cletus Kasady, the Carnage and
Grendel symbiotes were absorbed by Eddie Brock, who is later given an offer to join the Avengers. However, in the middle of his big day, Carnage can overcome Venom and take over. Eddie leaves before things get out of hand, leaving the Avengers with strange reactions. Eddie returns home and tries to quiet the Carnage in a way he has done before with Venom, heavy medication. Eddie passes out and has a vision of
Knull. This causes Eddie to take off and head towards the island where he long ago had thought he had killed Spider-Man and where he remained until the emergence of Carnage. However, Carnage catches on to Eddie's thoughts and causes the plane to crash land. Separated from the Carnage symbiote, Eddie is ready to face it off. After a narrow escape that cost him his left hand, Eddie was eventually rescued by the Avengers, who promptly nuked the island to finally eradicate the symbiotes still on it. Eddie Brock's son
Dylan discovers the ability to track and control symbiotes, which he uses to find Eddie, and learns a terrible truth: Eddie never left the island at all. Instead, he has been bonded against his will to Carnage. Using the Venom symbiote and taking the form of a
Tyrannosaurus, Dylan tries to separate his father from Carnage but only allows the Carnage symbiote to take Dylan to his father's mindscape. There, Dylan is able to finally free himself and Eddie from Carnage's control. However, the symbiote survives the ordeal, and is also able to leave the island by bonding with a shark.
Eddie Brock: Carnage After the "
Venom War" storyline, Eddie bonds with Carnage to survive, in
Eddie Brock: Carnage, with Carnage joining the
New Avengers.
Arthur Krane Following the confrontation with the new King in Black, a piece of the symbiote survived and chooses a fish for a host and then attacks a shark. It eventually moves up the food chain and arrives on a fishing boat and begins again a killing spree. Inspired by what Eddie had done, Carnage formulated a new plan to make a comeback using the power Knull had bequeathed to create a rival Hive with itself as its nexus. Carnage slowly made its way back to New York – restoring itself by devouring everyone it came across en route. Once back in Manhattan, Carnage bonded to Senator
Arthur Krane who was running a campaign to rid Earth of aliens. Carnage also began to infect many of the symbiotes left behind on Earth with its will, including
Phage,
Lasher,
Riot, and
Agony. However, Carnage's failed attempt to corrupt the Anti-Venom symbiote alerted Flash Thompson and Iron Man.
Other hosts There have been other, shorter-term hosts for the symbiote.
John Jameson Though bonded to Kasady's bloodstream the symbiote found a way to abandon its host by travelling through the Ravencroft Institute's water pipes overwhelming Ravencroft's chief, John Jameson. Carnage used him to commit further murders before eventually bonding with Spider-Man (who was Ben Reilly at the time).
Scorn (Tanis Nieves) After Carnage was ripped in half by the
Sentry outside the Earth atmosphere, it is later discovered that, although the host was presumably killed, the symbiote survived by becoming dormant and returned to Earth, where it was discovered by Michael Hall, a competitor of
Tony Stark. He brought
Shriek and her doctor, Tanis Nieves, so he could use Shriek to keep the symbiote alive to use the properties of the symbiote, to create prosthetic limbs and exo-suits which respond in the same ways as a symbiote. Nieves is outfitted with one of these prosthetic arms after she is caught in an attack by
Doppelganger, who tried to rescue Shriek. When near the symbiote, her arm goes wild and forces her to kill several scientists before the symbiote forcefully bonds to her, becoming the new Carnage.
Goblin Child (Normie Osborn) The Crimson Leviathan Carnage bonded to a great white shark to escape from the Isla de Huesos, and prowled the ocean for several months as the "red king of darkness". Eventually it stumbled upon a boat full of whalers and seizing the opportunity, Carnage caught one of the whalers and bonds to him, climbed aboard and prepared to slaughter the crew, intent on taking its place as the Red Right Hand of the King in Black. At that exact moment however, Knull is killed by Eddie Brock, causing the symbiote dome encasing the Earth to shatter into countless symbiotes. Through the symbiote hive mind, Eddie, now the new god of the symbiotes, calls out to Carnage, who snarls for his nemesis to get out of his head. As symbiotes rain from the sky onto the ship and into the ocean, they bond to the crew of the ship and state that they are Venom, leaving Carnage shocked and incredulous. Manifesting an arm-blade, Carnage snarls that he'll kill them all but is unceremoniously booted overboard. Interjecting, the Venom symbiote states that Knull is dead and that Eddie is the new King in Black, making Carnage now one of his subjects. As Carnage sinks back into the ocean, Eddie says he is not welcome in his reformed Hive and sentences him to execution. Countless symbiote-controlled sharks began swarming Carnage and devouring him in a feeding frenzy until the symbiote completely disappeared in the darkness of the ocean. == Powers and abilities ==