Carnage

Carnage
Cletus Kasady had a troubled childhood: he killed his grandmother by pushing her down a flight of stairs and tortured his mother's dog. 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 refused 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",[7] and came to see the spreading of chaos through random, unpatterned bloodshed as "the ultimate freedom."[8]

Finding the Symbiote
Kasady becomes a serial killer. He is captured and sent to Ryker's Island prison (for 11 murders, though he brags of a dozen more[9] ) where he shares a cell with Eddie Brock, who had lost the alien symbiote that transformed him into the supervillain Venom. Brock's symbiote soon returns and bonds with him again, and unwittingly leaves behind the symbiote's offspring; the symbiotes reproduce asexually and the children are then of no consequence to the parent, hence Brock's symbiote felt no need to inform Brock of the existence of its offspring. The new symbiote enters Kasady's bloodstream through a cut and bonds with his blood, transforming him into Carnage.[10] He escapes prison,[11] and begins a series of murders, and at the scene of each crime, writes "Carnage" on the walls with his own blood. He is found by Spider-Man, though the hero proves to be no match for Carnage's powers. In desperation, Spider-Man makes a truce with Venom to fight Carnage.[9] Carnage is defeated with sonic weaponry, but the symbiote lives on because it is merged with Kasady's bloodstream.

Maximum Carnage
See also: Maximum CarnageKasady is taken to The Vault, a prison for super-villains—then Ravencroft Institute, a facility for the super-human criminally insane. A doctor at the facility, hoping to find a "cure" for his madness, draws blood from him—unwittingly enabling Kasady to morph into Carnage—who goes on to recruit an army of psychopathic supervillains including Shriek, Demogoblin, Carrion, and Doppelganger to take over New York City. Using Shriek's "psychic channel" powers, he also drives ordinary New Yorkers to attack one another. Carnage and his "family" are ultimately driven back by Spider-Man, Venom, and a number of other superheroes and vigilantes, with Carnage and Shriek being remanded to Ravencroft.[12]

During a subsequent jailbreak, he made it his mission to kill his only childhood friend, Billy Bentime—hoping to refute the notion that friendship should be paid in kind. Carnage nearly defeated Spider-Man until Bentime tricked Carnage into reverting to human form, enabling Spider-Man to knock out Kasady with a simple punch.[13]

The Carnage symbiote was supposedly destroyed in a subsequent conflict,[volume & issue needed] and Kasady was sent back to Ryker's Island, where he unexpectedly transformed during transfer and rampaged through the prison. Shriek, who was still in league with Carnage, aided Carnage in taking over the island and recruiting villains like the Abomination, Mysterio, Screaming Mimi, and the Lizard. In the end, Carnage was thwarted once again by Spider-Man.[volume & issue needed]

Though bonded to Cletus Kasady's bloodstream, the symbiote found a way to ditch its host and overwhelm Ravencroft's chief, John Jameson; subsequently it transferred itself to Spider-Man--Ben Reilly (Peter Parker's clone) at the time—creating Spider-Carnage. Ben's willpower held out against the symbiote's murderous desires long enough for him to return it to Kasady at Ravencroft.