Carnage

Carnage (Cletus Kasady) is a fiction character, a supervillain in the . The character first appears in The Amazing Spider-Man #344 (March 1991), and was created by writer David Michelinie and artist Mark Bagley. In 2009, Carnage was ranked as IGN's 90th Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time.

Writer David Michelinie created Carnage to be a darker version of Venom intending to have Venom's human alter ego, Eddie Brock, be killed off in 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 honor. The character was originally meant to be named "Chaos" and then "Ravage" before being settled on "Carnage." Carnage's human component, Cletus Kasady was designed by artist Erik Larsen who modeled the character after the DC Comics supervillain the Joker. Mark Bagley designed the Carnage symbiote.

Cletus Kasady was introduced in Amazing Spider-Man #344 and first appears as Carnage in issue #360. He is the main villain in the 1993 "Maximum Carnage" crossover, a 14-part storyline crossover that spanned through all the Spider-Man titles. In 1996, two one-shot comics centered entirely around Carnage were released, entitled Carnage: Mind Bomb and Carnage: It's A Wonderful Life, both of which expand on his character.

Cletus Kasady had a troubled childhood, killing his grandmother by pushing her down a flight of stairs, and torturing his mother's dog. His mother then tries to kill Cletus, and is apparently beaten to the brink of death by Kasady's father, who receives no defense from Kasady during his trial. As an orphan, Kasady is sent to the St. Estes Home for Boys, where his antisocial behavior makes him the target of abuse from both the other orphans and the staff. Kasady gains revenge by murdering the disciplinarian administrator, pushing a girl who refused a date with him in front of a moving bus, and burning down the orphanage.