Carnage (character)

Carnage is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, usually as an adversary of Spider-Man and the archenemy of its parent Venom, in particular the Eddie Brock incarnation. The character made its first full appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man #361 (April 1992), and was created by writer David Michelinie and artist Mark Bagley, although the first published artwork of Carnage was penciled by Chris Marrinan. Stan Lee would also have some input in the character's name and attributes, pushing for a villain who was darker and more vicious than Venom, due to the latter's scrupulous character development and evolution into an antihero. Carnage belongs to a race of amorphous parasitic extraterrestrial organisms known as symbiotes, which form a symbiotic bond with their hosts and give them super-human abilities. Originating as an offspring of Venom, Carnage is much more powerful than its parent symbiote because of the symbiotes' biology, and is in many ways a darker version of him. Like Venom, Carnage has had multiple hosts over the years, but its most infamous one remains its first – serial killer Cletus Kasady, whose sadistic personality perfectly matches that of the symbiote. Other notable hosts include Ben Reilly, Karl Malus, and Norman Osborn, as well as Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson in the alternate Ultimate Marvel (Earth-1610) and Spider-Gwen (Earth-65) continuities. The Carnage symbiote gave birth to its first significant offspring, Toxin, in 2004. Since its original introduction in comics, the character has been adapted into other forms of media, such as television series and video games. Woody Harrelson voiced Carnage in its first live-action appearance in the film Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), set in Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU), and also portrayed Cletus Kasady, reprising his cameo role from Venom (2018). In 2009, the Cletus...