Carnage

Height: 6 ft. 1 in.
Weight: 190 lbs.
Eyes: Green
Hair: Red

Carnage was once a serial killer known as Cletus Kasady, and became Carnage after merging with the offspring of the alien symbiote called Venom during a prison breakout at which Eddie Brock/Venom and Kasady were both present. The symbiote not only made Kasady more dangerous physically, it amplified his psychotic nature making him even less mentally stable than he had been previously, making him even more dangerous to innocent people. An interesting note is that, unlike Venom, Carnage considers himself to be a singular entity, referring to himself as "I" instead of "We," despite the fact that Kasady and the symbiote can be considered separate entities. Spider-Man has at one point hypothesized that this is because the Carnage symbiote is more strongly bonded to Kasady than the Venom symbiote is to Brock, but it could also be a result of Kasady's self-serving personality. Carnage is also the "father" of Toxin.

Kasady has been separated and re-attached to the symbiote multiple times. The Carnage symbiote has occasionally attached itself to other hosts, including The Silver Surfer and the Ben Reilly version of Spider-Man. At one point the Silver Surfer encapsulated the symbiote in space, during which Kasady retained the Carnage persona by costuming himself in red paint and continuing his killing sprees (albeit as a powerless human). After the symbiote was freed and once again rebonded to Kasady, Venom decided to absorb the Carnage symbiote "for good." This was short lived, however, as Kasady coincidentally found an exact replica of the symbiote in the Negative Zone.

Maximum Carnage

The most famous storyline in which he appears is Maximum Carnage in which Venom and Spider-Man had to team up to stop Carnage. Although Spider-Man has successfully thwarted Venom a number of times, Venom is technically more powerful than Spider-Man and has used this advantage to win an upper hand on occasion. Carnage, however, is actually more powerful than Venom, and it took both him and Spider-Man to stop Carnage during the "Maximum Carnage" series.

During Maximum Carnage it is revealed that the Symbiote has become a part of Kasady's blood and is unremovable from him, Kasady only needed to be cut for the symbiote to flood out to become Carnage once again. Unlike Venom, Carnage had become less vulnerable to the high pitch sounds which would normally stop Venom, however he was still vunerable to intense heat.

Death?

Recently, in the pages of New Avengers, Carnage was one of many supervillains trying to escape from The Vault. The Sentry flew Carnage outside the Earth's atmosphere, where he then ripped Carnage apart.

Oddly enough, when the Sentry ripped Carnage apart, there did not seem to be a human inside, but simply the symbiote. Given that characters earlier in the story referred to Carnage possessing traits only possessed by the hostless "Ultimate" version, some fans have suggested that perhaps Brian Michael Bendis, the story's writer, got the two confused and directed the artist accordingly. It should be noted that during Maximum Carnage, Carnage was able to fake his death by creating a decoy of himself made out of symbiote tissue.

It is therefore possible that, as when the symbiote briefly abandoned Kasady for John Jameson, Ben Reilly and the Silver Surfer, it had taken another host at the time, and thus Kasady survives on Earth, while the symbiote may be capable of surviving in orbit.

Powers and abilities

Carnage using his costume as a blade.

The alien symbiote suit is made of tough, flexible fibers of organic polymers which have the ability to mimic any type of clothing whatsoever and provide the wearer with nearly limitless pocket-storage. It also has a limited capability to change the wearer's appearance and it dampens Spider-Man's "spider-sense", making Carnage (as well as Venom) nearly undetectable to Spider-Man until they are in his direct sight. Similarly, Venom's ability to "detect" Kasady's presence is hindered by the suit's abilities.

In addition to the above abilities, the suit gives Carnage the ability to adhere to most surfaces with his hands and feet, a power which the symbiote adopted from its first victim/user, Spider-Man. Also adopted from Spider-Man is the ability to project a web-like substance from the body. However in the form of Carnage, the web substance can be projected from any part of the costume/body, not just the hands/wrists. Kasady can also separate parts of the symbiote costume from himself and use them as weapons, but they dissipate after a very short time, again similar to the artificial webbing Spider-Man uses, which dissolves after a period of time.

The living costume has endowed Carnage with superhuman physical strength sufficient to lift roughly 80 tons. Perhaps due in part to his insanity, Carnage's strength and abilities far exceed those of his predecessors, Venom and Spider-Man. Once, he even dispatched his symbiote through a phone line by reducing the alien to its cellular level. When an army of symbiotes invaded Earth, Carnage learned to feed on other aliens to increase his own mass.

Aside from this, as an inmate in various prisons and mental asylums, Kasady had to be a formidable hand-to-hand combatant just to survive. When that talent is combined with the alien symbiote, Kasady becomes one of the most lethal of all Marvel supervillains.