Cletus Kasady

Cletus Kasady
Cletus Kasady as he appeared prior to becoming the symbiote Carnage's host, in Absolute Carnage #5 (November 2019). Art by Ryan Stegman
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	The Amazing Spider-Man #344 (March 1991)[1]
Created by	David Michelinie (writer) Erik Larsen (artist)
In-story information
Full name	Cletus Cortland Kasady
Species	Human/Symbiote Hybrid
Place of origin	Westchester County, New York
Team affiliations	Carnage Family Astonishing Avengers[2] Poisons Symbiote Imperium
Partnerships	Shriek Demogoblin Doppelganger Carrion
Notable aliases	Carnage The Red Slayer Poison Carnage Prophet of the Void
Abilities	Alien symbiote grants: All powers of the progenitor's first human host, Spider-Man Limited shapeshifting and camouflage Symbiote's autonomous defense capabilities Undetectable by Spider-Man's "spider-sense"

Cletus Cortland Kasady is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer David Michelinie and artist Erik Larsen, the character first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #344 (March 1991) as the first and most infamous host of the Carnage symbiote, an offspring of Venom. Originally a deranged serial killer, Kasady bonded with the symbiote while sharing a cell with Venom's human host, Eddie Brock, and broke out of prison using the super-human abilities granted by it. Since then, he went on to menace both Venom and Spider-Man, resulting in various unlikely alliances between the two to defeat him. Kasady and Carnage are a perfect match, as they both have sadistic personalities, and the symbiote only increases Kasady's already existent violent tendencies. After being separated from the redeemed Carnage symbiote in Absolute Carnage, Kasady nonetheless continued calling himself Carnage, bonding with Grendel, Mania and several other symbiotes to become Dark Carnage.

Since his original introduction in comics, the character has been adapted into several other forms of media, such as television series and video games. Woody Harrelson portrays Cletus Kasady in the live-action Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU) films Venom (2018) and Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), bonding with Carnage in the latter film. In 2009, the Cletus Kasady version of Carnage was ranked as IGN's 90th-greatest comic book villain of all time.^[3]