Vote up the darkest elements to Carnage's backstory.
In the spandex world of superheroes, good and bad are not so black and white. Many so-called villains can have a soft spot (such as Loki or Ghost) while some heroes have a dark side (like Venom, Punisher, or Cable). There's plenty of gray area in which both can thrive - unless it's Cletus Cortland Kasady. Then there is no white, no gray. Just black, like his heart and soul.
Perhaps one of the most evil characters to ever grace comic book pages, Cletus and his alter ego Carnage live to inflict pain and death to anyone in their path. And he does it with a smile.
But even before the evil symbiont became one with his deranged host, Cletus was already an established villain who took to violence like a fish to water. Take a look back at all the darkest and most gruesome moments of his life, everything that made him a perfect host for Carnage and the main antagonist of Venom 2: There Will Be Carnage. Vote up the darkest details.
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26 VOTES
He Pushed His Crush In Front Of A Bus After She Rejected Him
As a child, Cletus developed a crush on a teenage girl named Alice. Despite their age difference, he decided to be honest with her and admitted his feelings of love. She laughed at the young orphan, and in his rage, he pushed her in front of a bus.
He said about the murder, "That one good thing to perfect the pointlessness of the universe."
There are a few different accounts regarding Louise's death. In one retelling, his "father" Roscoe was beating the boy when he accidentally knocked his wife into the side table, killing her in the fall. In another incident, it is believed Roscoe was trying to save the boy from Louise's wrath after Cletus "accidentally" dropped a TV in her bath.
In either scenario, Cletus refused to help his father by testifying on his behalf.
28 votes
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26 VOTES
He Murdered Staff Members At The St. Estes Home For Boys And Burned Down The Orphanage
After abuse at the hands of the staff and the other orphans who lived at the St. Estes Home for Boys, Cletus sought his revenge. First, he killed the school's disciplinarian administrator, then burned the orphanage to the ground with everyone still inside.
According to his personal philosophy, he saw the bloodshed as a gift, giving his victims "ultimate freedom."
26 votes
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41 VOTES
Cletus Was Born In An Asylum And Claimed To Have Died As A Newborn Before Being 'Reborn'
Born in the psychiatric prison at Ravencroft Institute to a paranoid schizophrenic, Cletus got off to a rough start when the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, killing the babe only 19 minutes after he was born. According to Cletus, he remembers it... vividly.
That was just the start of his twisted tale, as baby Cletus escaped both hell and death with the (possible) help of the evil deity Knull, creator of the symbiotes. This second chance helped Cletus become who he is and gave him a lifelong fascination with crime, chaos, and killing.
(It should be noted that as an unreliable narrator, Cletus is known for twisting the truth to tell a better story, so it is questionable if Knull actually resurrected him.)
41 votes
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32 VOTES
Even As A Boy, He Never Saw The Humanity In His Victims
Warped by years of abuse and damaged by earlier experiences with possible symbiotes, Cletus was never a normal child. His love for destruction and violence bloomed when he was a young boy and only grew with age.
But readers later discover there was never any hope for the young child to become "normal." Even as a kid, he never saw himself as a villain or a killer, but as a hero, who was "freeing" his victims of this life. He dedicated his life to the idea that somehow, he was their "savior."
After the death of his grandmother, Cletus was sent to live with Roscoe and Louise, his foster parents (although Roscoe was possibly the boy's biological father). Years of abuse at the hands of his grandmother had already taken their toll on the young boy, twisting his mind into something subhuman.
Cletus claimed that his "mother" was a liar who purposely tried to get him in trouble because she "loved that stupid dog [Fifi] more" than him, and eventually, the boy took matters into his own hands - with a power drill.
After he was caught, he continued to place blame elsewhere, saying it was Fifi's fault and that the poor animal "made a mess in the basement."
