Carnage: The extreme side of Spider-Man comics

“You're probably asking... WHY do I kill... well, simple answer. It's PRETTY. Waking up in the morning and knowing you're going to kill someone... it's a BEAUTIFUL THING. Makes me feel like a GUNSHIP, like my engine's only turning over when I'm MOVING and KILLING. Makes me feel like God on the first monday morning.” (Carnage)

“Norman, Norman, Norman. This is the price of doing business with me. Sacrifices have to be made. We have to make deep cuts! Ah ha haha haaa!” (Carnage)

“Here came the bride all dressed in white. I wish it was red... then you all be dead.” (Carnage)

Hello my dears. I am the Raven who speaks to you.

Today my subject will be Marvel, a franchise that accommodates one of its most family friendly heroes, Spider-Man. Sometimes, Marvel raised the tone to the point that its clothing supposedly intended for children and young people became a little questionable. This is what I want to discuss, highlighting one of its villains who, in my analysis, is the best example of this: Carnage.

Spider-Man comics have a feature that exudes the very personality and age group of its great hero and protagonist. He is young, inexperienced, serene and with a huge sense of humor. Peter Parker embodies all the characteristics of a good guy. Accompanying him from one web to another is like boarding an anti-stress train. He is a type of reading with a lot of adrenaline, but always filled with a light and friendly humor (and perhaps his stories are those that, at Marvel, have the most this vibe). This is Peter.

What would someone like Carnage be doing in a scenario like his? A scenario that, supposedly, would be safe for children and young teenagers to read freely and let their imagination run wild? Yeah... it's something curious, isn't it? And, for me, this first perception that Carnage leaves us with, that he would be something inappropriate for this audience, is what precisely makes him an interesting villain, because in addition to the red light going on for children, it also lights up for parents.

What makes a character a good villain? We can list many things. But, presenting himself as a real threat to the protagonist (one that cannot be underestimated) and also being the thing that causes tension in people who are off the pages (reading the material) are certainly some of the most important characteristics that every impactful villain need to have. Carnage was a real, straightforward aesthetic break with Spider-Man comics. The level of insanity and violence he brings was certainly a risk Marvel decided to take. To exposed its younger audience to some of the genocidal, bizarre scenes this character would be capable of pulling off (which, in itself, is somewhat controversial).

“But Raven, what do you mean? The Green Goblin was already a psychopath and is perhaps even more intense and extreme than Carnage”. Intense, yes. But not extreme. In my opinion, The Green Goblin remains a much more complex, interesting and well-crafted villain than Carnage. Perhaps he is the most outstanding Spider-Man villain of all time (something difficult to define, because there are other excellent villains to share the podium). The goblin's pleasure in chaos, his cruelty and ability to explode an infinity of things in a short period of time are notorious. This motherfucker loves to put out a fire with gasoline. His devilish laugh, mental instability, the financial resources he has to carry out all his cruelty. Yes, without a doubt, the Green Goblin is a much denser character. Norman Osborn is unhinged. Someone who alters his personas and there is a bipolarity in question. At one point, we have Norman, the tyrannical and greedy businessman. In another, there is the Green Goblin, the part of his personality that is capable of repressing the few moral vestiges that the powerful businessman has. There are variations of these moments, the Green Goblin is never a constant: it's as if he really changes clothes, wears his uniform in moments when Norman's mental health is more weakened. So we have moments of calm. What Norman's second personality is capable of doing, he would not do himself. Although he wasn't a man of integrity either, he wouldn't come to this point. And that creates hiatuses, moments for Peter Parker to breathe at least.

With Carnage it is different. Either you expel him from the face of the earth or send him to hell. There is no third option. Unlike Norman Osborn, who alternates personalities, Carnage is constant. “But, Raven, Carnage also has a duality, as he is hosted by the Venom symbiote strain (Eddie Brock).” Indeed. But what you have to keep in mind is that this strain that was born from the Venom symbiote does not have any moral remnants. The original symbiote parasitized Peter Parker and carried aspects of him even after it was abandoned. A gesture that even generated resentment. It made the symbiote look for someone who also resents Spider-Man, someone suitable to share this resentment and thus retaliate; this person was Eddie Brock. When he was with Brock, his personality, which is far from being honored like Peter’s, also leaves residual marks in the symbiote. That is, it inherits something from its hosts, it becomes part of the way the symbiote sees the world. These influences unite with the creature's own instinct and genetic characteristics, and this mixture gives rise to its moral compass.

The strain that originated Carnage does not have this. He is a new creature who has just literally been given birth, being left behind exactly when Venom pulls Eddie Brock out of jail, where he shared a cell with the psychopath Cletus Kasady. This strain contains only the genetic material that he inherited from Venom (his genes), which means that Carnage also has the abilities of Spider-Man, as well as Venom. But from a psychological point of view, the Carnage strain is more raw. More instinctual. Closer to a wild animal than a human being. And what is a symbiote if not a parasite, a predator of other living beings?

Having this essence, he finds in Cletus Kasady someone perfect to play his predatory and relentless instinct. Kasady is a complete psychopath with no regard for human life. As a human being, he is a monster, as monstrous as the strain itself. It's as if his organisms had found their soulmates, capable of fulfilling all the perverse and genocidal desires of both, without any censorship. Carnage gives Cletus the power he has always wanted to slaughter others, as he is a sadist, a genocide. At the same time, Cletus gives Carnage what Peter Parker and Eddie Brock denied themselves: a twisted moral compass, the absence of any censorship, authorization to feed and satiate his every desire without any repression.

Carnage refers to himself in the plural. Conceptually, the character is really more than one (two beings who came together). But, in the relationship between the Green Goblin and Norman (a being with two personalities) there are still incompatibilities, there are conflicts and short circuits. If Norman had been the Green Goblin in his full form, without any flaws, Peter Parker would be screwed. It would be very difficult to stop him. His crises helped Peter to expose the Goblin's weaknesses, make mistakes and thus be stopped.

With Carnage, we have a human and a symbiote in perfect harmony. And the parasitized is one of the worst humans the strain could have encountered. And for that very reason capable of such extremes as dismembering women and children in a public square. Yes... Carnage is able to do that, the comics showing it or not (it's something that is implied). Something too extreme for the Spider-Man scenario! And that is precisely what I have been trying to make clear during my speech, how this is something dissonant and even strange, uncomfortable to exist in this scenario that, in principle, would not enter into domains as macabre as this one. But let me be clear: I'm not complaining, I'm just observing. I like Carnage as a villain.

“But Raven, Carnage doesn't feature anything we haven't seen out there in action and horror movies.” Fact. However, we live in an age where few things shock us. We are very desensitized. In 1992, the year that the character appeared for the first time, the desensitization was already huge, something that even made his creation possible. At that time, villains, anti heroes and quite brutal vigilantes began to appear. The eighties paved this way a lot. But even so, in that context, it was something that still drew attention because of where the material was published. Anyone could find this genocidal carnage on a simple comic store. Is this common today? It is. But back then it wasn't that frequent and natural, let's say. It was unusual for a child of 6 or 7 years old to find a serial killer, insane psychopath and carver of innocents in a comic book, paying just a few dollars, the price of a school lunch.

“But Raven, when Carnage appeared in the comics, in the beginning we had more action, these bloodbaths were not drawn.” True. But the fact that they were not drawn doesn't mean they were not narrated or that they were not there. And in many situations narrating or just suggesting is much more efficient than showing visually. It's something that stimulates your imagination, makes scenes even more disturbing possible. Do you remember how we were introduced to the character Cletus Kasady? Right away, he was described as a boy with a very troubled childhood and pathological tendencies. His behavior clearly revealed that any psychologist could notice a comorbidity in him. From an early age Cletus tortured animals. This is even openly addressed in the comics, how he tortured his mother's dog. The boy killed his grandmother by pushing her down the stairs. If you want a comparison, something that illustrates more deeply for you what kind of child Cletus was, watch the movie “The Good Son”, a 1993 movie with MaCaulay Culkin.

Cletus's family was completely dysfunctional. His personality was being deformed within a family circle where there was only violence. His father murdered his mother, which left the kid an orphan and had him transferred to an orphanage. There, his aloof behavior only brought more problems. For years he was bullied not only by the other orphaned boys, but he was physically and emotionally abused by the staff as well. This whole scenario ended up developing misanthropic tendencies in Kasady. Misanthrope is the one who hates humanity, who has an aversion for it. Kasady was never welcomed, respected, much less offered this to anyone. For him, people were worms, which should be used according to his goals. Afterwards, preferably discarded when they lost their purpose and in the most cruel way possible. Cletus always took pleasure in torturing any living being. To him, his opponents were inferior minds and should die without exception. His life in the orphanage did not fail to add to his homicidal record: he kills the director of the institution and even pushes a girl (Manny Calderon) in front of a bus just because she refused to go out with him. Later, he even burns down the entire orphanage.

Cletus Kasady is a real maniac. And I believe that by becoming Carnage in union with the Venom strain, he made Peter Parker's life even more intense and extreme. He is much, much more dangerous than Venom. Eddie Brock followed his own moral code, and not infrequently he even sometimes acted as a vigilante when he felt inclined to do so. Venom's rivalry with Spider-Man is something more pronounced in his concept. At many points, Venom's obsession with making Peter Parker pay for abandoning him is something that only creates headaches for Peter. It's clear that Venom will try to hit him where it hurts, involving characters that are part of his life, people he loves. But, it is a more directed hatred and resentment. Venom became a public order problem at times, as Dr. Octavius and the Green Goblin himself? No doubt. But, the symbiote is quite obsessed and has a directed hatred. As for Carnage, well... like I said, he's a misanthrope. His mere existence already puts the life of the whole city at risk. Carnage fulfills what the original symbiote, which came to Earth, did not fulfill: when we think of an alien body falling to Earth, we imagine infection, disease, the human species being decimated. An attack from another world. But the symbiote that found Parker and then Brock is almost so narcissistic that, deep down, he just wants to have a good time. Do what seems interesting to him. He does not manage to build miraculous plans and great conspiracies to destroy the Earth, because his life here has given him many possibilities and pleasures until then. Life on Earth is pleasant for the symbiote. Humans are useful to him, to the point that he doesn't consider putting them into extinction.

But Carnage? Completely different story. The extermination of living things is his motivation. He takes macabre pride in being an agent of human pain. Chaos is not enough for him, he wants to see death. Buildings painted with human blood. People in a row falling into a meat grinder machine. And this machine is Carnage himself. In this sense, when Carnage is around, the aesthetics of the Spider Man universe tend to change. Jokes and Peter's typical good humor tend to become lumps in the throat, cold sweat and fear. There is no room for jokes with Carnage. If he gets even more concerned about making good impressions or being the center of the spotlight, people will die. Carnage is evil in the purest sense, needing all attention and effort focused against him. Something that even Venom understands and helps Peter to fight this genocidal maniac. With Carnage around, there's no tomorrow for any living being on his target. The strain's union with Cletus Kasady's evil is so profound that the two have become one. Cletus can't remove the symbiote from his body like Peter and Eddie does. In the amorphous and grotesque image of Carnage, we see a mass of muscle, bone and blood. A form that Cletus adores and is proud of: he now looks on the outside what he always was on the inside, a monster.

With all of these things taken into account it's possible to understand why Carnage was never adapted into a live action movie alongside Spider-Man (at least so far). There is a sequel to Venom’s film, of course, but Peter Parker's universe is still strongly marked by a perception that he is a friend for all ages, for the family to sit on the couch, together, and have fun with a good laugh. Cinema still hasn't been able to remove the hero from this infantile-juvenile image, something that prevents a movie from realizing all the potential and evil essence that a character like Carnage demands. And honestly I think that is unlikely to happen. Carnage, like Spawn, are characters that don't just inhabit the sci-fi and the fantastic... they inhabit, more deeply, the horror genre. And this is a genre where Spider-Man will hardly be portrayed in cinema. The most we will see of a meeting between Peter and the villain will be along the lines of the old cartoon from the 90's. Something else I'm quite skeptical.

Corvid greetings!