Every great superhero has an archenemy that helps to define them. It is a trope nearly as old as the medium itself. Batman has Joker. Superman has Lex Luther. Captain America has Red Skull. Wolverine has Sabretooth. You get it. Spider-Man has been so blessed with his rogues gallery that he has not only had more than one iconic archenemy over the years, but some of his villains have actually gone on to become the archenemies of other superheroes. Kingpin, for example, went from being a second tier Spider-Man villain to Daredevil’s greatest adversary. Quite the glow up. Another such example is the symbiote-bonded-serial killer known as Carnage.
I’ve talked about Carnage before, but he was essentially created by David Michelinie and Mark Bagley as a Venom replacement. Marvel was shifting Venom away from being a villain and into antihero status because of his popularity, but that was going to leave a symbiote-sized hole in Spider-Man’s rogues gallery. Carnage was the solution to this problem. He is an unrepentant serial killer named Cletus Kasady who happened to be Eddie Brock’s prison cellmate. When Eddie’s symbiote busted him out of prison, it just so happened to leave a little symbiote offspring behind that bonded with Cletus. Whoopsie.
Carnage would immediately become one of Spider-Man’s nastiest villains, and it gave Marvel an excuse for Spidey to team up with Venom to defeat him. That helped Venom transition into his antihero role, and it established Carnage as an even worse villain for Spider-Man to deal with. It was a pretty smart strategy on its surface. The issue was that with Venom now off being a hero, he was going to need an archenemy of his own. Who would make for the perfect villain for a symbiote-bonded antihero with a moral compass? How about a symbiote-bonded serial killer with no moral compass whatsoever? In essence, Venom’s replacement in Spider-Man’s core group of villains was destined to also leave the wall crawler to become Venom’s primary nemesis. All of this is to say that Venom finally gets to fight Carnage one on one in Venom: Carnage Unleashed that was published in 1995.
Folks, this comic is wild. It’s a four-issue series written by legendary writer Larry Hama (best known for his seminal runs on Wolverine and G.I. Joe), and it’s illustrated by Andrew Wildman, Art Nichols, and Joe Rubinstein. Venom’s first two encounters with Carnage were pretty straightforward. He teamed up with Spider-Man both times to halt Carnage’s killing spree. Hama decided to go in a slightly different direction with this story. Cletus Kasady is currently locked up in the Ravencroft Institute (Marvel’s version of Arkham Asylum), and he’s testing out a video game while in his cell where you play as Carnage and kill superheroes. Uh…what? It seems unlikely that a video game would be made using the likeness of the worst serial killer in human history while he’s still alive and imprisoned for his crimes, but I guess I’ll let it slide. It also seems unlikely that the serial killer in question would be allowed to play said video game in his cell, but whatever. What I really struggle with is the next bit: Carnage finds out that he is able to use his symbiote to travel through the internet and come out of the computer monitors of people playing his video game in order to kill them. I am pretty sure that is not how the internet works. I know that the internet was still in its infancy in 1995, but this is a bit of a stretch. Regardless, the first issue concludes with Carnage successfully escaping Ravencroft by jumping out of some poor guy’s computer monitor and killing him. Game over, am I right?! I’m sorry. My initial assumption was this bizarre plot device was just Hama’s way of getting Carnage out of Ravencroft in New York and into San Francisco where Venom would be the only superhero around to fight him. It’s very silly, but it would get the job done. But no! Carnage is still in New York City, and Venom has to travel there to fight him all by himself even though that’s where a near limitless number of superheroes currently reside. Baffling.
The next issue picks up with Carnage doing what Carnage always does: killing as many people as possible. It takes until the last half of the issue, but Venom finally catches up with Carnage and fights him on the hood of a speeding car. This is what ten-year-old Josh signed up for. It’s a pretty fun fight as the two trade blows until Carnage is able to push Venom in front of an oncoming train that splatters him like a bug on a windshield. Brutal.
The third issue picks up with Carnage continuing his killing spree now that Venom has been dealt with, and that is basically everything that happens in this issue. Carnage just kills lots of people while Venom regroups and tries to catch up with him in order to stop him. The only real thing of note is that Carnage just keeps jumping in and out of computer monitors so he can use the internet like a pipe in a Super Mario Bros game to fast travel to different destinations in the city.
The fourth and final issue of the series is a doozy. Venom figures out that Carnage is using the internet to travel, so Venom decides to do the same thing. Eventually they start attacking each other through computer monitors in different locations.
Eventually they get bored with that, and they both jump inside the internet(???). Once inside of…the internet, they just get into a standard superhero fight. That fight is then broadcasted on a big screen in Times Square.
As confused New Yorkers watch the fight unfold, Venom destroys a nondescript thingamajig that breaks the internet or something. The two are dumped back into the physical world, and Carnage is lit on fire by one of the Ravencroft psychiatrists that he had been terrorizing earlier. His symbiote is burned into submission, and he is taken into custody as the series ends.
As you could probably tell by my tone, I am not a big fan of this series. I was really excited for it as a kid whose introduction to comics was through Venom and Carnage fighting each other. Unfortunately, there just isn’t much actual fighting between the two symbiotes. It’s more just an excuse to watch Carnage use the internet to travel around and kill people. While that can make for some silly fun, it doesn’t really utilize the titular character of series all that much. Despite all of that, this series has a somewhat surprising legacy. The cover of the third issue drawn by Andrew Wildman has become iconic. It is frequently homaged and referenced whenever these two characters square off with each other.
It was most prominently featured in Web of Venom: Venom Unleashed #1 by Ryan Stegman, Kyle Hotz, and Juan Gedeon in the lead up to Absolute Carnage by Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman. Venom: Carnage Unleashed was worth it just for that. Larry Hama also clearly enjoyed writing Venom because he would go on to write seven more limited series starring Venom in the ‘90s. Yes, the man was writing more than one limited series starring Venom per year for the entire second half of the decade. That includes the next one I will be covering: Venom: Sinner Takes All.