Carnage Classic
Refer to the Spiderman vs Venom Omnibus highlighted section as this is where Classic Carnage begins chronologically. The following occurs post Maximum Carnage
Kasady is being transported from the Vault en route to Washington state and escapes his confinement via blood from a cut on his tongue he created using a filed tooth, transforming him into Carnage
Spiderman shows up with a thermo-cannon but doesn’t even get to use it as Carnage gives him the slip and heads towards the Rocky Mountains
He visits a man who he knew as a boy who he randomly selected to be his next victim
Spiderman intervenes and the two fight in a lumber mill where the man works
The man (Billy) goads Cletus into subduing the symbiote whereafter Spiderman punches him and knocks him out and is admitted into the Vault
A four-issue story known as Carnage Unleashed which begins with a videogame about Carnage that is developed by a company called Excessive Violence. Cletus’s life is signed away in exchange for being able to play the game whilst at Ravencroft
Eddie Brock’s attention is grabbed by posters of Carnage’s videogame and he decides to go deal with him, travelling from Chicago to NY
Backstory on Carnage is shown while talking with his psychiatrist Dr. Pazzo including when he drilled his dog to death, almost drilled his mom to death, and lied to the cops when his father killed his mother out of defense for Cletus and telling them he did it for no reason
Somehow Carnage sends his tendrils through his computer and commands Sherman from Excessive Violence to hack Ravencroft and open his cell
Eddie sees Sherman being thrown out of the top of a skyscraper and onto a taxi. Cletus escapes his cell at Ravencroft
The method of how Carnage was able to move his tendrils to another computer was shrinking down to the molecular level and moving through phone lines and wires
After a 1-hour standoff at Ravencroft where Carnage had been cornered in a room because of John Jameson III’s security and had been given an ultimatum to surrender or die, he is attacked with grenades, missiles and flamethrowers
What they thought they destroyed was actually a hologram due to Carnage hacking not only the holographic projections but most of Ravencroft’s computer system
While the Carnage decoys fool Jameson and his guards, Carnage kidnaps Dr. Pazzo and makes an escape
Carnage plasters Venom onto a train and is significantly injured
Carnage and Dr. Pazzo make their way southbound into NYC where they crash the penthouse of the CEO of EV, Fordham Rhodes
Venom crashes EV and fights Venom through cyberspace
The girlfriend of Fordham Rhodes knocks Rhodes out while Dr. Pazzo uses an alcoholic drink and a lighter to set Carnage on fire making him go crazy and fall out the building
Venom saves him with his tendrils only to give Cletus the satisfaction that Brock spared his life for incarceration
Again at Ravencroft, Carnage is visited by a psychiatrist named Matthew Kurtz
Kurtz injects Cletus with an overdose of vitamin C which affects the neural link he has with the symbiote then lobotomizes him and asks him questions on what his reasons and motivations are behind his actions
Somehow Cletus’s super adrenaline metabolizes the vitamin C quickly and he regains control then drills a hole in Kurtz’s head and shows him exactly how he thinks which is essentially just that he believes that there is nothing except chaos
The doctor goes mad being controlled by Carnage and becomes cannibalistic until he’s put down by Jameson
Ben Reilly has somehow become infamous thanks to Jonah Jameson and is being chased by police when he when he stops by Ravencroft to see if Carnage had escaped
Peter, who had been listening to the radio drives to Ben’s location and picks him up much to Ben’s surprise
Ben tells Peter about a girlfriend who is obsessed with Spiderman because she’s convinced he murdered her father somehow
In the interim between the conversation Ben and his girlfriend were having and the stopby at Ravencroft, Peter calls Ben about a skeleton that was found at the bottom of the same smokestack where Peter found Ben
On the way there, Ben helps a masked man who claims he saw a red-faced man who is Carnage. This is when Ben goes to Ravencroft
Jameson III has footage that Cletus has not left and is still in his cell
At this point, Ravencroft’s alarms go off and the authorities arrive after which Peter and Ben drive to Avengers HQ at Janet Van Dyne’s place to meet with Hank Pym. Pym deduces the skeleton is yet another clone of Spiderman
On a side note, while at Pym’s lab, using a photo-enhancer they deduce that Ben’s girlfriend’s dad is the same burglar who killed Uncle Ben and why the girlfriend is grudgeful
Ben follows a Ravencroft security guard to a depraved club where people idolize villains where the guard sells items used by Carnage for profit
Ben’s gf, whose name is Jessica Carradine, attempts to sell pics of Spiderman to the Bugle for negative publicity
Ben keeps an eye on Jameson III who transforms into Carnage but unlike Kasady who usually has control, the symbiote has control over Jameson
While fighting him, the symbiote transfers itself onto Ben to become Spider-Carnage
Jessica happens to be there at a very coincidental time to try and snap pics of Ben but he breaks her camera
Ben is in agony as he struggle to stay himself
Peter attempts to see Dr. Seward Trainer about the skeleton but he is mysteriously avoiding him
Cletus is beginning to rot without the symbiote. Spider-Carnage barrages Ravencroft in an attempt to get to Kasady which Ben tries his hardest to resist
Ben willingly submits himself into a cell to be hit by microwaves to kill the symbiote. The symbiote lets go of Ben but escapes through the plumbing to get back to Kasady. This is how it was able to escape the institution initially
Kafka and JJ III attempt to use Kurtz’s mind probing tech to shut down everything except Cletus’ mind to force him to mentally live forever. They attempt to sedate him which doesn’t work. He forces pieces of symbiote through their oral cavities to connect them to his mind
Carnage is beaten at his psychological game then is taken away by the government as Ravencroft’s staff inlcuding Kafka and Jameson are fired
The next arc takes place after the events of Onslaught. The Avengers, who were thought dead, are confirmed to be alive
Spidey (Ben Reilly)goes to pay a visit to the FF but the Four Freedoms plaza is now HQ to the Thunderbolts
Carnage escapes Ravencroft and goes to the Bugle and attacks Robbie Robertson’s wife. Peter saves her and switches into his Spiderman costume
Ben finds Carnage attacking a man and saves him then the two fight.
Silver Surfer who was also going to see the FF, sees and intervenes. The symbiote freaks at the sight of the SS, releases Kasady and flees into the sewers with SS in pursuit
Kasady goes through severe withdrawal and shock
The symbiote bonds with SS and they become Carnage Cosmic
Shows a backstory that the reason why the symbiote fears Silver Surfer is because many of them were wiped out by Galactus on a planet they overtook
Silver Surfer goes to the hospital to get the symbiote and Cletus to rebond but Ben highly objects. He relents to the symbiote joining with Kasady again.
SS encases him in a shell of ethereal energy so he can contemplate his sins forever
Brock infiltrates a Manhattan correctional facility where Kasady is holed up unbonded to his symbiote due to some disruptors
Venom consumes the Carnage symbiote to quell its actions once and for all
Later on, Cletus escapes when his transport bus crashes and paints himself red, clearly delusional. Spiderman (Peter Parker) puts him down easily
When Peter gets home the same night, Aunt May tells Peter that MJ’s plane crashed, wherever it was going
In the final story, both Peter and Cletus go through a dimensional hole to the Negative Zone
The rift was caused by a tyrant named Blaastaar who is seeking to conquer Earth
Spidey teams up with allies to stop Blaastaar
Spidey knocks Blaastaar into the rift and takes Cletus back with him but unbeknownst to him, Cletus has bonded with remnants of the symbiote and is Carnage once again