I ♥ A Little Carnage

When it comes to the world of superheroes/supervillians everyone has their particular favourite. For many its Batman's arch nemesis The Joker, and yes I admit the Clown Prince of Crime is definately in my top 5 too. But he isn't my number one. That honour goes to Carnage who was first featured in the Amazing Spiderman.
So who or what is Carnage? Well to be blunt he is a pure, psychopath, born to killing as I am born to alcoholic froth. His 'host' Kletus Cassidy shoved his own grandmother down the stairs when he was a child. Young Kletus also tortured his pet dog and burnt down the orphanage he was sent to. So 'troubled child' then.
When I say Carnage has a 'host', let me explain: Carny is an alien symbiote who comes from another symbiote, Venom (another of Spidermans villains). And the Carnage symbiote went into Kletus Cassidy's blood when Cassidy was cut in prison, where he had been sent after turning into a serial killer.


Carnage: truly awesome character design

This crazed, red alien has a twisted philosophy, and believes everybody wants to kill deep down, he just has the guts/nutso streak to actually do it. Carnage doesn't want money or crave power, he simply enjoys killing. He was actually modeled after The Joker, to be a darker version of Venom. Indeed he teamed up with Batty's rictus grinning enemy in Spider-Man and Batman #1.
Carnage has a number of super powers including being able spin webs like Spiderman, and is reported to be double the strength of both the webslinger and Venom. And he has never been afraid of dying. In fact, he has been prepared to face death rather than being made nice!
So why is this Supervillian my favourite? Why have I chosen such an evil character who has a total disregard for human life and lives only for chaos? Well firstly its the way he looks. Carnage is villain perfection to me, looking so utterly vicious, the devil incarnate. The way he has been drawn by artists over the years has been fantastic and he never looks rough in cartoons, stills or videogames. Just really great character design.
Secondly its in his 'psychology'. Most bad guys have a soft side, even Carnage's symbiote 'brother' Venom has morals and can be persuaded to fight for good. Not old Red though! He is heer nastiness, anarchy, chaos, call it what you will, and has no soft side which is very powerful. I also like the fact that one of his powers is he can resist any human disease which makes him beyond the grasp of God to some extent.
He is the ultimate bad boy and there's something I admire about a writer designing a bad guy without a shred of remorse as most cop out when designing villains. And this is why Judge Death is my number two.


Kletus/Carnage

Doomlord

Only a few minutes ago I stumbled across something I had long forgotten. How I tossed it into the back of my scatty memory banks to lose it until now is a mystery because back in the 1980's I loved it. Or HIM to be more precise. His name was Doomlord and he appeared in the classic Eagle comics from 1982 to 1991, having been created by Allan Grant and John Wagner.

His looks are from his fathers side. Probably

Doomlord was a servant of Nox, and his tag was 'master of life, bringer of death!' I lapped it up! (What was also great was that my aunt worked in a newsagents so she used to spoil my brother and myself with as much free comics as we wanted.)
He was an alien who could shape shift and was on earth to judge mankind. If Doomlord judged humanity unfit to care for the planet he would simply destroy it – the billions of innocent human deaths being inconsequential, because 'the fate of the individual is unimportant when the survival of the species is at stake' was what he liked to say.
This guy had cool powers too; the ability to absorb people's memories, skills, and personality, shape-shifting/impersonation, immensly strong, invulnerability and he wore a very cool energiser ring which could do disintegration, levitation, force field and teleportation. (James Bond eat yer heart out!)
A great thing about the comic strip is that real people acted them out and speech bubbles were slapped on the photographs so it wasn't all drawn characters. I remember looking at Mr Doom and being thrilled (and slightly creeped out) at his appearance. And oh how the memories bowled me over when I saw his skeletal chops once again. It was like being visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past, or a favourite old relative not seen in years. (Albeit looking slightly worse for wear.)
I still think Doomlord looks fabulous and the aged mask only adds more character to him. Now if you'll excuse me, there is an auction site I must visit and I hear can hear the servant of Nox skulking amongst the goodies.