10 Most Brutal Comic Book Villains

2. Carnage

Sin City
Marvel Comics

Across comic books, you've got rogues who kill solely for attention or just as a necessity in order to go through with whatever scheme they've concocted. But elsewhere, there are those villains who kill for the simple fact that they enjoy it. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where Cletus Kasady comes into the picture.

Long before he bonded with a symbiote and became the maniacal Carnage, Kasady was already a full-blown serial killer.

Cletus was actually born in prison, and the early alarm bells were ringing loud and clear when he pushed his grandmother down some stairs to her death. He'd also try to kill his mother with the classic 'hairdryer in the bathtub' trick, and then even more worrying was his decision to torture and murder his mother's dog with a drill.

And to think, all of this was before Cletus Kasady became Carnage.

Upon bonding with the symbiote - with Carnage often pegged as the 'offspring' of Venom - Kasady's intentions became even more nefarious, which in turn put him on the radar of Spider-Man and made him one of ol' Web-head's most fearsome and outright scary foes.

Carnage is the sort of villain who would think nothing of tossing a toddler out of a top floor window if the mood took him, and that makes him such a dangerous prospect for Spidey - and any other characters who Carnage takes umbrage with.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.