Kenneth Neely (Earth-616)

The son of a devout Christian mortician, Kenneth Neely would often accompany his father and observe his work, questioning why he would spend so much time and effort making even the most grotesquely mutilated corpses look whole. While not satisfied with his father's response that all things must be beautiful in the Kingdom of God, Kenneth nonetheless internalized his father's words after he died of leprosy.

Finding beauty and innocence in the sadistic brutality of Cletus Kasady, Kenneth became a serial killer called "The Artist", posing his victims in elaborately staged manners. Witnessing Knull's invasion of Earth, Kenneth came to worship the symbiote god and began ritualistically sacrificing his victims in hopes of attaining a communion with him. Instead, Kenneth drew the attention of the Carnage symbiote not long after it had parted ways with Cletus. Recognizing it as Knull's apostle, Kenneth offered himself as its new host. Carnage deliberated killing him the same way he did his victims, but -- impressed by his work -- instead offered to show him what it had planned.

Taken to Carnage's lair, Kenneth was awestruck by the sight of Morris Bench's mutilated body infused with symbiote matter. Tearing out Bench's core and assimilating it, Carnage revealed it intended to break through its own limits, mockingly asking Kenneth why it would want to shackle itself to a human host ever again.^[2] After killing Hydro-Man, destroying the facility and giving an offshoot of itself to Detective Jon Shayde so he could continue hunting them, Carnage took Kenneth to a hotel room with two more of his victims and mocked him over his jealousy that the detective got a taste of its powers but not him. As Kenneth petulantly asked Carnage if it wanted Shayde to succeed in apprehending or killing him, the symbiote threatened to abandon him, not seeing him as a worthy successor to Cletus. Kenneth begged the symbiote to stay and told it he'd try to learn the lessons it wanted to teach him, and Carnage next took him to the lab of Doctor Johnathon Ohnn, A.K.A the Spot, the next person with a power it wished to take for itself.^[3] Kenneth tried to help Carnage capture Ohnn when he tried to escape but in the process the symbiote cut off his left hand. Carnage mocked him further when he complained about this, telling him that in giving up a piece of himself for it he's starting to understand what it means to be its host. Kenneth hopefully asked if that meant it would help him, but Carnage brushed off his concerns before opening a portal with the Spot's powers and carrying Neely through, saying they would find a better way of patching him up. It took him to Fuertes Astronomical Observatory in Ithaca and left him to deal with the wound himself while it slaughtered all the scientists there except for Doctor Halliday, who it needed to work her wormhole machine while it used the power it took from Hydro-Man and the Spot to to reach across space, universes, and dimensions. Engulfing the machine, Carnage offered to take Kenneth with it as thanks for him sacrificing his arm. As Carnage grabbed him with tendrils, Kenneth nervously asked where they were going, to which the symbiote replied that they were going to kill gods.^[1]

Launched across dimensions to Svartalfheim, the increasingly confused Kenneth was tasked with killing a one-armed dark elf named Zeiste, Carnage explaining its intent to hijack a Black Bile Clan rite of passage to obtain a wolf-god cub for its plans. However, Zeiste easily managed to ambush Kenneth instead, threatening to kill him unless he chose his next words carefully.^[4] Seeing himself in Kenneth, Zeiste attempted to persuade him to turn on Carnage. Although strongly tempted, Kenneth slit Zeiste's throat, leaving his corpse tied to a tree. While Carnage applauded his duplicity, Kenneth admitted he took no joy in his betrayal, not finding any beauty in the death.^[5] Arriving in Niffleheim, Kenneth was attacked by a god called Rosvelg, who recounted the sins of those damned to Hel while forcing its victims to relive each one. His preconceptions of himself stripped away, Kenneth was incapacitated until Carnage attacked the deity. Reluctantly finishing Rosvelg off at Carnage's prompting, Kenneth followed Carnage deeper into the frozen wastelands of Hel in pursuit of Malekith the Accursed.^[6]

While Carnage fought Malekith, Kenneth was attacked by Shayde but was saved by Hela, with whom the symbiote had brokered a deal. After Carnage defeated Malekith and claimed what it sought, a codex left behind by the Venom symbiote,^[7] Kenneth's desire to bond to the symbiote was further shaken by the realization that doing so would leave an indelible mark on him. Watching Carnage butcher the guards of a dwarven prison in Nidavellir, Kenneth admitted he no longer saw any purpose to Carnage's campaign, causing the symbiote to again dismiss him as unworthy of taking Cletus' place. Learning that Carnage's endgame involved the creation of a weapon capable of elevating it to godhood and destroying worlds, Kenneth was instructed to help the dwarf-lord Drorin Runehewer repair the Godmaker forge, admitting that Carnage needed to be stopped and hesitantly agreeing to help Drorin do so.^[8] Kenneth and Drorin attempted to immolate Carnage using the cosmic flames of the stars used to smelt Uru, but Jon Shayde's intervention unwittingly enabled the symbiote to escape. Consuming the corpses of the dwarves slain by the God of Hammers to absorb the Uru in their remains, Carnage underwent an apotheosis and killed Drorin. Taking Drorin's teleportation cube, Kenneth fled to New York and sought the help of the only person he could think of that could stop Carnage's ambitions of destroying the multiverse -- Cletus Kasady.^[9]

Speaking with Cletus, Kenneth managed to goad him into embarking on a new killing spree to test the Extrembiote's capabilities,^[10] leading to Cletus fighting Miles Morales, the Scorpion, the Red Goblin, Electro, Taskmaster, and Hightail. When the Extrembiote's Arc Reactor damaged by Miles' Venom Strike, Kenneth accompanied Cletus to Stark Unlimited's HQ, where he assimilated a Stark Sentinel MK II into the Extrembiote and hacked into Stark's communications network. To "reward" Kenneth, Cletus bonded him to a fusion of old Iron Man armor and an offshoot of the Extrembiote. Initially ecstatic, Kenneth was promptly reduced to a prisoner in his own body, puppeteered by a copy of Cletus' consciousness. Freed by the Red Goblin absorbing his symbiote, Kenneth was arrested but managed re-bond to a piece of the Extrembiote and escape. To Kenneth's dismay, Cletus decided that he had outlived his usefulness and killed him. However, Kenneth's consciousness endured within the Symbiote Hive-Mind as a codex within Carnage's Hive, telling Cletus that without the Carnage symbiote he would always be incomplete.^{[11][12][13][14][15]}

Having been raised a devout Christian, Kenneth scorned religion after his father died of leprosy. Inspired by the work of the infamous serial killer Cletus Kasady, he twisted his father's ideology of making the deceased beautiful to serve as his motivation to commit murder as "The Artist". Twisted even further by witnessing Knull's invasion of Earth, Kenneth came to desire a communion with Knull and began sacrificing his victims to the symbiote god. When Carnage responded instead, Kenneth immediately offered himself to the symbiote as its new host, and was awestruck by what it had done with Hydro-Man's body;^[2] though he was dejected when Carnage repeatedly scorned his requests to become its next host and grew envious when it bonded NYPD Detective Jon Shayde to a piece of itself instead.^[3]

Carnage's disdainful attitude towards him led Neely to speak out in anger after it lopped off one of his hands, though it quickly reminded him that it could easily kill or abandon him.^[1] While afraid of Carnage's wrath should he openly defy it, Neely was deeply troubled by his betrayal of Zeiste, comparing it to Judas' betrayal of Jesus,^[5] and his perception of himself as an artist was forcibly stripped away by Rosvelg.^[6] By the time they arrived in Nidavellir, Carnage's ambition to become a god of destruction had shattered Neely's admiration of it, leaving him regretting ever having agreed to accompany it and agreeing to help stop its rampage.^[8]

• Scalpel: One of Kenneth's tools is a scalpel that he uses to cut his victims and drain their blood.