The following contains spoilers for Carnage Reigns Alpha, on sale now from Marvel Comics.
When Carnage returned to the spotlight, the serial killer symbiote wasted no time in cutting down everyone who had something to offer it in death. As bad as that was, learning of Carnage's new mission was enough to bring Cletus Kasady creeping out of the shadows. Now, the Marvel Universe has two superpowered sadists to deal with, or rather it did until Miles Morales got involved. Unfortunately, Miles' apparent victory over Cletus is unlikely to be the resounding success he had hoped for, and it might doom his entire city even if it is.
After confronting Cletus Kasady within the nightmarish walls of Todd's Diner in the pages of Carnage Reigns Alpha (by Alex Paknadel, Cody Ziglar, Julius Ohta, Erick Arciniega, and VC's Cory Petit), Miles Morales finds himself battered and nearly broken alongside none other than Mac Gargan, aka the Scorpion. Though the team-up is hardly expected, the two prove to be capable of not only holding Cletus' attention but also stopping him in his tracks. Just when all hope seems lost, Miles unleashes a massive electric shock straight through Cletus' symbiote form and into the arc reactor hiding just underneath.
Miles Morales Uncovered Cletus Kasady's Greatest Weakness
Although Cletus has existed as a resurrected symbiote version of himself since his falling out with Carnage, he was also the one who kept Tony Stark's Extrembiote armor afterward. Created during Knull's invasion of Earth, the Extrembiote Iron Man suit was the culmination of merging one of his armors with a living symbiote whose DNA Tony had effectively rewritten. Initially, it wasn't quite clear where this would lead, though there was plenty of reason for apprehension in the face of such a startling development, something Cletus' time with the suit has proven.
Despite housing both a symbiote and Extremis within its metal frame, the Extrembiote armor is still powered by arc reactors like so many other suits Tony has developed. As far as Cletus was concerned, this was just another one of the spectacular accouterments he didn't actually have any reason to figure out for himself. In turn, this left him woefully unprepared to protect this obvious weak point when faced with two extremely capable foes on the battlefield. Of course, there will be no way of knowing whether this is the end of Cletus until after the dust has settled, assuming there is anyone left to sift through the wreckage.
Cletus Kasady's Downfall Could Threaten the Marvel Universe
Assuming Cletus survives, he will likely be losing one if not several of his greatest strengths. Then again, what happens to Cletus next isn't nearly as much of an issue as what happens to everyone unlucky enough to be near his battle with Spider-Man and Scorpion. There can't be anything good about being caught in the path of an arc reactor explosion on its own, yet combining that with Marvel's most sadistic villain may very well create the worst kind of fallout imaginable.
Considering Cletus exists solely as a Codex, the chances of him being completely eradicated by this blast are astonishingly low. That being the case, there is a very real chance that Cletus won't just survive, but will spread thanks to the explosion. And, after seeing Cletus turn into entire landscapes, it isn't far-fetched at all to think that this might even give him a shot at expanding his reach further than ever before.