Wiz: Like Carnage, Marvel's dangerously insane psychopath.
Boomstick: Or Lucy, the messed-up murder lady from Elfen Lied* .
Wiz: Elfen Lied* ; it's German.
Boomstick: Yeah, whatever.
Which blood-drawing psycho killer of the two will come out alive with the other inevitably going out a mess of blood and guts? Will the crimson symbiote-donning enemy of Spider-Man claim another victim or will Queen Diclonius manage to tear Cletus to shreds? Only one killer will survive in a death battle.
Our hosts start with the more deranged of the two. Cletus Kasady didn't exactly have a normal childhood. His mother tried to kill Cletus for killing her dog, his father killed his mother for it and was sent to prison, and Cletus killed his grandmother. After burning down his orphanage and being caught for 11 known murders, Kasady was sent to prison, where his cellmate was Eddie Brock, also known as the Spider-Man hating symbiote host Venom. Eddie's symbiote would begin reproducing asexually, creating a new symbiote that bonded with Cletus through a cut on his skin, merging with his blood. Thanks to his symbiote, Cletus Kasady would become the dangerous monster known as Carnage.
As the spawn of Venom, Carnage has most of Venom's abilities, such as super strength. However, Carnage is actually stronger than his "father" and comes with his own unique powers, like shapeshifting. He's able to create axes and projectiles with his own bloody suit. He can also create tendrils he can use to attack or directly infect his victims to control or torment them. He's also capable of regenerations and even if the symbiote were somehow destroyed on the outside, it will be reformed from his bloody even through the tiniest cut. The symbiote also has an enhanced sense of awareness, allowing him to sense his victims, and even if you can get away, he's learned how to fly by forming wings. Given that Venom has shown to be fast enough to catch bullets after fired, and Carnage is said to be as fast if not faster, this means he's likely able to react faster than twice the speed of sound. Furthermore, Venom is specifically stronger than Spider-Man, whose best-known strength feat was lifting equipment on par with a locomotive (which, given the time period, would have been 130 tons) and Carnage has outmuscled both of them together. And once, when he was looking for a journalist, he used his tendrils to locate her and transport her through said tendrils 2 miles away. She shot him, but thanks to this healing factor and his durability, he was more than able to survive a stronger blast at 125 tons of TNT. He's also survived a gene bomb explosion and being ripped in half in space.
Granted, Carnage is not invincible, just hard to put down. Like all symbiotes, he's weak to extreme heat. He used to be weak to loud noises but used magic to get rid of them. However, despite this, Carnage doesn't let this stop him from doing what he loves... murder.
On the other side of the world, through manga and anime, comes another psychopath with horrifying superpowers. Be warned, what follows is pretty disturbing. Kaede, better known as Lucy, is the queen of the Dicolnii and may in fact be the most dangerous of her kind. Orphaned due to her unique features, the horns shaped like cat ears, Kaede was left at an orphanage with the children picking on her ruthlessly. She eventually found a stray puppy and became friends with it, only for the other children to learn and force her to watch as they beat it to death. Horrified and in rage, her powers were awakened and used to murder the kids. This would be the start of Lucy's path of bloodshed.
As a Diclonius, Lucy has vectors, which can best be described as 7 feet invisible psychic arms from her back. As a queen, she has 28 of them and is meant to use them to infect human males so that they will breed more Diclonii. However, due to her unhappy childhood, Lucy uses them for something else. By vibrating at different frequencies, the vectors have different uses. At their lowest frequency, they pass through objects with no effect. At medium, they become solid and act as shields and can lift heavy objects, even lifting herself by pressing the vectors into the ground. At their third frequency, they act as blades, cutting through metal and even humans. At their highest frequency, the vectors become visible and can greater damage. These vectors are fast enough to catch a bullet, even bullets that are shot at 900 mph, which would give her vector almost 1,900 mph in reaction time. These vectors are strong enough to throw a pen through a man's skull, lift a boulder that likely weighs almost 75 tons, and shielded a SLAM missile. It should be noted that Lucy isn't always in control of her actions, due to her damaged sanity. A gunshot to the head has created a split personality called "Nyu", who is childlike and innocent, contrasting the apathetic and brutal person Lucy normally is. Along with this is a third voice, her "DNA voice" constantly urges her to kill and infect humans. It's only through Nyu does Lucy gain any friends and a shot at redemption. However, this didn't stop her from getting involved in battles that resulted in her going to full power. At her full strength, her vectors are longer and capable of explosions on par with nuclear fusion.
However, as a Diclonius, Lucy has two key weaknesses. A blow to the forehead or losing her horn will nullify her vectors. Also, if she pushes herself too hard, she starts to melt. Despite this, Lucy pulled through and found redemption in the end by saving the life of the man she loved. That being said, Elfen Lied is most memorable for its extreme amounts of gore.
With both's combatant's blood-soaked history thoroughly analyzed, it's time for them to draw one another's. One Blue Apron advertisement later, it's time for a Death Battle!
At a train station one stormy night, Nyu waits patiently for her train, only for her notice when it arrives that something is wrong. There is screaming, laughter, and blood splatters on the window—and more blood is painting the windows as she watches. The doors open, revealing Carnage standing in puddles of gore. Looking up to see the supposedly harmless Nyu, Carnage lunges for his new victim. This causes the terrified Nyu persona to retreat as Lucy takes her place...
FIGHT!
With her vectors, Lucy catches the attacking Carnage in mid-air, who is confused as to why he's suddenly stopped. Telling him to die, Lucy tears the monster apart. Normally, this would be it, but Carnage laughs this off and reforms, much to Lucy's confusion. Carnage tries to cut her in half, but Lucy counters by shielding her vectors. Although Carnage cannot lay a scratch on her, Lucy finds herself unable to put her opponent down thanks to his regeneration ability. Through some quick thinking and dirty fighting, Carnage can use projectiles to scratch Lucy and begin to wear her down. Starting to lose patience, Lucy counters and smashes Carnage into a pillar, chop him up again and throw him into the train. Carnage doesn't die, instead, he starts singing about killing her. He then becomes a large mass of tendrils with hands out to get a hold of her. Lucy does her best to block, but when she lifts herself into the air, Carnage starts forming around her vectors, vowing to murder his opponent. Lucy responds by vibrating her vectors to shake him off and then vows to put him out of his misery after slamming him into the ground. At full power, Lucy's vectors come towards Carnage, who can only tell Lucy that he hates her before he is caught in a massive explosion. Though the train station is destroyed, Lucy survives, having defeated her monstrous opponent.
KO!
While Carnage's healing powers and durability gave him the edge to survive long, that was his only real advantage. While Carnage can pass speeds of Mach 2, Lucy's vectors at full power can reach 240 miles in less than 2 seconds, putting her 250 times faster than her opponent with a range 120 times as far. With her speed and his healing, the fight depended on who could land the killing blow first. The only way to defeat Carnage was to destroy him, and Lucy had what it takes to win. Carnage's main Achilles heel in this fight was his heat tolerance. At full power, Lucy once caused an explosion that destroyed an island and created an earthquake and 100 ft tidal wave. An explosion of that magnitude would require 31,000 tons of TNT, on par with nuclear fusion, which Lucy's power has been compared to. The heat from such an explosion can reach 180,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 18 times hotter than the surface of the sun and far more hot and powerful than anything Carnage has ever dealt with. The only way Carnage could have won would be if he powered through the vectors, which would have been difficult due to their speed and he had no way to see them. Ultimately, Carnage's durability wasn't enough to deal with Lucy's greater speed and overwhelming power.
Wiz: The winner is Lucy!
Carnage vs. Lucy contains examples of:
- Asshole Victim: With his rap sheet probably being at least a mile long, it's safe to say nobody is going to miss Carnage after Lucy's killed him.
- Ax-Crazy: The defining theme of the episode — two psychotic and superpowered killers who have slain many innocents in their path.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: A shared incident in both their backstories is the abuse of a dog. In Lucy's case, it was the kids at the orphanage killing her adopted puppy before she snapped and slaughtered them, in Cletus' case, he was the one who killed the family dog.
- Battle in the Rain: Lucy and Carnage's showdown takes place during a thunderstorm. Lucy's final attack is strong enough to dissipate the clouds and stop the rain.
- Call-Back: Like Venom vs. Bane, the symbiotic combatant uses a singsong line to taunt his opponent.
- Combat Tentacles: Both combatants have the capability of using them — Carnage's symbiote can shape its attacks into tentacles, while Lucy has her multiple vectors.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: In the end, Lucy dominates Carnage in almost every way, and his one advantage (durability) is negated by her raw offensive power. This is even reflected in the fight animation itself — while most other curb-stomp death battles gave the outclassed loser a Curb Stomp Cushion, there is none for Carnage here as Lucy is clearly in control of the entire fight.
- Dying Declaration of Hate: Just before Lucy finishes him off, Carnage grouses out how he hates her before being vaporized.
- Ironic Nursery Tune: After being thrown into the train, Carnage starts singing to mess with Lucy's head."It's raining, you're bleeding, Carnage is starving!"
- Irony: Both Carnage and Lucy are known for killing their victims with quite brutal and bloody methods. However, Carnage's death is a Gory Discretion Shot and there's no blood shown when he's vaporized.
- Kill It with Fire: One of the Carnage symbiotes very few and more readily-available weaknesses, especially after it traded the weakness to sonics for a far-less-common weakness to eldritch magic. Lucy manages to exploit it and take the win.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Boomstick considers the kids who killed Lucy's dog in front of her to have deserved their horrible deaths. Although...Boomstick: [shocked by Lucy's first kills] Oh. Damn.
- A Lighter Shade of Black: Lucy has a mountain of dead bodies in her name, but she has a tragic backstory and a love for animals that keeps her sympathetic, plus she would develop regret for the murders she's committed and found redemption saving the man she loved at the cost of her own life. Her opponent, Cletus Kasady, was a demented serial killer even before becoming Carnage, and made himself known as one of the Marvel Universe's most feared villains who takes the deep joy out of the senseless killing of anyone regardless of age or even species, and is ultimately incapable of feeling genuine love, much less regret or even a desire for redemption.
- Man of Kryptonite: Carnage is very weak to fire, and Lucy is capable of making nuclear-tier explosions. This is one of the biggest factors in why she wins.
- Mugging the Monster: Cletus turns on Nyu as soon as he's finished slaughtering the train passengers, thinking she's another easy target. He bites off way more than he can chew when she wastes no time using her vectors to tear him to shreds and eventually vaporizes him.
- No Body Left Behind: One of the few ways to put down Carnage for good is to make sure absolutely nothing is left of him when he's killed. Luckily for Lucy, her vectors in high-frequency range let her disintegrate Carnage with a nuclear blast of fire.
- One-Hit Kill: Lucy only needed one high-frequency Vector attack to kill Carnage, leaving him with nothing to regenerate from. This is actually noted in one of the post-match info-squares. Both Carnage and Lucy could and really only needed to land only a single fatal blow on their opponent to end the fight, it's just that Lucy had far more offensive and defensive options to do so before Carnage did.
- Outside-Context Problem: One of the few advantages Carnage has. Lucy's main enemies in her series were Chief Kakuzawa's soldiers and other Diclonius, who she usually tear apart within minutes with little effort. Carnage is a kind of enemy she's never had to face prior, a Berserker who can actually last more than several minutes in battle thanks to being able to put himself back together no matter how many times he's sliced apart. Carnage is something completely unaffiliated with the Diclonius, let alone aware of them, and the Diclonius Institute weren't the ones to send him after her.
- Running Gag: Boomstick pronouncing "Lied" as it's spelled rather than the German pronunciation of "leed", and Wiz correcting him with the insistence that "it's German". He gets it right for his end-of-episode one-liner, though.
- Serial Killer: Both Cletus and Lucy have high body counts on their resumes, and Carnage's entrance into the fight is on a train full of innocents he slaughtered before Lucy got on.
- Single-Stroke Battle: Subverted. Lucy's first move of the fight involves tearing Cletus in half, ripping him limb from limb, and then dropping the pieces to the pavement. If she had been fighting almost anyone else in Death Battle history, her first move of the fight would have resulted in this trope. Unfortunately for her, Carnage can survive that.
- Super-Reflexes: Both Carnage and Lucy had roughly even reflexes, but Lucy had faster attack options through her Vectors, barring her opponent from landing any solid hits.
- Super-Speed: While Carnage is more mobile than Lucy, her Vectors can move over 250 times faster than anything he can react to. Combined with her reflexes, he was hard-pressed to land any solid hits.
- Super-Strength: Carnage is naturally superior to the likes of Spiderman and Venom, and his opponent can effortlessly lift 70-ton boulders and throw them great distances. When Lucy's Vectors are maxed out though, she far outclasses Carnage in this category.
- Tempting Fate: When Lucy rips apart Carnage for the first time and tells him to die, Carnage mockingly laughs and tells her "Not yet!" while putting himself back together. He was probably intending to live for more than a few minutes and not get vaporized in a nuclear explosion.
