WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Ruins of Ravencroft: Carnage #1 by Frank Tieri, Angel Unzueta, Guiu Vilanova, Rachelle Rosenberg and Travis Lanham, on sale now.
When Cletus Kasady was brought back and reunited with the Carnage symbiote thanks to a cult devoted to Knull, the god of the symbiotes, the Spider-Man villain became a different kind of threat. In Absolute Carnage, Carnage was a danger to anyone who had ever bonded with a symbiote before, since he needed to collect the symbiote codices that had been left behind in all of them. By doing that, Carnage would be able to reconnect himself to the Klyntar hive-mind and awaken Knull.
This mission was the sole focus of the supervillain for a long time, and he eventually succeeded in Absolute Carnage #5 -- even if it seemingly ended up costing Cletus his life. And as Knull makes his way to Earth for a confrontation that is sure to endanger the entire planet in the near future, Ruins of Ravencroft: Carnage #1 takes a look back to the past of the Marvel Universe to reveal that Cletus Kasady's connection to Knull runs far deeper than anyone realized.
In Ruins of Ravencroft, the Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane is in the process of getting demolished to be rebuilt stronger and better than before. However, the demolition process leads to the discovery of the private journal of the institute's original founder, Jonas Ravencroft. In the pages of the book, we learn the secret history of the Ravencroft Institute, and how it ties into the overarching Knull saga.
The journal reveals that the site where the institute for the criminally insane would eventually be built has been plagued with darkness ever since at least the 1400s. This area was home to a group of Native Americans who worshipped death and prayed at the altar of Knull. The location would continue to haunt visitors through the foundation of the United States of America, and it would form a bond with Cletus Kasady's family tree in 1664.
At that time, a man named Cortland would venture into the dark territory after the disappearance of his wife Molly. After the people in his village refused to help him, Cortland goes by himself into a cave, only to come under attack by a man with Knull's symbol painted on his chest. Although his wife comes to his rescue, Cortland moved on further into the cave, in order to kill all of the Natives who inhabit the haunted area. In the cave, Cortland finds piles of bones and a giant painting of Knull and deduces that he is some sort of god.
Then, he finds all of Knull's worshippers staring menacingly at him. With a knife and a gun, Cortland takes the fight to them and somehow survives. When he comes out of the cave, he is drenched in blood, and he himself appears to now be obsessed with Knull. As Cortland returns to his village, he continues his rampage and kills eight people while saying, "God is coming," a phrase that Carnage also repeated throughout Absolute Carnage.
Cortland would eventually be stopped and imprisoned in a cage that would become the Ravencroft Institute. But the real surprise comes when this man, dubbed "the first mass murderer in the New World," is revealed to be Cletus Kasady's ancestor, Cortland Kasady. In his cage, Cortland's obsession with Knull would be taken further, and he would eventually kill his wife, escape, and join the cult devoted to Knull.
Therefore, it appears as if Cletus Kasady was always destined to become obsessed with Knull. The connection between the two stretches all the way back to the birth of the country itself. It shows that Knull has had his claws embedded in the Kasady lineage for centuries. Given the influence Knull likely had over Cletus' dark birth, which also happened at the Ravencroft Institute, these revelations make it clear that Knull manipulated Cletus' life to engineer his eventual release. Now that that's happened, there's no telling how much carnage Knull might spread across the Marvel Universe.