His first long-term Marvel works were runs on Doctor Strange and Thanos. God Country was the book that attracted the Marvel editors who later on contacted him with an offer.

He followed his writing gig at Dark Horse with a Star Trek story at IDW and later on started writing for Image where he published God Country. The publisher was happy with the response for his writing and green lit some of his future projects, such as: Buzzkill, The Ghost Fleet and The Paybacks. The story was followed by another short story concentrating on the same character three issues later. The story was titled Hunter Quaid: Armageddon Outta Here and was done along with collaborator Eliot Rahal. The first story from him was for issue #24 and came out in the second volume of the anthology in August 2013. The writing career of Cates began at Dark Horse Comics where wrote a short story in their anthology series Dark Horse Presents.

He left the Marvel internship and later on started his writing career at Dark Horse Comics where he wrote some short stories. While interning, he received an advice from Mark Paniccia, an editor at Marvel, to leave the program and pursue a careen in writing his own comic books and he did. He majored in sequential art but dropped out as he was accepted for a Marvel internship. He gratuated from the Garland High School and continued his studies in the Savannah College of Art & Design where he met two of his future collaborators - Tradd Moore and Geoff Shaw. Cates has stated that during his childhood he learnt to read via comic books because of his father who was a big fan of the medium. Marvel made the announcement with a video at C2E2, where Cates introduces the new series and teases what fans will be able to expect when Venom and Carnage collide.Donny Cates was born in Dallas, Texas, but was raised in Garland, Texas. Cates will be writing the official, named series, with Stegman providing the art, and Frank Martin serving as colorist. Following that debut, the event itself will arrive in full force in August.

Things will kick off in Spider-Man/Venom #1, which will be one of the free offerings from Marvel Comics. While the plot threads of 'Absolute Carnage' go back a ways in the recent runs of Venom, the first real taste of the event will arrive on Free Comic Book Day, May 5th. Now, things are actually official, and Carnage is on his way. Marvel revealed that writer Donny Cates and artist Ryan Stegman have been building toward with their ongoing Venom series for some time. Venom and Carnage prepare to collide in the publisher's big summer event book in an announcement made by Marvel at C2E2 on Friday. Absolute Carnage is about to run rampant throughout the Marvel Universe in the pages of Venom, Spider-Man and issues of Absolute Carnage.

Donny cates absolute carnage