King in Black. Lord of the Abyss. God of the Symbiotes. He is Knull, the dark god and progenitor of the symbiotic alien race spawned from the blackness of the Living Abyss: the Klyntar. Billions of years before Spider-Man’s black alien costume bonded with Peter Parker and then Eddie Brock as its host, the symbiote was part of a symbiote hive mind — and its master is the Andy Serkis-voiced villain who sends his symbiote army after Eddie/Venom (Tom Hardy) in Venom: The Last Dance.
But who is Knull in the comics, and what does the ending of Venom 3 mean for the future of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe? Because the movie explains little about the big bad, read on below for everything you need to know about Knull, King in Black.
Knull first appeared in 2018’s Venom #3 by Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman, although issue #4 of that same series tied his origin to a 2013 issue of Jason Aaron’s Thor: God of Thunder. (That series revealed that Knull’s first born — his god-slaying living blade, All-Black the Necrosword — was taken by Gorr the God Butcher.)
During the primordial stages of space, Knull’s abyss was bathed in light when the Celestials Arishem, Jemiah, and Ziran — god-like cosmic beings as ancient as space and time itself — birthed the Seventh Cosmos, a.k.a. the prime Marvel Universe known as Earth-616. He forged All-Black from the fires of a fallen Celestial, explaining why the proto-symbiote’s spawn have an aversion to fire.
Symbiosis began on Gorr’s homeworld, where the black-armored god dwelled for a century. His hunger manifesting as black tendrils, Knull bonded his Living Abyss with lesser creatures to survive, allowing him to draw on the host’s strength and pilot their forms as new vessels. Knull became the god-host of the symbiote hive mind, and his horde spread darkness across the galaxy with his swarm of winged Grendels: symbiote dragons.
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During the dark centuries, Knull came to Earth in Scandinavia, where his symbiote army was thwarted by Thor, the god of thunder. With his connection to his children severed by the Asgardian, Knull’s swarm unraveled, and the symbiotes sought new hosts who infected the symbiote hive like a parasitic infection — like a venom. After spawning millions of symbiotes untethered from his control, Knull was consumed by the Abyss and drowned in darkness.
Knull’s symbiotes became the Klyntar — not a symbiote planet as once believed, but their word for “cage.” In his first appearance, Knull sought the missing pieces of his Grendel to free him from his prison, and he told Eddie Brock and Miles Morales that he would finish what he began eons ago: rid his dark kingdom of light by destroying Earth.
Cates and Stegman’s Marvel Universe-spanning King in Black storyline saw Knull unleash his symbiote army on the planet, an invasion that brought together Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and Doctor Strange and the Avengers to stop it. Knull killed Eddie, but the Silver Surfer — who once battled the God-King of the Symbiotes at the dawn of time — resurrected him with the Enigma Force, a cosmic entity born of light.
As the temporary God of Light, Venom defeated the All Black-wielding Knull. “The void is eternal,” Knull told Eddie/Venom. “The darkness has teeth.” But so does Venom, who ended Knull’s reign as the King in Black by burning him to death in the Sun.
Knull’s death freed the symbiote hive, and Eddie Brock became the host of the symbiote hive mind as the god of the symbiotes: the new King in Black.
Venom: The Last Dance — also starring Chiwetel Ejiofor (Doctor Strange) as Rex Strickland, Juno Temple (Ted Lasso) as Dr. Payne, Rhys Ifans (The Amazing Spider-Man) as Martin Moon, Alanna Ubach (Euphoria) as Nova Moon, Peggy Lu (reprising her role as Mrs. Chen), Stephen Graham (reprising his Venom 2 role as Detective Mulligan), and Andy Serkis as Knull — is now playing in theaters.
