Who is Knull? An introduction to ‘Venom: The Last Dance’s big Marvel villain

So, who is Knull and why is he such a big deal? We are ve….. ry interested in finding out.

After a bland first trailer which promised a threequel in line with the first two entries, Venom: The Last Dance’s ‘final trailer‘ packed a bigger punch. The secret sauce? What appears to be an emotional goodbye (for now) to Eddie and Venom, and the surprising introduction of Knull, the King in Black and god of the symbiotes.

Of course, comic book fans everywhere lost their minds over the reveal. Some think it might be a good thing that points to larger plans, and others believe Sony Pictures will struggle to do anything meaningful with him this late in the game, which wouldn’t be surprising if we look at their other Spider-Man-less (but Spider-Man-adjacent) Marvel movies. Why should casual fans and moviegoers care about him though? We’ll briefly explain who Knull is, where he comes from, and how he could truly impact the plot of not just Venom: The Last Dance, but also future Marvel flicks.

Who is Knull and what does he want?

Marvel’s symbiotes are fantastic sci-fi monsters on their own and were already a huge part of the Marvel canon beyond the Spider-Man comic books. More recently, their mythology was refreshed and upgraded in a big way with the inclusion of Knull, a foe directly tied to the origin of the symbiotes. In fact, he’s the eldritch god that created them.

Knull resided in the Primordial Void that existed between the sixth and seven cosmoses (we could call them iterations of the Marvel multiverse). For a long time he was dormant, but the Celestials found and offered him the role of King in Black, a being tasked with maintaining the Multiverse from within using the power of Living Abyss aka anti-life. He soon rejected the Celestials’ belief in this cosmic balance (Kings in White are also a thing), instead choosing to wage war against the Light, determined to end existence and return to the Void.

Eventually, Knull was stuck on a planet after the inhabitant Gorr the God Butcher – a major villain in the Thor comics who already showed up in Thor: Love and Thunder played by Christian Bale – stole All-Black the Necrosword from him. This led to Knull experimenting with his powers and gaining the ability to merge the Living Abyss with creatures, giving birth to the symbiotes on this world.

After establishing himself as the Hive’s nexus and spending some time imprisoned by the symbiotes that turned on him following a failed invasion of Earth, he was freed by Eddie Brock and Carnage’s actions. Brock temporarily died, but was brought back to life by the God of Light, who gave him the power to destroy Knull in the core of the Sun. Of course, this whole arc was longer and took a while to blossom, but that’s the short rundown of who Knull is, what he was after, and how he perished.

Knull’s comic book appearances

Thor: God of Thunder #6 (March 2013), which focused on Gorr, marked Knull’s first appearance retroactively through a flashback and completely unnamed. His full reveal wouldn’t arrive until Venom (Vol. 4) #3, where he was properly introduced as a deity; in the next issue, most of his history was unveiled, connecting him to the Necrosword as well as Knowhere, the severed Celestial head prominently featured in the Guardians of the Galaxy comic books, video games, and movies.

As a primer of sorts, and if you want the quickest Knull reading roadmap, we highly recommend Venom (Vol. 4) #4 (the aforementioned full reveal), King in Black #1-5 (his invasion of Earth and following defeat), and Venom (Vol. 5) #18 (a rather major recontextualization of Knull’s main motivation and history).

How does Knull fit into Sony and Marvel’s future plans?

The two previous Venom movies arguably underused their respective main villains, especially Carnage, a big fan-favorite in the comic books, animated series, and the Marvel video games. Looking at the facts – as cool as Knull looks in the latest The Last Dance trailer – chances are the threequel will either rush his introduction and the battle against him, or only tease his presence. The latter would suggest larger plans that could even be multiversal.

By all accounts, Sony Pictures’ supposedly connected universe hasn’t come together. Morbius and Madame Web have been massive flops, and Kraven the Hunter could be another disaster in the making. Was the original plan to have all these characters band together (eventually) to stop Knull’s invasion of Earth, or is this a last-minute decision to set up something bigger in the Earth-616 Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)? Bear with us for moment here.

The thing about Marvel Studios establishing a multiverse is that pretty much every piece of on-screen Marvel is canon if they want it to be at some point. In fact, Venom 2 (and later Spider-Man: No Way Home’s post-credits scene) already led into a baffling crossover between Sony’s ill-fated timeline and the main MCU universe. While Eddie and Venom didn’t stick around for long – due to Doctor Strange sending all the guests back the way they came – they left a small amount of black (symbiote) goo behind. On a basic level, this almost completely confirms that Peter Parker will come across the symbiote sooner rather than later (logical, considering Avengers: Secret Wars looms near).

If we want to cook up wilder theories, however, there’s the possibility that Sony is just giving up on its universe-building plans and wants to let Marvel Studios take the reins on everything Spider-Man outside of animation. Knull could trace back that piece of symbiote to the Earth-616 universe and attempt an invasion, and maybe Venom: The Last Dance is just the end of the line for Eddie and Venom… in their doomed universe. It’s no secret that almost everyone wants them and Tom Holland’s Peter Parker to cross paths at some point, and the now-in-development Spider-Man 4 MCU movie could merge both storylines after more multiversal shenanigans.

Chances are we’ll have a clearer idea of where everything (not just Knull) is going after Venom: The Last Dance opens theatrically on Oct. 25, 2024.