Venom King in Black event Marvel's "coolest, darkest, most heavy metal"

(Image credit: Marvel Comics)

Earlier this month Marvel teased that "Knull is coming," and now we know when and how: December with an event series titled King in Black.

Co-creators Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman reunite after Absolute Carnage and their Venom work together for Marvel's next major event following the Empyre, which itself is just days away.

"As far as event books go, this is the coolest, darkest, most heavy metal, Cthulhu dark horror thing I've ever been able to do," Cates says in the announcement. "I still can't believe that Marvel is letting us go as dark and scary as we're going."

Knull is the evil god of the Symbiotes (alien beings known as the Klyntar that bond with host lifeforms, the most famous of which is Eddie Brock/Venom), an evil warrior deity who created the Klyntar and their rivals the Exolons as well as All-Black the Necrosword, an important artifact in the Thor mythos.

Known for killing other gods, Knull has played an important role in the background of writer Donny Cates's ongoing Venom run, with Cates also incorporating Knull into his Silver Surfer: Black limited series and Guardians of the Galaxy run.

Here's a video which accompanied the announcement:

King in Black "conquers the Marvel Universe this December" according to the publisher, and will come face-to-face with the Avengers, X-Men, and of course Eddie Brock/Venom.

"One of the things I'm most proud of in this series… is the creation of the character Knull," Stegman says. "We have some new designs that we'll be unveiling throughout the series that are really cool and really creepy."

When asked about the length of the series past a first issue, Marvel declined to specify.

Chris Arrant covered comic book news for Newsarama from 2003 to 2022 (and as editor/senior editor from 2015 to 2022) and has also written for USA Today, Life, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher's Weekly, Marvel Entertainment, TOKYOPOP, AdHouse Books, Cartoon Brew, Bleeding Cool, Comic Shop News, and CBR. He is the author of the book Modern: Masters Cliff Chiang, co-authored Art of Spider-Man Classic, and contributed to Dark Horse/Bedside Press' anthology Pros and (Comic) Cons. He has acted as a judge for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the Harvey Awards, and the Stan Lee Awards. Chris is a member of the American Library Association's Graphic Novel & Comics Round Table. (He/him)