From Hugh Verheylewegen

On October 24th, Venom The Last Dance is set to release in theaters and is set to be the final Venom solo film following Tom Hardy’s variant of Eddie Brock & Venom. In their final adventure together they are coming face to face with the fearsome creator of the symbiotes known simply as Knull, the God of the Symbiotes. But who is Knull? What is Knull? And what are his plans for Earth in this universe that involve him hunting down Brock & Venom? Find out more below!

Origin

As with most comic book characters there are multiple origins, identities, incarnations and adaptations of certain characters across comics and various media. For this overview we will be looking at the primary origin of the character who was first introduced in Venom vol. 4 #3 released in August 2018. Knull is a primordial deity that came into being following the destruction of the sixth iteration of the cosmos. He was originally content to drift through "the endless void" until the Celestials arrived and began creating the 7th iteration of cosmos – the Marvel Universe. The Celestials offered Knull the position of "King in Black," whose purpose was to look after the Celestials' creations, but awakened by the "Light of Creation" and outraged by his kingdom of darkness being despoiled, Knull retaliated by creating All-Black the Necrosword, which he used to eliminate one of the Celestials. Seeing this, the other Celestials banished Knull and the severed celestial head deeper into the Void. He then used the celestial head to forge the symbiote and combined it with the cosmic energies of the head, which would eventually become Knowhere. In doing so, he unintentionally gave the symbiotes their weaknesses to high sonic frequencies and fire. He created a symbiote armor and, with All-Black, started killing the other deities, until he crash-landed on an unnamed planet where Gorr took All-Black from the incapacitated Knull and would become the God Butcher. Knull eventually reawakened and discovered he could bond his living abyss to "lesser creatures" and control their new forms as vessels. He created an army of symbiotes with himself in the center of the hive mind and used them to spread across the universe, thus establishing the Symbiote Hive and killing the "light and creation" in the process. He continued killing gods, while also enslaving others. At some point, he was approached by the time-displaced Silver Surfer who had been weakened after Silver Surfer had created a little star to free a world from Knull's control.

After a brief fight, Knull was able to bond a symbiote to Silver Surfer, but the latter was saved by Ego, the living planet. When Knull reached Silver Surfer, he tried to defeat him and re-infect Silver Surfer with his abyss, but Silver Surfer, who had gathered the energy of the cosmos, created a star which was enough to defeat Knull. When one dragon-like symbiote arrived on medieval Earth to claim the planet as part of the Symbiote Hive, the young Thor arrived in aid of the Viking villagers and defeated the dragon, which the villagers called "Grendel", causing the connection between Knull and the symbiote hive mind to break. The symbiotes that were scattered over the universe, now free from Knull's control, began bonding to benevolent hosts and learning about the Light. The symbiotes rebelled against their god and trapped him inside an artificial planet formed of billions of symbiotes, which they called Klyntar — "cage" in their language. After thousands of years, S.H.I.E.L.D. discovered the body of the Grendel and bonded the pieces of the dragon to soldiers to create Super-Soldiers to fight in the Vietnam War. The procedure was dubbed the Sym-Soldier program.

This reawakened Knull, allowing him to take control of the Sym-soldiers who went rogue before being captured by Nick Fury and Logan, except one piece, named Rex, which escaped Knull's control. Years later, Eddie Brock (Venom) unknowingly freed the dragon and, after a battle against Eddie and Spider-Man, the dragon began searching for Rex to free Knull. However, Venom merged with Rex and eventually trapped Grendel in a blast furnace, incinerating it and Rex both preventing Knull from being released. Knull would eventually be freed as a result of the events of “Absolute Carnage” where he promptly destroyed Klyntar, manifesting a suit of draconic armor and coalescing its constituent symbiotes into a fleet of symbiote-dragons. He resumed his campaign against the light all the while journeying to Earth, using his living abyss to claim entire planets to his cause, while haunting Eddie with pointed nightmares, and briefly imposed his influence over his son Dylan Brock to ensure that he would pledge allegiance to the Symbiote Imperium. Eventually Knull arrives on Earth unleashing his army upon all of Earth’s heroes including the Avengers & the X-Men who were warned about his arrival by Eddie Brock. Knull initially has the upper hand but through the combined efforts of Eddie Brock & the heroes of Earth they manage to defeat Knull for good. As a result of Knull's death, the Venom Symbiote translates to Eddie the language of the hostless Symbiotes and the Symbiote Dragons that he has become the new God of the Symbiotes now that they are free of Knull's control.

Powers & Weaknesses

Knull possesses superhuman strength and durability and given that he is a deity he is depicted as an immortal being. He is able to generate and manipulate eldritch darkness, as he can manifest darkness to create weapons and living creatures, whom he calls the "Living abyss." He is able to forge different types of symbiotes with various abilities, such as dragon-like symbiotes. He can remotely influence and control the symbiotes he creates. Knull is also a shapeshifter, being able to turn his human-like mouth into fanged jaws with an elongated tongue — a feature passed on to the symbiotes. With his regenerative healing factor, Knull can recover quickly from injuries and he also has the ability to fly. He is an expert combatant, utilizing All-Black to kill Celestials and other gods, while wearing armor made from symbiote-matter. Knull's armor is decorated with a red dragon and spiral emblem. While Knull's symbiotes have a weakness to sonics and fire, Knull only seems to have a weakness with light, though the extent of that susceptibility remains to be seen. Knull's hubris is one of his greatest weaknesses, as he routinely underestimates opponents he sees as beneath himself - such as the Silver Surfer, Venom, and Thor - and rarely fights using the full extent of his own power, instead opting to let his symbiotes do the fighting for him.

What to expect?

Knull has been set up as the main villain of Venom The Last Dance and it is established that he seems to be hunting Venom on Earth by sending deadly alien creatures and other symbiotes to find him. Why he wants Venom is currently unknown but it can be assumed that he wants to gain control of Venom for the same reason he attempts to regain control of all the symbiotes in the comics, which was to use them to conquer the cosmos. Given that there are seemingly no heroes that exist in this universe the odds are hugely in favor of Knull while Eddie Brock & Venom seem to stand little chance against him. It is possible for them to temporarily defeat Knull and postpone his invasion of Earth but to actually kill him like he does in comics is unknown and highly unlikely. The stakes are higher than ever and whether Knull ends appearing in future Marvel projects entirely depends on the events of this film.

Venom: The Last Dance hits theaters on October 25th, 2024.

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