Knull

Knull
Knull as featured on a variant cover from Venom (Vol. 4) #5 (August 22, 2018) Art by Skan Srisuwan
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Thor: God of Thunder #6 (March 2013; identity unrevealed) Venom vol. 4 #3 (August 2018; full appearance)
Created by	Donny Cates Ryan Stegman
In-story information
Species	Elder God1
Place of origin	Primordial void
Team affiliations	Symbiote Imperium
Notable aliases	God of the Symbiotes God of the Void God of the darkness Lord of the Abyss God-Host Grendel (avatar) Exolon God King in Black Slicer of Worlds
Abilities	Superhuman strength, speed, and durability Matter generation and manipulation Shadow manipulation Symbiote domination Symbiote creation Healing factor Shapeshifting Immortality Flight Skilled hand-to-hand combatant

Knull (/nʌl/) is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Donny Cates and artist Ryan Stegman, the character debuted in Venom vol. 4 #3 (August 2018), and later retroactively established as the unnamed black-armored figure in Jason Aaron's Thor: God of Thunder #6 (March 2013). Knull is a primordial god of darkness from before the universe's seventh iteration. He created the symbiote race and the weapon All-Black the Necrosword, and he rules the symbiotes as the King in Black. His introduction altered the established fictional history of the Klyntar, Venom, and Carnage.

Knull was developed gradually across Cates and Stegman's Venom run (2018–2021), first appearing in flashback before escalating to the central antagonist of the "Absolute Carnage" crossover event (2019) and then the main villain of the company-wide "King in Black" event (2020–2021). In that event, he invades Earth with a fleet of symbiote dragons, kills Sentry, and seals the planet in a symbiote sphere that cuts it off from sunlight, before being defeated and killed by Venom, who absorbs his role as King in Black. Following the Venom War storyline (2024), Knull was resurrected in a 2026 self-titled solo series, written by Al Ewing and Tom Waltz with art by Juanan Ramirez.

Knull has been described as one of Marvel's most powerful supervillains.²³⁴⁵⁶ His creation drew widespread critical attention as a meaningful reinvention of the symbiote mythos. Knull made his live-action feature film debut in the Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU) film Venom: The Last Dance, portrayed by Andy Serkis.

The character was first introduced in Venom vol. 4 #3 (Aug 2018), giving a nod to a nameless being appearing in Thor: God of Thunder #6.⁷ The character would be mentioned in various issues of Web of Venom, Guardians of the Galaxy and "War of the Realms". After that, Knull was the main antagonist in Donny Cates' Silver Surfer: Black.

Knull returned in King in Black as the main antagonist, which centers on his attack on Earth with his symbiote army.⁸ Knull was killed off at the end of King in Black, but returned in a self-titled series in 2025. The series is written by Al Ewing and Tom Waltz, with art by Juanan Ramirez.⁹

Knull is a primordial deity who came into being following the destruction of the sixth iteration of the cosmos.¹⁰ 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 him the position of "King in Black" and the responsibility of ensuring stability in their new universe,¹¹ but upon realizing that the Celestials' "Light of Creation" was slowly despoiling his kingdom of darkness and making him little more than a pawn of the Celestials, Knull retaliated by creating his first symbiote in the form of a large sword, with which he decapitated the Celestial tasked with monitoring him.¹²

The other Celestials banished Knull and the severed Celestial head deeper into the Void. He then used the head to forge All-Black the Necrosword by combining his symbiote sword with extracted cosmic energy from its brain, a process that inadvertently created Knowhere.¹³ 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.¹⁴

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.¹⁵ 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.¹⁶

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.¹²

After thousands of years, S.H.I.E.L.D. discovered the body of 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.¹⁷ 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.¹⁸ However, Venom merged with Rex and trapped Grendel in a blast furnace, incinerating it and Rex.¹⁹

In Carnage Born, after Scorn joined a cult worshiping Knull, they steal Grendel's codex and Cletus Kasady's deceased body, and after implanting the codex inside Cletus, the Carnage symbiote's codex was absorbed by Grendel, causing Grendel to become god-like. After the contact with Knull, Cletus decided to free Knull by collecting every codex of every host who had at some point bonded to symbiotes to overload the symbiote hive mind and scatter the Klyntar.²⁰ After Cletus reunited with Doppelganger and Shriek, they reformed the cult dedicated to worshipping Knull. They then returned to Doverton, Colorado, where they receive codices from citizens and animals who were infected by Carnage during Carnage USA.²¹

During "Absolute Carnage", as Carnage grew stronger, so did the connection between Knull and the symbiotes, as witnessed when Phage, Agony, Lasher, Riot and Scream also became corrupt.²²²³ Knull was finally reawakened after Dark Carnage tricked Eddie into killing him after claiming the remaining codices. Knull promptly destroyed Klyntar, manifesting a suit of draconic armor and coalescing its constituent symbiotes into a fleet of symbiote-dragons. Meanwhile, Knull was tracked down by Wraith who wanted Knull to remove the Exolon parasites from his body.²⁴ Knull revealed to Wraith that Exolons were just his failed experiments on symbiotes and he dumped that "trash" in The Exoteric Latitude, he stripped the Exolon from Wraith's body turning it into his sword and kicked off Wraith into the space.²⁵ Knull resumes his campaign against the light while making his way to Earth.²⁶

Sensing Knull coming at the start of the "King in Black" storyline, Eddie Brock alerts the Avengers. Knull unleashes the Symbiote Dragons on Earth as the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men fight them. Sentry takes Knull into Earth's orbit, intending to kill him, but Knull kills Sentry and assimilates the Void. Knull then proceeds to have his Symbiote Dragons form a sphere around Earth to cut it off from the Sun. Knull grabs Venom as he recognizes Eddie as the one who killed Grendel, then he states to Eddie that he is looking for his son, Dylan Brock. When Eddie begs for Knull to take him instead, Knull rips the Venom symbiote from him and absorbs it.¹⁰

Knull plans to control Dylan since the latter has the Symbiote codex, but Dylan fights back freeing Cyclops, Invisible Woman, Doctor Strange, Black Cat, and the Human Torch. Strange morphs into a stronger form and together the heroes fight back against the symbiotes. Namor, Thor and Storm deal heavy damage while Jean Grey's psychic powers immobilize Knull, seeing Knull's past and realizing that the God of Light (the Enigma Force) is the one thing that can take down Knull. Silver Surfer arrives to where the Enigma Force is and frees it from the Symbiotes. Knull reels in pain and Eddie is chosen to be the new Captain Universe.²⁷

Venom manages to make use of Mjolnir and Silver Surfer's surfboard, fusing them into a battle axe that is in the shape of Venom's spider emblem. Using his battle axe, Venom starts to shred his way through the Symbiote Dragons upon noting that Knull has become afraid of him. Knull even unleashes a Symbiote-controlled Celestial to aid him, only for Venom to behead it. As Venom rips off Knull's armor, Knull states that the darkness is in Dylan. Venom then picks up Knull, flies into the air, and punches through the Symbiote barrier surrounding Earth, where he uses the Uni-Power to vaporize Knull. As a result of Knull's death, Eddie Brock becomes the god of the Symbiotes now that they are free of Knull's control.²⁸

As the new King in Black, Eddie learns from his future self known as the Eventuality that the Kings in Black are picked by the Celestials to serve the same purpose as the Beyonders—maintaining the multiverse—but they work from the inside instead of the outside. Knull had refused the work and rebelled against the Celestials.¹¹

Eddie Brock lost his position as King in Black during the Venom War storyline, creating a cosmic vacancy. Knull is resurrected to fill this vacancy, but is left in a weakened state. Hela captures Knull and takes most of his power, becoming the Queen in Black.²⁹³⁰ With his darkness powers drained, Knull turns to the light, conquering the Lightforce Dimension.³¹

Knull possesses superhuman strength and durability.¹⁰³²³³ He is depicted as an immortal being.³⁴⁶ 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."^12323536 He is able to forge different types of symbiotes with various abilities, such as dragon-like symbiotes.³⁷³⁸ He can remotely influence and control the symbiotes he creates.¹² 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.¹⁶ With his regenerative healing factor, Knull can recover quickly from injuries.¹² Knull also has the ability to fly.¹⁰

He is an expert combatant, using All-Black to kill Celestials and other gods, while wearing an armor made from symbiote-matter. Knull's armor is decorated with a red dragon and spiral emblem, which was based on Spiral of Carcosa from True Detective.³⁹

Ian Cardona of CBR.com referred to Knull as a "cross between Marvel's Dracula and the main villain behind Spider-Verse, Morlun", writing, "There is an ethereal, wraith-like quality to his demeanor. He's got the appropriately haunting build, with his broad shoulders and chest covered by armor that makes him appear both regal and powerful. He has terrifyingly sharp teeth, and the signature symbiote tongue."⁴⁰ Bradley Prom of Screen Rant called Knull one of Marvel's "memorable antagonists", saying, "It took all of Earth's heroes, along with intergalactic heroes such as the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Kree-Skrull alliance to finally stop him. However, before they all teamed up, Knull beat Silver Surfer, the Avengers, the X-Men, and more, forcing the ultimate team-up to stop one of the most powerful Marvel Comics villains in history."³

Knull received particular attention in Sweden and Norway, due to the word knull being the noun form of "fuck" (referring to copulation), in Swedish and Norwegian.⁴¹⁴²⁴³

Various online articles have assessed Knull as among the most powerful villains in Marvel Comics,^245364445 and among the most powerful symbiotes.^3354647 In 2020, CBR.com included Knull in their "Spider-Man: The Best New Villains of the Century" list.⁴⁸ In 2022, Screen Rant included Knull in their "Marvel Comics: 13 Most Powerful Symbiotes" list, in their "10 Best Cosmic Villains Not Yet in the MCU" list,⁴⁹ and in their "10 Marvel Comics Gods Who Should Join The MCU Next" list.⁵⁰

Knull appears in the Spider-Man promo "The Secret History of Venom", voiced by Ben Pronsky. This version created the Klyntar to serve as living weapons against the Celestials before eventually abandoning the former after deeming his first creations, the Symbiote Sisters, useless to him.

• Knull serves as loose inspiration for the Dark Shadow Lord in Thor: Love and Thunder.⁵¹ This version is the Necrosword's original owner before Gorr the God Butcher.
• Knull appears in Venom: The Last Dance, portrayed by Andy Serkis.⁵²⁵³⁵⁴ This version is the creator of the Symbiotes and the Xenophages, intended to destroy all life and light in the universe. However, his Symbiotes betrayed him and imprisoned him on his own world.

• Knull and Ancient Venom (Venom possessed by Knull) appear as playable characters in Spider-Man Unlimited.
• Knull appears as a playable character and boss in Marvel: Future Fight.
• Knull appears in Marvel Snap.
• Knull appears as a playable character in Marvel Contest of Champions.
• Knull appears as a playable character in Marvel Puzzle Quest.⁵⁵
• Knull appears as a boss and playable character in Marvel Strike Force.
• Knull appears as an NPC character in Marvel Rivals, voiced by Michael Scott.⁵⁶
• Knull appears in Marvel Cosmic Invasion, voiced by Isaac C. Singleton Jr.⁵⁴