Who Is Knull, the Villain of Venom: The Last Dance?

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 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 making his first live-action appearance in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. 

As shown in the new Venom 3 trailer, Tom Hardy’s Lethal Protector will have his Last Dance when Venom’s homeworld threatens Eddie’s as Knull leads an alien invasion that could potentially spill over into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

But who is Knull and how will he enter the SSU? Just as the symbiote gave Eddie a taste of 80 billion light-years of hive knowledge across universes in 2021’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage — where they were briefly pulled through the multiverse and into the MCU — here’s what to know about the villain before Venom: The Last Dance waltzes into theaters on October 25th.

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.

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.