Knull (character)

The character was first introduced in Venom #3 (Aug 2018), giving a nod to a nameless being appearing in Thor: God of Thunder #6.[2] 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 #1.

Knull returned in King in Black as the main antagonist, which centers on his attack on Earth with his symbiote army.

Knull is a primordial deity that came into being following the destruction of the sixth iteration of the cosmos,[3] and was originally content to drift through the endless void until the Celestials arrived and began creating the 7th iteration of the Marvel Universe. Awakened by the "Light of the Creation" and outraged by his kingdom of darkness being despoiled, Knull retaliated by creating All-Black the Necrosword and killing one of the Celestials. Seeing this, the other Celestials banished Knull and the severed head deeper into the Void. He then used the head to forge the symbiote and combined it with the cosmic energies of the head, which would eventually become Knowhere.[4] In doing so, he unintentionally gave the symbiotes their weaknesses to sonic attacks 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.[5] Knull eventually reawakened and discovered he could bond his living abyss to "lesser creatures" and control their new form as vessels. He created an army of symbiotes with himself in the center of the hive mind and uses them to spread over the universe, establishing the Symbiote Hive and killing the light and creation in the process.

He continued killing gods, while also enslaving others whom he spared with the use of his abyss. At some point, he was approached by the time-displaced Silver Surfer, who had been weakened after the Surfer had created a little star in order to free a world from Knull's control. After a brief fight, Knull was able to bond a symbiote to the Surfer, but the latter was saved by Ego, the Living Planet.[6] When Knull reached the Surfer, he tried to defeat him and re-infect the Surfer with his abyss, but the Surfer, who had gathered the energy of the cosmos, created a star which was enough to defeat Knull.[7]

When one dragon-like symbiote arrived on medieval Earth to claim the planet as part of the Symbiote Hive, 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 hivemind 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.[8]

After thousands of years, S.H.I.E.L.D. discovered the body of the Grendel and bound the pieces of the dragon to soldiers in order 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.[9] Years later, Eddie Brock (Venom) unknowingly freed the dragon and, after a battle against Eddie and Spider-Man, the dragon began searching for Rex in order to free Knull.[10] However, Venom merged with Rex and eventually trapped the Grendel in a blast furnace, incinerating it and Rex both.[11] Afterward, the Maker and Project Oversight retrieve the Grendel's codex from the furnace.[12]

In Carnage Born, after Scorn joined a cult worshiping Knull, they stole the Grendel's codex and Cletus' deceased body and, after implanting the codex inside Cletus, the Carnage symbiote's codex is 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 in order to overload the symbiote hive mind and scatter the Klyntar.[13] After Cletus reunited with Doppelganger and Shriek, they reformed the cult dedicated in worshiping Knull and returned to Doverton, Colorado, where they got the codices from the citizens and animals who were infected by Carnage during Carnage USA.[14]

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.[15][16] Knull was finally reawakened after Dark Carnage tricked Eddie into killing him after claiming the remaining codices. Knull promptly destroyed Klyntar and, 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 that attach to a host while feeding on their soul) from his body.[17] Knull revealed to Wraith that Exolons were just his failed experiments on symbiotes and he dumped that "trash" in The Exoteric Latitude, though he striped the Exolon from Wraith's body and turned it into his sword while kicked off Wraith into the space.[18] Soon, he resumed his campaign against the light all the while journeying to Earth,[19] using his living abyss to claim entire planets to his cause,[20] while haunting Eddie Brock with pointed nightmares[21] and briefly imposed his influence over Dylan Brock to ensure that he would pledge allegiance to the Symbiote Imperium.[22][23]

At the time when the Guardians of the Galaxy were investigating the death of Zn'rx Emperor Stote during the Galactic Council's meeting at the Proscenium and find that the Chitauri Peacekeeper and the Profiteer were responsible sometime after the events of the "Empyre" storyline, Zoralis Gupa of the planet Silnius takes an urgent call while mentioning to the person on the other side to warn all neighboring systems. He tells Victoria that it's the End of Everything as different planets are starting to die in the planets owned by the Shi'ar, the Kree/Skrull Alliance, and the Zn'rx while rendering the galactic economy fragile enough to go bankrupt. Knowing that she won't make a profit, the Profiteer teleports Peacekeeper and the bio-bomb away. While thanking Zoralis Gupa for fooling the Profiteer with the bluff, Zoralis Gupa states to Super-Skrull and everyone present that something darker than Galactus is destroying the worlds and its name is Knull.[24]

Emperor Hulkling dispatched Talos to investigate the Kree and Skrull bases that went dark with Av-Rom, Keeyah, M'lanz, Virtue, and Tarna. Two days later, a Kree/Skrull Alliance armada headed by General Kalamari finds Talos' escape pod. After recuperating in the sick bay, Talos recaps to Kalamari about what happened on his mission that involved an encounter with Knull. Talos then informs Kalamari that his distress beacon on his escape pod is a warning that Knull is coming. Outside the ship, Knull is riding a Symbiote Dragon as he swoops in for an attack.[25]

Knull is a primordial deity, having super strength, agility, immortality[26] and healing factor. He possesses Supreme Umbrakinesis, as he can manifest darkness to create weapons and creatures, whom he calls the "Living Abyss", which he can control and also augment their power which allowed Venom to unlock new abilities and also allowed one of Knull's dragon to be unaffected by the symbiotes' classic weaknesses and to be as fast as the Silver Surfer. He also possesses limited shapeshifting ability, including the ability to turn his human-like mouth into fanged jaws with an elongated tongue — this feature was passed on to the symbiotes. He's also an expert combatant, utilizing All-Black to kill Celestials and other gods, while wearing an armor made from symbiote with a red dragon and spiral emblem, which was based on Spiral of Carcosa from the True Detective.[27]

Despite his connection to the symbiotes being severed, his influence can still be seen such when Gorr, Old Galactus,[28] Ego[29] and King Loki,[30] after being infected by All-Black, continued Knull's crusade to annihilate all existence, while Malekith bonded with the Venom symbiote called himself the Butcher of Thor.[31][32] Venom formed a similar emblem with mixed design of Knull's emblem and Spider-Woman's.[33][34] Similarly, the Nameless, a group of Kree explorers, after being infected by the Exolons, had their skin slowly fade with their outward appearance now resembling Knull.[35]

In his early appearance, the character was received well, with Comic Book Resources drawing comparison with two other Marvel Villains: Morlun and Dracula.[36] However, Comic Book Resources also criticized the character's design as being unoriginal and similar to most other villains, and not matching his nature, saying that the character would have been better if he would have been more similar to his creation.[37] Bleeding Cool stated about the history that "It’s an engaging new story, and it redefines the symbiotes for the Marvel Universe."[38] Knull was ranked number one in IGN's list of Marvel's Most Powerful Symbiotes.[39]

The character received special attention in Sweden and Norway due to the word "knull" being the noun form of "fuck" (referring to copulation) in Swedish and Norwegian.[40][41][42]

• Knull on Marvel Database, a Marvel Comics wiki
• Knull at Villains Wiki
• Knull at Comic Vine
• Knull at Comic Book Database
• Knull: Everything You Need to Know About Marvel's Symbiote God at CBR