Knull (Earth-616)

Knull
Name	Knull
Aliases	The Abyss, The Abyss Made Flesh, Black King, Cosmic Satan, Destroyer of Stars, The Devil, Exolon God, The First God of the Abyss, God of the Void, God, God-Host, God Butcher, God of a Forgotten Idea, God of the Dark, God of the Everblack, God of the Forge, God of the Symbiotes, King in Black, King of the Abyss, Lord of the Abyss, Lord of the Anti-Light, Lord Knull, The Void, Void King
Affiliation and Relationships
Affiliation	Symbiote Hive (leader)
Relatives	Klyntar and Exolon (creations); All-Black (creation and symbiote); Symbiote-Armor (creation and current symbiote); Big Mother (creation and genetic recipient); Grendel (creation and former symbiote, deceased); Wraith's Exolon Symbiote (creation, symbiote); Venom (current symbiote); Void (current symbiote); God of Light (counterpart)
Marital Status	Single
Physical Characteristics
Gender	Male
Height	Variable
Eyes	Irises: [[:Category:[[:Category:Black Eyes|Category:Black Eyeballs|Black Eyeballs]][[Category:Category:Black Eyes
Hair	White
Unusual Features	Claws; can manifest fangs and a serpentine, prehensile tongue
Origin and Living Status
Origin	Elder God; Primordial deity of the Abyss
Living Status	Alive
Reality	Earth-616
Place of Birth	The Abyss
Personal Information
Identity	No Dual
Occupation	Deity, conqueror, tyrant, terrorist
Base of Operations	Mobile Formerly Knowhere, Klyntar, Gorr's Homeworld
Creators and Appearances
Creators	Donny Cates, Ryan Stegman
First	Thor: God of Thunder #6 (March, 2013) (Identity unrevealed) Venom (Vol. 4) #3 (June, 2018) (Full appearance) Venom (Vol. 4) #4 (July, 2018) (Chronologically)
First	Thor: God of Thunder #6 (March, 2013) (Identity unrevealed) Venom (Vol. 4) #3 (June, 2018) (Full appearance) Venom (Vol. 4) #4 (July, 2018) (Chronologically)

 Child... I am Knull. Lord of the Abyss. God of the Symbiotes. The darkness inside of you? That darkness bows to me. I am the Void. 

—Knull

History

Origins

King in Black

Knull was an ancient malevolent deity who purportedly ruled over the Abyss, the existential chasm that existed between the destruction of the Sixth Cosmos and the creation of the Seventh Cosmos, though in truth he was merely an aspect of the primordial darkness that existed long before even him. Originally content to slumber in the Void, Knull was awakened by the "Light of the Creation" when the Celestials began creating the universe, and was outraged at his kingdom of darkness being despoiled. Knull retaliated by creating a sword of living darkness, the All-Black, from his newly-cast shadow, decapitating one of them. Cast back into the void by the other Celestials, Knull used the slain Celestial's severed head as a forge to temper his sword in its cosmic energies. Intent on devouring the divine light that had usurped his kingdom of darkness, Knull manifested a symbiotic suit of armor from the eldritch darkness he commanded and embarked on a genocidal campaign against the other gods and life itself, becoming a legendary figure of terror for divine beings even billions of years later.

Symbiote Hive

God-Host of the Symbiote Hive.

Hellbent on returning the cosmos to the Abyss, Knull created an artificial planet from the living darkness he controlled to serve as his throneworld and base of operations. Experimenting with his ability to manifest life out of darkness itself, Knull began using the Exoteric Latitude as a dumping ground for his failed creations, which millennia later became known as the Exolon. Manifested a horde of wyvern-like monsters, Knull sent them forth into the cosmos; using them to conquer countless planets, devour civilizations and pantheons, extinguish stars, and smother entire planets in eldritch darkness. The few gods that Knull spared were forcibly drafted into his army; enslaved to his will and transformed into monsters using the living abyss, placed as sentries to guard the worlds he'd conquered.

At some point during this stage of Knull's war against the Light, he encountered the time-displaced Silver Surfer when the former Herald of Galactus freed a world from Knull's control using the Power Cosmic. After a brief but intense fight, Knull defeated the Silver Surfer and infected him with living abyss to turn him into the Void Knight. However, the Silver Surfer was freed by Ego the Living Planet, who helped Radd escape when Knull pursued him on a symbiote dragon. Knull hunted the Silver Surfer down and dueled him, intent on reclaiming him for his army. Knull nearly succeeded in doing so, but was defeated when the Silver Surfer expended the last of his Power Cosmic to conjure a star right in front of him, bathing him in stellar plasma and blasting him across the cosmos. This defeat proved temporary, as Knull recovered and resumed his conquest of the cosmos.

File:Knull (Earth-616), All-Black (Klyntar) (Earth-616), Symbiote Dragons (Earth-616), and Norrin Radd (Earth-616) from Silver Surfer Black Vol 1 5 003.jpg

Knull's original symbiote-armor.

At some point afterward, Knull engaged an army of gold-armored gods empowered by the Light in combat and slaughtered all but one of them. Pursuing the survivor, Knull managed to impale him on All-Black but was himself impaled through the head by the enemy god's spear. Knull and the dying god crash-landed on a desolate planet, where All-Black left the incapacitated Knull for one of the indigenous inhabitants, Gorr. Despite this setback, Knull chose to not hunt the thief down and reclaim All-Black, though he remained aware of Gorr unwittingly following in his footsteps as the God Butcher. After recovering from his injuries over the course of a century, Knull began experimenting with his powers and discovered that he could manifest amorphous parasites called symbiotes from the Living Abyss and bond them to lesser lifeforms, corrupting life rather than eradicating it.

Knull's reign of terror came to an end in the sixth century CE, when two symbiote dragons - one black and one red - arrived on Earth and were named the Grendel and Grendel's Mother by the Danes. The Grendel's rampage was stopped by Thor, who blasted it with divine lightning and severed Knull's connection to the vast majority of symbiotes. As the symbiotes bonded to benevolent hosts, the hive-mind became tainted with notions of honor and nobility, leading to them rebelling against their god and imprisoning him at the heart of the throneworld, which they renamed Klyntar - their word for "cage". Forming an organization known as the Agents of the Cosmos, the symbiotes of Klyntar subsequently attempted to expunge their dark origins and redeem themselves by acting to protect the cosmos they'd once terrorized.

While serving as a herald of Galactus, the Silver Surfer came across Klyntar and was devoured by it, its constituent symbiotes attempting to imprison him alongside Knull at the artificial planet's core. However, the Surfer was able to free himself and escape.

Modern Times

File:Knull (Earth-616), Miles Morales (Earth-1610), Edward Brock (Earth-616) and Venom (Klyntar) (Earth-616) from Venom Vol 4 3 001.jpg

Knull's avatar confronts Spider-Man and Venom.

Centuries later, the Grendel symbiote dragon was unearthed by S.H.I.E.L.D. and its living abyss was used to create a super-soldier initiative called the Sym-Soldier Program. Using the psychic link between himself and the Grendel, Knull began attempting to assert his influence over its offshoots, causing them to rampage and driving their hosts insane.

Decades later, Knull remote-piloted the symbiote dragon and broke it free of containment, reabsorbing four of its five offshoots. Knull sent the Grendel symbiote dragon on a rampage through downtown Manhattan, but it was stopped by the combined efforts of Venom - whose symbiote had been adversely affected by Knull's awakening - and Spider-Man. Using the Grendel to manifest an avatar of his true form, Knull stripped the Venom symbiote from its host and attempted to purge it of the benevolence and compassion it had obtained during its time on Earth; intending to reconnect it to his hive mind and absorb it into the Grendel symbiote to become stronger. When confronted by Eddie Brock, Knull showed him the true origins and history of the symbiotes; mocking him for believing the lies told to the Venom symbiote by the Klyntar and Agents of the Cosmos. Re-forming the Grendel around his avatar, Eddie, and Spider-Man; Knull flew into space and revealed his plan to obtain the missing pieces of the symbiote dragon, use it to free his true body from Klyntar, and resume his conquest of the universe - starting with Earth.

Venom escaped with help from Spider-Man, but Knull chose not to pursue them and instead began hunting for the Tyrannosaurus symbiote - one of the remaining pieces of the Grendel symbiote dragon. When the Tyrannosaurus symbiote bonded to Venom and reconnected to the Hive Mind, Knull attacked using the Grendel symbiote and attempted to devour Venom. When the Grendel was destabilized by sonic grenades, Knull's manifestation engaged Venom in a brutal one-on-one battle, Venom's arsenal of high-tech weapons proving ineffective. Knull stripped Eddie of both symbiotes and began absorbing them, but his gloating was cut short when Eddie detonated the entire arsenal - the blast affecting Knull's real body at the core of Klyntar. Shaken and enraged, Knull coated his manifestation in the Grendel symbiote, but before he could attack the Tyrannosaurus symbiote coiled around his avatar and dragged it into the heart of a blast furnace - telling Venom to hold the door shut. Knull's avatar was subsequently immolated, his connection to the Grendel symbiote seemingly severed and his body remaining sealed at the heart of Klyntar.

A few months after the battle, an Earth-based cult dedicated to worshiping Knull - led by Scorn - obtained a sample of the Grendel symbiote and Cletus Kasady's corpse, intending to turn him into Knull's avatar and facilitate his awakening. When the sample of Grendel symbiote was bonded to Cletus, Knull reanimated and psychically communicated with the serial killer; though the nature of their conversation is unknown. When Knull attempted to seize control of Cletus through the symbiote, Cletus resisted Knull's control and their connection was severed when the Grendel symbiote absorbed the codex - trace remnants of living abyss left in former symbiote hosts - that the Carnage symbiote had left in Scorn's body. Cletus desired to communicate with Knull again and decided to help free him by collecting enough codexes to reconnect the Grendel symbiote to the Hive Mind. As his connection to his self-proclaimed apostle grew stronger, Knull began awakening and exerting his influence to corrupt both the symbiotes of Klyntar and those stranded on Earth -- namely the Riot, Agony, Phage, Lasher, and Scream symbiotes.

Freed from Klyntar.

After Dark Carnage was killed by Venom, who absorbed the Dark Carnage symbiote and remaining codices, Knull was reawakened and promptly destroyed Klyntar, coalescing its constituent symbiotes into a fleet of symbiote dragons. Manifesting a suit of draconic armor, Knull was confronted by Zak-Del, an Exolon-infected Kree. Initially bemused by Zak-Del accusing him of stealing his soul, Knull revealed the true origin of the Exolon as imperfect symbiotes and stripped Zak-Del of his, absorbing and transforming it into a new Necrosword. Leaving Zak-Del for dead, Knull resumed his conquest of the cosmos; unknowingly hunted by his opposite - a God of Light.

Conquest resumed.

Using his living abyss to smother entire planets, Knull also began communing with Eddie's "son" Dylan Brock - a human-symbiote hybrid spawned by the Venom symbiote - by appearing in his nightmares. Blazing a swath of destruction across the Kree/Skrull Alliance's colonial territories en route to Earth, Knull laid traps to waylay ships sent to investigate; thereby claiming several prominent warriors from both species for his army. Intent on settling his eons-old grudge against the Celestials, Knull hunted them down and infected them with living abyss.

Invasion of Earth

Arriving on Earth, Knull and his horde easily ploughed through the minefield of derelict Kree and Skrull ships left over from the war against the Coatli. As his dragons rained down on the planet and quickly overwhelmed the planet's superheroes, Knull emerged from one of the Celestials and declared his intent to destroy the planet - offering to make it quick and painless if given the human called Brock. Knull was attacked by the Sentry, who attempted to fly him into orbit and rip him in half, but easily broke free and reversed their positions. Knull tore the Sentry apart and seized control of the dark entity that had been indwelling him, absorbing it into himself. Growing bored of the conflict, Knull used symbiotes to seize control of the Avengers, X-Men, and other heroes that had rallied to oppose him before encasing the Earth in a shell of living abyss. Out of desperation, Venom offered to serve Knull if Earth was spared, but Knull refused - remarking that the Brock he was interested in was Dylan - and ripped the Venom symbiote off Eddie before throwing him from the top of the Empire State Building, satisfied that Eddie could no longer prove a pest to his plans once he succumbed to his wounds and his consciousness was trapped within the Hive-Mind as a codex.

When Dylan Brock entered the battlefield and began using his powers to free the people and heroes Knull had enslaved, Knull attempted to capture him but was attacked by Thor - who he recognized as the one who had almost killed the Grendel centuries prior. Furious, Knull confronted the God of Thunder, who was unimpressed and dismissed him as merely one of hundreds of gods of destruction he had vanquished. Knull overpowered Thor, but was attacked by Dylan. Casually subduing the boy and cocooning him in living abyss, Knull was distracted long enough for Thor to knock him off and rip his lower jaw off with a full-power blow from Mjolnir. Enraged, Knull activated the symbiote-controlled Celestials and ordered them to raze the planet. Before Thor could leave to confront them, Knull - forming a new lower jaw from living abyss - manifested a Necrosword from his symbiote-armor and impaled him from behind; sneering that he could sense Thor was acquainted with All-Black and that he was its creator. Leaving Thor impaled, Knull turned to confront Dylan and voiced his intent to claim the boy as his son; commanding the symbiotes he controlled within the Hive-Mind to imprison the symbiotes that Dylan and Thor had purged his influence from. Unbeknowst to Knull, Eddie Brock was reunited with the codices of Agent Anti-Venom (Flash Thompson) and Tyrannosaurus (Rex Strickland) within the Hive-Mind, and where able to take advantage of Dylan and Thor injuring Knull to infiltrate the core of the Hive-Mind, the God Hive. When Agent Anti-Venom's codex bonded to one of the symbiotes that Knull couldn't control and was reborn into the world of the living as a white symbiote dragon, Knull immediately realized what was going on and furiously hijacked the Tyrannosaurus symbiote, confronting Eddie again with the intent of killing him once-and-for-all.

Personality

 Ha! You are a simple and trusting host, Edward Brock. I see why my child adores you so. But you have been lied to for so very long. What you think of as their homeworld, their planet... is nothing more than the largest horde of symbiotes in the galaxy trying desperately to keep their greatest secret. An infinity of them churning and roiling endlessly around the one thing that binds them all... the hive mind they cannot do without. Do you see the shape of it now? Do you understand? There is no Planet of the Symbiotes. Klyntar is their word for cage. That is where I am right now, host. Where I have been sleeping for eons. I am there. Imprisoned. As I am here piloting this... what did your people call it? The Grendel? Thank you for releasing my other, Eddie Brock. Though I'm not sure how much you had to do with the choice... no doubt your symbiote has been reacting to my resurrection on late, no? I'm sure it all must be quite... overwhelming for you both... but all is well, child. Your God is awake. And God is coming. When this Grendel is complete... when I find its missing... parts... it will come for me. It will free me from my klyntar. From my cage. And then I will finish what I began. I will rid my dark kingdom of this invasive light once and for all... and I will start with Earth. 

—Knull

An ancient malevolent deity, Knull despises the Celestials and their creations, attempting to carry out a genocide against them by corrupting and slaughtering all life. Revelling in bloodshed and destruction, Knull often sports a predatory grin when engaged in combat and fondly reminisced to Eddie Brock about the devastation he and All-Black wrought together. He is also arrogant and sadistic - regarding his conquest of the universe as being inevitable, mocking the Silver Surfer's attempt to fight him or escape as futile, and relishing the prospect of hunting the fleeing Surfer down and killing or corrupting him. 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 power, instead opting to let his symbiotes do the fighting for him.

Through his symbiote army, Knull is responsible for the destruction and corruption of entire civilizations across the universe. When not engaged in combat, Knull appeared calm and condescending, often smiling in a sadistic fashion at sights such as Venom's berserk form, which he called beautiful. However, Knull possesses a volatile temper and is prone to reacting with extreme rage when denied what he wants, such as when Eddie tried to stop him from re-corrupting the Venom symbiote or when the Silver Surfer refused to serve him. Knull was begrudgingly impressed by Eddie's determination to understand the eldritch truth behind the symbiotes' origins, but mocked him for being deceived by the Klyntar hive-mind. He considers the symbiotes who rebelled against and imprisoned him to be cowards, liars, and traitors; sneering at their desperate efforts to cover up their dark origins and keep themselves from relapsing. Despite his loathing respect for them - seeing them as his wayward children - he hates the Klyntar symbiotes for betraying him and eventually forcibly absorbed them back into his dark hive-mind.

Attributes

Power Grid

Powers

Divine Physiology: A primordial god of darkness, Knull possesses superhuman attributes and powers far exceeding those of humans and even most other deities. As the creator of All-Black the Necrosword, he apparently possesses the same powers it bestows upon its hosts but to a greater extent. According to Brunnhilde, much of Knull's power and apparent invincibility comes from his metaphysical link to the undead corpse of the Celestial he used to refine All-Black, which feeds him power through the Necrosword and in exchange assimilates the souls of those he kills; serving as a grotesque afterlife.

• Living Abyss Manipulation: Knull possesses the ability to create, control, and manipulate a fount of eldritch darkness—a manifestation of the primordial void that existed before the universe itself—that he calls the "living abyss". Knull has spent billions of years experimenting with and honing his powers to create not only the parasitic symbiotes, but similar entities such as Mister E and the Exolon. His greatest creations have been All-Black, the Void Knight -- a powerful prototype symbiote created to enslave the Silver Surfer, and the symbiote dragons.
  • Symbiote Creation: Knull first discovered his ability to create life from darkness itself when he manifested All-Black from his shadow in order to kill a Celestial. Experimenting with and honing this aspect of his powers over the eons, he formed a suit of symbiote-armor, constructed an artificial planet, and amassed a horde of wyvern-like monsters from the living abyss. While he initially only infected gods and other cosmic beings with the living abyss; when stranded on a desolate world he discovered he could also infect mortal creatures with the living abyss, creating an army of parasites to conquer the universe by corrupting life instead of simply exterminating it. Knull's early experiments to hone this aspect of his powers resulted in what became known as the Exolon, imperfect symbiotes he discarded as failures. He was also capable of creating symbiotes using his blood, though the only known symbiote created in this manner is Big Mother. Knull was even able to engulf the entire Earth in a symbiote dome, blocking out all light.
  • Symbiote Domination: As the divine progenitor of the symbiotes and the nexus of their hive-mind, Knull is able to mentally influence and dominate symbiotes even while sealed away; driving them insane with bloodlust and hunger. He is also capable of remote-piloting them, enabling him to see through their eyes and directly control them; and can manipulate their biomasses even when not in direct contact with them, as demonstrated when he used an ancient dragon-like symbiote to attack Earth and manifest an avatar of his true form. Symbiotes infected by Knull's will usually have red spirals in place of their eyespots, and are more powerful than symbiotes disconnected from his dark hive-mind; sometimes even gaining new powers and abilities as a result of the connection. Knull is also capable of forcibly removing symbiotes from their hosts either by psychically blasting them off or by ripping them off with his bare hands. He is also capable of dominating other dark entities, such as the Void.
• Superhuman Strength: Knull is strong enough to decapitate a Celestial with a single blow, and singlehandedly slaughtered entire armies of gods -- though it is possible that this immense strength is at least in part due to him wielding All-Black the Necrosword, and later his symbiote-armor. Knull was able to easily manhandle the Silver Surfer - albeit after Norrin had exhausted the majority of his Power Cosmic. The avatar that Knull created using the Grendel symbiote possessed only a fraction of his true power, but was nevertheless able to easily overpower Venom despite Eddie Brock being simultaneously bonded to both the Venom and Tyrannosaurus symbiotes. Knull was able to easily overpower the Sentry - touted as one of Earth's strongest heroes - and effortlessly tore him in half, and was also able to overpower Thor Odinson - who possessed the Power of the All-Father - with relative ease.
• Superhuman Durability: Knull is durable enough to survive being blasted by Celestials; and was unharmed by a plunge from space through the atmosphere of a planet while engaged in combat with another deity, though he was left unconscious after being stabbed through the head. While Silver Surfer's Power Cosmic was able to make Knull bleed and being blasted by Ego's psionic beams caused him pain, he was not severely injured by either. Knull can also withstand being immersed in stellar plasma without permanent injury, though this caused him severe pain. There are limits to this, as a full-force blow from Mjolnir wielded by All-Father Thor was enough to rip off Knull's lower jaw.
• Dark Energy Manipulation: Knull was capable of conjuring fiery purple energy; wreathing himself and All-Black in an aura of it, firing it from his hands in a beam powerful enough to incapacitate the Silver Surfer, or firing it as flak and homing projectiles from artillery constructs manifested from the Symbiote Throneworld. He has also been shown to manifest red energy that he can fire from his hands.
• Amortality: Knull is unable to be truly killed and has existed for at least 13.7 billion years, having come into existence prior to the beginning of the seventh iteration of the universe. However, he can be injured to the point of incapacitation: after being impaled through the head and falling from space to the surface of a planet, he required centuries to fully heal from his injuries.
• Self-Sustenance: Knull is capable of surviving in the vacuum of space unaided, and does not appear to need food, water, or sleep to survive.
• Shapeshifting: Knull is capable of transforming his mouth into a fanged maw with a prehensile serpentine tongue, a trait he passed down to the symbiotes. When truly enraged, Knull's entire face transforms into one more closely resembling the symbiotes', with his nose, lips, and cheeks completely receding.
• Regenerative Healing Factor: Despite his immense durability, Knull is capable of being injured to the point of incapacitation. However, he is able to not only survive injuries that would kill other gods, but eventually recover from them. After Thor blasted a hole in his hand, Knull regenerated within the space of a few seconds, though the loss of his lower jaw required the creation of a prosthesis.
• Flight: Knull can manifest a pair of large dragon-like wings that allow him to fly.

Abilities

Expert Combatant: Despite not possessing any formal training, Knull is a vicious warrior with billions of years' worth of combat experience, capable of slaughtering entire armies of gods singlehandedly.

Weaknesses

• The Light: Despite his immense durability, Knull is particularly vulnerable to a force he refers to as "the Light", which came into being with the Big Bang and was first spread through the Abyss by the Celestials. "The Light" refers not only to the literal light of stars and other celestial objects, but to the various powers wielded by cosmic entities and deities - which when used offensively could cause him pain and even make him bleed; concepts such as honor, benevolence, compassion, and nobility - which disrupted his control of the symbiotes and caused them to turn on him; and life itself. Knull sought to destroy and corrupt the Light using his army of symbiotes, but his control over them was severed when the symbiote dragon he was indwelling was blasted by Thor's divine lightning. Centuries later, his avatar was temporarily destabilized by the totemic avatar Miles Morales' bioelectric Venom Blast, and by sonic and energy grenades.
• Remote Piloting: When Knull is remote piloting a symbiote, any damage caused to it is also inflicted on him -- as seen when Thor blasted a hole through a symbiote-hand Knull had manifested to attack Dylan Brock, which caused a corresponding wound to appear on Knull's hand until he regenerated.
• Hive-Mind Infiltration: When a person or a metaphysical manifestation of a codex has freedom in Knull's hive-mind, they can fight against the symbiotes under his control and also cause him pain if not taken care of.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

Symbiote Armor: After forging All-Black, Knull created a suit of symbiote-armor from the Living Abyss. The armor was originally solid black, but after he founded the Symbiote Imperium he emblazoned its chest and back with a red dragon emblem. It is unknown exactly what abilities the armor possessed and conferred upon Knull, though it was capable of shapeshifting to manifest a cape, waistcloth, wing-like fins, and draconic helmet. Given that its constituent matter was used to create the lesser symbiotes, it can be presumed to possess similar abilities; and despite presumably being vulnerable to intense heat and sonics it was capable of withstanding a plunge through the atmosphere of a planet and being immersed in stellar plasma without sustaining significant damage. Knull's symbiote armor was stripped from him following his imprisonment, as his physical body at the core of Klyntar has alternately been shown armored and naked; though Knull's manifestation through the Grendel symbiote dragon also emulated this armor. After Knull reawakened, he reformed his symbiote-armor, with a differently-shaped helmet adorned with horns.

Weapons

Necrosword: In order to slay a Celestial, Knull manifested a black-and-red sword from his shadow; later refining it using the dead Celestial's cosmic power. Using this weapon, which came to be known as All-Black, Knull attempted to carry out a genocide against his fellow gods, but it was stolen from him after he was wounded in battle. When confronted by Wraith, Knull removed Zak-Del's Exolon symbiote and absorbed it into his symbiote-armor before reforming All-Black's Necrosword form.

Transportation

In addition to using symbiote dragons as mounts, Knull is capable of manifesting draconic wings from his symbiote.

Notes

• According to Donny Cates, Silver Surfer: Black takes place before Knull lost All-Black. However, during his battle against the Silver Surfer, Knull summoned his symbiotes to aid him, which contradicts elements of his story, since Venom (Vol. 4) #4 established that Knull created the symbiotes after losing All-Black.
• Knull's spiral emblem is based on the Spiral of Carcosa from True Detective, and is a reference to the Cthulhu Mythos. Similarly, his title of the "King in Black" is a reference to Hastur, the King in Yellow and ruler of Carcosa.
  • Upon learning of him from Spider-Man, Bruce Banner theorized that Knull was merely an aspect of the One Below All or a creature it somehow controls. The One Below All is himself possibly inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos, as is Knull.
• Knull's history, and those of his successors as wielders of All-Black, are recorded in a self-writing divine tome called the Saga of the God Butcher.
• While Scorn stated that Knull had resurrected Cletus Kasady as a newborn when he died of nuchal cord strangulation, marking him as an agent of the Void, this was fabricated by the Cult of Knull in order to sensationalize Kasady as Knull's chosen one.

Trivia

• According to Donny Cates, Knull was the first "something" in the universe, indicating that he predates all but a few other deities and cosmic entities. Prior to King in Black #1 providing clarification it was unclear if he was the first being in the seventh universe or if he predated the First Firmament, with the existence of extraterrestrial symbiotes in an iteration of the Cosmos predating the fifth raising further questions. Both Oblivion and Knull claimed to be the incarnation of the primordial Void itself, though King in Black #4 decipts Knull as being only an avatar of Oblivion, the darkness having existed long before him.
• As Knull predates the creation of the Seventh Cosmos, he is technically not from Earth-616 or any other dimension within the Marvel Multiverse. However, since multiple iterations of Knull exist in other media taking place throughout the Multiverse and this iteration seems specific to Earth-616, he is designated as belonging to it.
• When asked what Knull would have done had he encountered Carnage or one of Venom's other offspring, Ryan Stegman replied that he would have "either [tried] to hurt them or re-consume them and bring them back to Klyntar."
• Several beings have - deliberately or unintentionally - emulated Knull:
  • Almost all of the Nameless Kree infected by the Exolon develop a physical resemblance to Knull -- possessing pale skin, long white hair, and an emaciated physique.
  • Gorr, Old Galactus, and Ego the Living Planet were manipulated by the All-Black symbiote into continuing Knull's crusade to annihilate all of existence.
  • King Loki deliberately claimed the All-Black symbiote for himself with the intention of following in Knull's footsteps and destroying what was left of the universe, starting with his brother Thor.
  • When Spider-Man bonded to the symbiote, it formed mirrored white spider emblems on its chest and back, which Spider-Man assumed was inspired by Spider-Woman's costume. In reality, the symbiote unconsciously formed the white spider emblems in emulation of Knull's red dragon emblem.
  • Malekith the Accursed learned of Knull by reading the mind of the Venom symbiote, and sought to turn it into his own version of All-Black; wielding it as a dagger and sword during the War of the Realms.
  • After assimilating the Venom symbiote, Dark Carnage was transformed into an even more powerful form sporting draconic wings and horns, and pauldrons and arm-wraps resembling Knull's.
  • Eddie Brock formed a Necrosword similar to All-Black using his new symbiote, in order to kill Dark Carnage.
  • During the events of Savage Avengers #3, Conan bonded to an unnamed symbiote, which he used to manifest a Necrosword in order to face Kulan Gath's cult and the eldritch god Jhoatun Lau.
  • During his invasion of Earth, most of the people infected by symbiotes resembled Knull.
• When asked if King Thanos had managed to kill Knull in the future where he succeeded in killing everything, Donny Cates stated that he hadn't due to Knull being unkillable; later elaborating that Knull was probably happy to reclaim his kingdom of darkness from the ruins King Thanos left in his wake. It is currently unknown how Knull managed to survive when more powerful and equally unkillable Cosmic Entities such as Death herself, along with the other aspects of the Cosmic Compass were presumably killed.
• Despite Knull being the one empowering Gorr, it seems that Gorr is actually more powerful than Knull. During the battle between Knull and the Silver Surfer, the Surfer was able to defeat Knull by creating a sun. While during the battle between King Thor and Gorr, the latter's soul having merged with All-Black, Gorr easily overwhelmed both Thor and Loki, after Thor clashed three suns into Gorr in an attempt to stop the God Butcher.
• Ryan Stegman's concept art for Knull depicts him with a cape rather than a waistcloth, and questions whether or not he should have eyes and hair.

See Also

• 35 appearance(s) of Knull (Earth-616)
• 1 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Knull (Earth-616)
• 52 minor appearance(s) of Knull (Earth-616)
• 92 mention(s) of Knull (Earth-616)
• 2 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Knull (Earth-616)
• 1 invocation(s) of Knull (Earth-616)
• 243 image(s) of Knull (Earth-616)
• 15 quotation(s) by or about Knull (Earth-616)
• 8 victim(s) killed by Knull (Earth-616)
• 2 item(s) used/owned by Knull (Earth-616)

Links and References

• Knull on Wikipedia.org