It’s almost time for one last ride with Eddie Brock and Venom. The final movie in the Tom Hardy-led series of films set in Sony’s Spider-Man-less Spider-Man universe is set to release this October and just dropped its final trailer. Venom: The Last Dance looks to be a wild finale to the trilogy, and the new trailer gives us our first look at our villain: Knull. But who is Knull, and why is he so important to Venom?
The short answer is that Knull is the god of the symbiotes, the species to which Venom belongs. The trailer teases Knull as a terrifying figure feared by all the symbiotes, which he created. While Knull’s comic book history is tied together closely with Venom, we actually have to begin his story by talking about Thor. The very first mention of Knull came in 2013 when Jaason Aaron depicted a black-armor-clad god wielding a sword in issue six of his run on Thor: God of Thunder. Gorr, the antagonist of Aaron’s Thor run, witnessed the god in a duel and eventually took possession of the sword the god wielded, named All-Black, which then bonded to him.
It wasn’t until five years later that the name Knull would even be created. During their seminal run on Venom in 2018, writer Donny Cates and artist Ryan Stegman picked up that unnamed god from Aaron’s run and turned him into the Knull comic fans would come to know. Knull would serve as the basis for a new take on the symbiote lore of the comics, fleshing it out in ways that had never been done. That lore begins long before the creation of the Marvel Universe, as Knull is said to be the oldest thing to ever exist. Once the Celestials—massive beings you may have seen in Marvel’s Eternals—went about creating a universe, they brought light into the void. This was a complete affront to Knull’s way of life, so he did what any reasonable ancient being would do and declared war on the Celestials. He did this with the aid of a powerful blade called All-Black the Necrosword, the blade that Gorr wields in Aaron’s Thor. The blade was forged from the void itself and is used by Knull to sever the head of a Celestial.
While a major threat, Knull could not destroy all the Celestials as he had planned. Banished back into the void, Knull took his sword and his severed Celestial head with him. Within that head he created a forge where he birthed the rest of the symbiote race. You might know that symbiotes such as Venom and Carnage are weak to flames and loud noises. Well, that is given an explanation here by Cates and Stegman. Fire and noise remind symbiotes of their painful creation in the forge of that severed celestial head. So Spider-Man is basically using the symbiotes’ childhood trauma against them to win battles.
After the creation of the Symbiotes, Knull wages a war across the universe. One of his symbiotes includes a large dragon-like creature named Grendel that fought Thor during the Viking ages on Earth which, the comics explain, would eventually become the basis for the monster in the Beowulf legend, because why not. Anyway, eventually the symbiotes rebel against Knull and imprison him in the void once more.
Knull does free himself from his prison and wage war on Eddie Brock, Venom, and all of Earth in the climactic King in Black event from Cates and Stegman that ran from 2020 to 2021. That premise of Knull coming to Earth to combat Venom sounds a lot like the plot of The Last Dance, so there could be some similarities between the two stories. Either way, Knull’s appearance on film is sure to be just one part of the stunning finale to Tom Hardy’s Venom series, and now you’ll know who the hell he actually is when he appears.
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