Following the conclusion of last year’s Absolute Carnage storyline, Knull, the so-called ‘god of symbiotes,’ was freed from his prison and set on a course for Earth. Now Marvel has announced The King in Black, a new event series from the Venom & Absolute Carnage team of Donny Cates & Ryan Stegman, that will see Knull take on the heroes of the Marvel U.
In an announcement video for the series, Cates & Stegman (recording safely from home) hype up the series as the culmination of their work on Venom:
This December, the entire Marvel Universe braces itself for KING IN BLACK.
💥: https://t.co/73KTRvw0uV pic.twitter.com/388zrhwXmF
— Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) July 10, 2020
“As far as event books go,” Cates says, “This is the coolest, darkest, most heavy metal, Cthulhu dark horror thing I’ve ever been able to do. I still can’t believe that Marvel is letting us go as dark and scary as we’re going.”
It’s hard to imagine anything darker than Absolute Carnage, the five-issue series that read like Marvel’s first true horror event series. Tie-ins for that story were largely confined to the Spider-Man stable of characters, with a few mini-series featuring different symbiotes and spider-folk, but most of the action contained to the main miniseries. The King in Black sounds much larger in scope, with Cates saying the story is “all hands on-deck,” pulling in the Avengers and “every single X-Men team,” and that “they’re so not ready for” what’s coming. At this point we only know of the main series for this storyline, but if the scope is as large as Cates and Stegman are making it out to be it’s likely it will touch every Marvel U title as their big crossover for the year.
Check out Stegman, J.P. Mayer, and Frank Martin‘s promo art for the series below. The King in Black #1 is due out in December.
