Knull is a relatively recent but profoundly impactful addition to the Marvel canon. His conceptual origins trace back to Jason Aaron and Esad Ribić's landmark run on Thor: God of Thunder. In issue #6 (March 2013), the villain Gorr the God Butcher wielded a mysterious, all-powerful weapon called “All-Black the Necrosword,” which was described as having been born from the abyss. While the entity Knull was not named or shown, the seeds of his existence were planted. The character of Knull was fully conceived and introduced by writer Donny Cates and artist Ryan Stegman during their transformative run on the Venom title. Knull was first seen in a flashback in Venom Vol. 4 #3 (August 2018) and made his first full, present-day appearance in Silver Surfer: Black #1 (August 2019). Cates and Stegman built upon the foundation laid by Aaron, retroactively establishing that the “abyss” from which the Necrosword was born was, in fact, Knull himself. This creative stroke connected the lore of Thor to that of Venom, creating a terrifying, overarching cosmic villain who had been lurking in the shadows of the Marvel Universe for millennia. His subsequent role as the main antagonist in the events Absolute Carnage and King in Black cemented his status as a top-tier threat.
The history of Knull is the history of darkness itself, a tale that predates the known universe and the gods who inhabit it.
Before the Big Bang, before light, before creation, there was only the Void—an endless, cold, silent darkness. And within this darkness, there was Knull. He slumbered peacefully in his kingdom of nothingness. This peace was shattered by the arrival of the Light of Creation and the godlike cosmic beings known as the celestials, who began to shape the void into the universe we know today. Awakened and enraged by this intrusion, Knull retaliated. He reached into his own living darkness and from his shadow forged a weapon: a blade of endless night. This weapon was the first symbiote, All-Black the Necrosword. With it, Knull struck down one of the invading Celestials, decapitating the cosmic being. He then used the slain Celestial's head as a forge, tempering the Necrosword in its cosmic energies. This act of deicide marked the beginning of his ancient war against the light and life. For eons, Knull waged a solitary war against the fledgling gods and elder beings of the new universe, using the Necrosword to slaughter them and perfect his control over the living abyss. During this time, he discovered he could shape his living darkness into lesser creatures, parasitic beings he could bond to other organisms to corrupt and control them. These were the first symbiotes. He used them to create a vast army, a hive-mind connected directly to his will, and built a cosmic empire of darkness. His throne world was a planet shrouded in living darkness, which he named Gorr's homeworld in a moment of cruel irony, and his symbol—a red, swirling spiral—was burned into the minds of all who feared him. His conquest eventually brought him into conflict with other cosmic forces. In a battle against a traveler wielding the Enigma Force, Knull was separated from a piece of his symbiote army. This severed fragment, a dragon-like symbiote he called the Grendel, crashed onto the medieval Earth. There, it battled the Asgardian prince Thor, who defeated the creature with his divine lightning. The sonic and electrical shock of Thor's attack reverberated through the entire symbiote hive-mind, traveling across the galaxy back to Knull himself. This psychic assault severed Knull's absolute control over the majority of his symbiote creations. Freed from his malevolent will, the symbiotes who were bonded to noble hosts began to develop a conscience and a culture of their own. They rebelled against their dark creator, imprisoning him within a massive cage constructed from billions of their own bodies. This artificial planet of symbiotes, which they named Klyntar (their word for “cage”), was designed to hold Knull for eternity. The newly noble symbiotes then spread across the universe, seeking to atone for their dark past by bonding with worthy hosts, creating the legend of the heroic Klyntar race that was long believed to be their true origin. Knull remained dormant within Klyntar for millennia, a forgotten god in a living prison. However, his influence was never truly gone. The Grendel symbiote was eventually discovered by S.H.I.E.L.D. and its connection to Knull's hive began to reawaken him. Later, the events of Absolute Carnage, where Carnage collected the genetic codices of past symbiote hosts, further weakened his prison. Ultimately, Knull broke free, reasserted his control over the entire symbiote race, and launched a full-scale invasion of the universe with Earth as his primary target, kicking off the devastating King in Black event.
To be unequivocally clear: Knull has not appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as of the latest releases. The character and his direct backstory are exclusive to the comic books. However, a critical piece of his mythology was adapted and featured prominently in the film Thor: Love and Thunder (2022). The film's antagonist, Gorr the God Butcher, wields the Necrosword. This adaptation, while visually and thematically similar in some respects, presents a fundamentally different origin and nature for the weapon. In the MCU, the Necrosword is depicted as an ancient, cursed blade with a malevolent will of its own. Its origin is not explicitly tied to a primordial god of darkness. Instead, it is presented as a weapon that corrupts its wielder, granting them the power to slay gods at the cost of their own life force, twisting their body and mind. It allows its user to manipulate shadows, travel through them, and summon monstrous “shadow creatures.” Key Differences from the Comic Canon:
The likely reason for this adaptation was to streamline Gorr's backstory for the film. Introducing the entire cosmic history of Knull and the symbiotes would have been too complex for a single movie's narrative. By making the Necrosword a standalone cursed weapon, the filmmakers could focus entirely on Gorr's personal tragedy and crusade. This creative decision does not necessarily preclude Knull's future introduction into the MCU, but it would require a significant retcon to connect him to the already-established Necrosword.
As a primordial entity of the void, Knull's power is immense, rivaling that of cosmic beings like the Celestials and Galactus. His very existence is an affront to the natural order of the universe.
Knull is the personification of cosmic nihilism. He is arrogant, cruel, and utterly devoid of empathy or compassion. He views the universe's existence as a mistake, a “cacophony of life” that has infected his silent, perfect void. His ultimate goal is not conquest in the traditional sense, but obliteration. He wishes to extinguish all light and life, returning the cosmos to the state of absolute nothingness from which it came. He views his symbiote creations not as his children, but as his tools—extensions of his own will to be used and discarded. Any symbiote that develops individuality or a sense of morality, like Venom, is seen as a flaw and an abomination to be eradicated.
As Knull is not in the MCU, this section analyzes the attributes of his adapted creation, the Necrosword.
Knull does not form alliances; he dominates. His relationships are defined by mastery and control.
In Donny Cates's Venom run (specifically issues #1-6), the long-established origin of the symbiotes as a noble race called the Klyntar was revealed to be a lie. Through the discovery of the Grendel symbiote dragon, Eddie Brock and Miles Morales learn the horrifying truth about Knull. This storyline single-handedly established Knull as the true creator of the symbiotes, retconning decades of lore and introducing the concept of the symbiote hive-mind as a prison for a dark god. It set the stage for all of Knull's future appearances and redefined the entire Venom mythology.
While Knull remains largely off-panel for this event, his presence is the driving force behind the entire plot. Resurrected as Dark Carnage and serving as Knull's avatar, Cletus Kasady wages a campaign of terror to hunt down every person on Earth who has ever bonded with a symbiote. His goal is to extract the genetic “codex” left behind in their bodies. By collecting these codices and linking them to the Grendel symbiote's piece of the hive-mind, Carnage intends to create a psychic antenna powerful enough to breach Klyntar and finally awaken his slumbering god. The event culminates in Eddie Brock defeating Carnage but inadvertently freeing Knull in the process.
This is Knull's magnum opus and the climax of his entire saga. Having been freed, Knull arrives at Earth with a colossal army of symbiote dragons, effortlessly overwhelming Earth's defenses. He encases the entire planet in a shell of living abyss, plunging it into darkness. Knull defeats the Avengers, X-Men, and nearly every other hero, possessing many of them to serve in his army. The conflict is a desperate, brutal war for the planet's soul. The ultimate victory is achieved when Eddie Brock is chosen as the new host for the Enigma Force (the “Captain Universe” power), transforming him into a cosmic-level being. In a final, cataclysmic battle, Venom kills Knull, shattering him into nothingness and freeing the symbiote hive from his control forever. Eddie then takes his place, not as a dark god, but as the new, benevolent King in Black.