The Sony Spider-Man Universe isn’t going anywhere. As the latest entry, Venom: The Last Dance, draws in enough cash to keep the franchise afloat, the internet meme community can rejoice knowing there will be more Morbius and Madame Web to come. Of course, critics and many audiences still hate Venom 3. The entire franchise remains a laughingstock, but they’re still resolutely building toward something bigger. Whether it’s a desperate plea for cash or a deliberate act of spite against Marvel, Sony is rocketing towards their Avengers, with the dark god Knull as its Thanos.
The SSU is a reminder of everything that could have gone wrong with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Though it’s one of the biggest names in entertainment today, Kevin Feige’s grand gambit was never a surefire success. If any of the first outings had been failures, if any of the early casting decisions had been duds, or if The Avengers had been less compelling, the whole project could have fallen apart. That doesn’t mean the movies would have stopped. They would have just continued dropping, regardless of quality. Sony is happy to demonstrate the potential failures.
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Who is Knull?
|
Name |
Knull |
|---|---|
|
Creators |
Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman |
|
First Mentioned |
Thor: God of Thunder #6 |
|
First Full Appearance |
Venom Vol. 4 #3 |
|
First Full Appearance Date |
August 2018 |
Knull is a figure of cosmic horror who joined Marvel’s shared narrative in the 2010s. When Gorr the God Butcher picked up the All-Black the Necrosword, a powerful weapon that could kill deities, he pilfered it from a then-unnamed being of darkness. Knull’s identity would gradually become clear in several Venom solo comics before he became the central antagonist in a Silver Surfer run and the King in Black event. Knull is a godlike being of darkness that has been around since before the mysterious creation of the current cosmos. He probably came into existence when whatever came before the modern cosmology was destroyed. A god in the void, Knull received a rude awakening when the Celestials used the “Light of Creation” to craft a new reality. They offered Knull a place in this cosmos, but he rejected them and built a weapon that could kill them. The Celestials banished Knull, leaving him to forge his greatest weapon, the symbiotes. Bent on purging the cosmos into darkness, Knull is an existential threat in the upper echelon of Marvel’s rogues gallery.
Could Knull be Sony’s Thanos?
In short, he almost certainly will be. Thanos was a fixture of the Marvel Cinematic Universe long before he was the central threat. Marvel started teasing him at events, then he’d pop up in brief cameos, then he properly revealed himself in Guardians of the Galaxy, then he grabbed his gauntlet and promised to take over in Age of Ultron. He had around four minutes of screentime before Infinity War, which was his movie before it was anyone else’s. Thanos was an existential threat who influenced several major elements of Marvel’s Infinity Saga. The problem with Thanos is that people take the first part of that sentence as a bigger draw than the second.
The fact that Marvel put in the work to build Thanos up over several films contributed to his impact. Venom: The Last Dance is the first explicit attempt to give Knull the same treatment. In that way, the third Venom outing can be seen as the SSU’s Avengers. Knull is an absent presence in the piece, sending an army of personality-free alien monsters to do his bidding, just like Thanos did before he could be bothered to leave his throne. Unlike Thanos, Knull has been trapped during the era that preceded his film debut. He isn’t setting things up or quietly building a base of power, and he hasn’t had any impact on anyone’s life outside the Venom cast. He could theoretically be a main villain, but, like everything else in the SSU, he’d be a pale imitation of Marvel’s efforts.
Does Sony have a team to fight Knull?
Sony has been trying to get a Sinister Six movie off the ground since The Amazing Spider-Man 2. It’s the Avengers-style payoff they envisioned for all these villain movies. Rumors abound that the studio is still working toward that reality. Currently, their roster is less than impressive. An SSU team would presumably include Venom (or one of the other symbiotes introduced in the trilogy), Morbius, Madame Web, Kraven, and perhaps Michael Keaton’s crossover Vulture. That’s not a very good lineup in any regard. The other option might be a symbiote-focused affair, in which the various multicolored cameos (Carnage likely excluded) could work together to fight Knull. It all seems like a dour proposition, especially since the Venom movies are the only ones that seem to make Sony any money.
If Sony’s attempts to build a shared universe last much longer, they’ll probably start looking at that Sinister Six movie again. A group of villains will need an even greater threat to face off against. Knull is a fine option, though he’s still missing most of what made Thanos great. He’ll get fans excited and present an acceptable level of danger, but Thanos was more than a purple guy with infinite power. Still, it would be anything but surprising to see Sony trying and failing to copy Marvel’s success.
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