King in Black #1
- WRITER
- Donny Cates
- Artist
- JP Mayer, Ryan Stegman
- Letterer
- VC's Clayton Cowles
- Cover Artist
- Peach Momoko, Jesus Aburtov, Sebastian Cheng, Ian Bederman, Frank Martin, Sunny Gho, Ryan Stegman, Alex Horley, Leinil Francis Yu, Superlog, Philip Tan, Taurin Clarke, Iban Coello, JP Mayer, Donny Cates
- Publisher
- Marvel Comics
- Price
- 5.99
- Release Date
- 2020-12-02
- Colorist
- Frank Martin
Ever since the start of Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman's run on Venom, Eddie Brock has been faced with the ominous warning that "God is coming." This premonition finally comes to pass with Marvel's latest crossover event King in Black. At once a direct sequel to the creative team's last major effort Absolute Carnage and the culmination of several plot threads established by Cates across titles like Silver Surfer: Black, King in Black wastes no time in bringing the fire and fury as the heroes find themselves quickly at the mercy of the eponymous villain with a debut issue that firmly grabs hold its readers' attention from the jump and never lets go.
Picking up from the ending of Absolute Carnage, Knull, the dark god of symbiotes has indeed awakened from millennia of hibernation on the far side of the cosmos. As the evil deity barrels towards Earth with his symbiote army ready to plunge the universe into eternal darkness, Eddie Brock leads Earth's Mightiest Heroes in a desperate defense as the true scope of the sinister threat they face becomes all too clear as their best laid plans face the brunt of Knull's all-out assault, with the Marvel Universe already completely upended by as the conflict rapidly escalates.
Cates has steadily built up a reputation as one of the most accomplished hype men in mainstream comics but, more often than not, he lives up to the bar of expectations that he sets up for himself and his creative teams. King in Black is no different in that regard but Cates brings the apocalyptic intensity right from the outset; there is a level of introductory exposition but Cates has his narrative hit the ground running for the most part. This isn't to say that the debut issue is inaccessible to those that may have never picked up an issue of his Venom run or are familiar with Absolute Carnage but King in Black is very much a direct continuation of those stories, having read them greatly enriches the experience. This is a story about Eddie Brock leading the Marvel superheroes starring the end of the world in the face and doing their best not to blink.
Stegman is working with longtime collaborators JP Mayer on inks and Frank Martin on colors, furthering the association with their past work on Venom and Absolute Carnage. The art team's previous work had brought a noted amount of horror sensibilities and tones to the proceedings and that menace continues to lurk and fester in the shadows of King in Black's opening issue. Here though, the art team really steps up its game delivering bombastic, explosive superhero action as they maintain a mounting sense of dread as the assembles heroes realize how ill-prepared and completely outclassed they are against Knull's unrelenting onslaught.
Years in the making, King in Black truly feels like the final showdown Donny Cates, et. al have been building to across much of his Marvel work for a long time. The opening installment of this five-issue miniseries proves unequivocally how unstoppable Knull truly is as the dark god sets his sights on Earth while not looking to take any prisoners. This is a crossover event that doesn't waste any time pontificating how dire the stakes are but instead brutally lays them right out for the reader proving the old adage that actions speak louder than words. Somehow exceeding the expectations set by Venom and Absolute Carnage, King in Black is shaping up to be an event that will put its heroes through the ultimate, symbiote-tinged crucible for the fate of the Marvel Universe.