WARNING: The following contains spoilers for King in Black: Scream #1, by Clay McLeod Chapman, Garry Brown, Rachelle Rosenberg and VC's Cory Petit, on sale now.
As the god of symbiotes, Knull has been able to defeat virtually any symbiote-powered figure that has stood in his way, holding dominion over them. While Venom may have been unable to stop Knull in their initial skirmish, a different symbiote superhero, Scream, makes her own stance against the dark god as King in Black continues to sweep across the Marvel Universe.
And though Knull definitely holds the upper hand when this showdown begins, Scream is able to expose a hellish new vulnerability that causes even the dark god of symbiotes to stop dead in his tracks by the end of King in Black: Scream #1.
After battling the deranged, homicidal supervillain Demogoblin, Scream finds herself facing off against Knull himself. Right from the fight's outset, Knull is able to easily knock Scream around, flinging her across the city, planning to take his time in killing her for her role standing against Cletus Kasady in Absolute Carnage and fighting against his symbiote army. And as Scream is nearly crushed by Knull's bloody vengeance against her, Scream is able to unleash her own secret weapon to completely turn the tide of battle: Hellfire that she is able to emit from the Hell-Mark on her chest.
The current Scream is the young woman Andi Benton, who is bonded with the Mania symbiote spawned from the original Venom symbiote. A student of Peter Parker's old friend Flash Thompson while he worked as a high school gym teacher in Philadelphia, Flash had a piece of his Venom symbiote protect her from an attacking Jack-O'-Lantern, only for the symbiote to bond to her. Andi would also develop a Hell-Mark, that gave her all sorts of abilities linked to Mephisto at the cost of corrupting her soul as she sometimes employed excessive force against her enemies. During Absolute Carnage, Andi absorbed the Scream symbiote from Patricia Robertson just in time to confront Carnage though he appeared immune to the hellfire she used in an effort to drive him back.
While Carnage wasn't visibly affected by Scream's hellfire during their prior battle, Knull does not appear to share this same protection, with the burst of flames causing him to stop his advance and leaving gruesome burn marks on his face. Andi detects that Knull has apparently endured a degree of pain from her counterattack and realizes that this fight won't be as simple as he once believed. Knull doesn't appear to be at any serious risk of defeat himself but, with plenty of other targets that can potentially go down easier, the dark god decides to pursue easier prey than continue his battle with Scream, more than content with leaving her to battle his minions instead.
Ever since launching his invasion of the Marvel Universe, everything from electricity to magic has shown as being capable of repelling Knull's army of symbiotes. The heroes can now add hellfire to the growing list of ways to fight back against Knull and his army as King in Black nears its explosive finale. Scream may not have soundly defeated Knull, but she has lived to fight another day after driving the dark god back singlehandedly and scoring a much-needed win.