WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Venom #4 by Donny Cates, Ryan Stegman, JP Mayer, Frank Martin and Clayton Cowles, in stores now.


Before you read the article, buy and read Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman's Venom #4, because this issue shatters the very foundations of the character's mythology.

That's a bold, possibly trite claim to make, but in this case it just so happens to be completely accurate. In their very first issue, the creative team opened the floodgates to a much darker reality behind everything we thought we knew about the Klyntar symbiotes, and their origin as a species. The series started with a mysterious flashback to medieval times, something that hinted at the possibility that the Klyntar had visited our planet long before Spider-Man would bring the Venom symbiote back with him from Battleworld in 1984's Secret Wars.

From there, what was established long ago began to unravel piece by piece, and the real truth of the Klyntar has begun to be revealed.

RELATED: Venom: Marvel Begins to Reveal Everything About the God of the Symbiotes

First, we learned that the symbiotes had a god -- but that god wasn't a winged creature like it first appeared back in issue #1. No, this god is a frightening, vampiric creature named Knull, a being who who has been alive for billions of years. Knull is known as the First Host, and he is able to control all other symbiotes he can get his hands on. But that is only a simple part of the truth.

In Venom #4, Cates and Stegman offer us an issue-long retcon that dramatically changes every single thing we thought we knew about the history of the Klyntar in the Marvel Universe -- and along the way, just so happens to reveal a few things about other Marvel characters as well..

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And Then, There Was Light

The issue begins with the Big Bang itself.

But before there was light, there was a darkness -- and the creature known as Knull lived inside this very darkness, comfortable and content. Everything changed when the light came and invaded his realm. The Celestials soon arrived, and it's then that Knull explains that the void which was once his got its name: space.

The cosmic giants arrived, waging war. With their light, Knull saw his own shadow for the very fist time, and he reached inside of its void to pull out a black blade, both liquid and solid at the same time. With this blade, he managed to fell a Celestial, severing its head. The rest fought back, and cast Knull back to the void. But he found refuge in the head of his victim and, in its fires, he began to forge his blade.

Venom Knull Celestial symbiote birth

Knull explains that this blade was the very first, albeit crude, proto-symbiote. As he explains, this is where the symbiote's two weaknesses would be born: fire and sound. The fires of the Celestial Forge that melted it, and the heavy drums of the hammer that molded it.

But the real shocker comes when he reveals its name: All-Black, the Necrosword, aka the powerful weapon Gorr the God Butcher used to slay his victims in Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic's 2013 series Thor: God of Thunder.

In Thor: God of Thunder #6, readers discovered how Gorr came into possession of the Necrosword: it fell from the sky, along with two dead gods -- one dressed in gold, and the other in black. Gorr found the weapon at a desperate time, and used it to go on his vengeful rampage. In Venom #4, we learn that the black god who fell from the sky in Thor was in fact Knull, thus tying Venom intrinsically to Marvel's Asgardian lore as well as Spider-Man's. Though his connection to Thor is ancillary here, it's still a major moment in the Thunder God's history -- and the ties between the two aren't done yet.

After his fall, Knull spent centuries on the planet, learning to control what he calls the "living abyss," the darkness that flows out of him and that allows him to take control of other living organisms. As he grew accustomed to his abilities, Knull's power grew, with countless symbiotes now at his command. With them, he waged war across galaxies -- until he came to Earth, where he would clash... with Thor.

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The Birth of the Klyntar

In Thor, Knull found an opponent whose power he had never encountered before. The Odinson's lightning blast is so powerful, so damaging, it severed the bond Knull had with his symbiotes, all across the cosmos. Without their hive mind to guide them, the symbiotes started to venture out and seek new hosts to be complete. But these new hosts were different from Knull. They were heroic, and noble, possessing qualities that slowly began to change the symbiotes.

When they evolved, the symbiotes realized their potential, and they turned on their creator. As Knull explains it, their revolt turned into mutiny -- now free, they multiplied by the millions until they were finally able to apprehend him and keep him prisoner. This is when we finally learn the real truth behind the home planet of the Klyntar. It's not a planet at all -- it's simply the largest concentration of symbiotes, ever, that have built a prison to contain Knull, their devious creator. Klyntar, as Knull reveals, is simply the symbiotes' word for "cage." The planet is his prison, and its been kept a secret all this time. Until now.

Venom Klyntar origin meaning

This means that everything we thought we knew about the Klyntar -- the symbiotes -- and everything Eddie Brock believed about the alien race was all a lie. The Klyntar would have us believe that they are a great race of warriors, but they are simply trying to divorce themselves from Knull. Venom #4 is perhaps the single most important Marvel comic when it comes to symbiote history. It gives us a definite origin story for the Klyntar, one that stretches all the way back to the very birth of the universe itself, and it ties in with the history of Thor in more ways than one.

This is, to put it mildly, a massive change -- one that retcons more than 30 years of Venom history. The series has already altered what we knew of the character and his mythology, and this issue just re-wrote it completely. However, it's done in such an effortless, organic manner that we wonder how the creative team managed to pull it off so ingeniously.

Finally, we have a definitive origin for the symbiotes, one that does away with all of the convoluted continuity that surrounds the Marvel creatures, and yet doesn't really contradict anything that we've experienced in the past. Now, everything makes sense -- and now, everything is that much more frightening.

KEEP READING: Cates Explains How American Soldiers Hunt Alien Horrors in Marvel’s Ve’Nam