Review by Ian Keogh
Marvel’s 2020 crossover saw Earth invaded by Knull, god of the symbiotes, of whom the Venom costume is one. Donny Cates developed matters during his run on Venom, but none of the preparatory work is here, just what poor Eddie Brock goes through during the invasion. Knull’s efficient, deadly and merciless, meaning the entire planet’s soon under his control, and most of what’s included here is the battle to deal with him.
Firstly, as ever with such vast projects, the running order is a problem. Marvel have chosen to lead off with the five core chapters as supplied by the King in Black graphic novel, meaning the opening is beginning, middle and end. After it the connecting stories are presented one after the other. That’s probably the best idea, although if you’d prefer a more sequential experience Marvel provide their own reading order here. Be warned, though that it rapidly becomes a frustrating experience in a book without page numbers, never mind attempting the same with the digital version.
After the main event you get the content of ten other graphic novels, plus the crossover chapters from a further eight titles, including the likes of Deadpool, Fantastic Four and Guardians of the Galaxy. Of Marvel’s major characters only the X-Men are absent, and even then a few of them sneak in. Some of the supplemental material only has a tenuous connection with the main story (Atlantis Attacks, Namor, Return of the Valkyries, Spider-Woman), while Venom is integral and other features occur in the middle of the action (Gwenom vs. Carnage, Planet of the Symbiotes, Symbiote Spider-Man and Thunderbolts). Follow the links for greater information about these segments.
Collectively, though, they’re repetitious. The first time you see a hero riding one of the giant symbiote dragons it looks great, but by the end of this volume you’ll have seen it half a dozen times, and there are only so many variations of heroes fighting goopy creatures with Knull’s tiresomely arrogant commentary. He’s a really irritating villain, loving the sound of his own voice under pretty well any writer here.
King in Black has some surprises, but all in all, taking into account the vast number of tie-ins, it’s no masterpiece. Why, then, would you want to spend upwards of £80 for the 1500+ pages presented here? Well the main reason would probably be that there’s a lot of amazing art reproduced in an oversized format. The sample spread is Ryan Stegman’s work from the core story, but there are also spectacular pages from Carmen Carnero, Marco Checcheto, Juan Ferreyra, Juan Frigeri, Aaron Kuder, Luke Ross, Jesús Saiz, Nina Vakueva, Guiu Vilanova, and Kev Walker. A couple of artists aren’t up to scratch, but by and large one great looking page follows another.
Indulge yourself with the art, but keep expectations low otherwise. Alternatively, you could try Venom Omnibus by Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman, which includes the core story plus everything that leads up to it.
