Dylan is tempted by the power of darkness as Gods battle for the future of the Earth in King in Black #3 Written by Donny Cates, penciled by Ryan Stegman, colored by Frank Martin, and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Forrest Hollingsworth: Justin, after a surprisingly good issue of Venom it’s time for another issue of King in Black. This one has Thor in it…and I don’t have much to say about it besides that but I’m going to try!
Justin Partridge: IT’S FINALLY HAPPENED! WE HAVE FINALLY GOTTEN TO AN ISSUE I LIKE MORE THAN YOU! YOU HEAR THAT, COMICS TWITTER?! I DO LIKE THINGS GHAHAHAHAH!
I am fine, everyone.
(Ed note. Update: Justin was not fine.)
Real Hot Topic Boy Hours, Who Up?
FH: In an immediate follow-up to KiB #2, we start with Dylan Brock collapsed on the chest of his dead father as the remaining Avengers (is Blade an Avenger? Also how is he already back from Chernobyl?) discuss protecting him while he frees their Knullified teammates with his newly revealed powers, a plan that will put Eddie’s son at significant risk. Spidey, in a genuinely touching moment, attempts to sincerely assure Dylan that he doesn’t need to do this unless he wants to.
Dylan responds, eyes hollowed and leaking blood, that he in fact does need to do this. That he needs…to hurt something. A genuinely chilling and touching scene, I find that this is the most important scene of the entire book, and probably the one most indicative of where the story might head from here.
Despite all of the good reasons to be feeling the complicated mix of rage and sorrow that Dylan is feeling, there’s also a sly focus in on him giving way to his worst impulses, to the kind of darkness that made his father so appealing to the Symbiotes to begin with. Would a well coordinated assault against Knull’s forces or a scouting mission to identify weak points work better? Almost definitely! Is that what Dylan wants, or what happens? Absolutely not! As they take to the streets to rage against the dying of the light, Dylan weidling a kind of power and responsibility beyond his means, we get a sense that this is not the end of that war within himself — very much a microcosm of the war between the Symbiotes and Knull in a way — and I for one am here for it.
Justin, how do you feel about the push and pull between Knull and Eddie’s grasp on Dylan?
JP: ONCE AGAIN, I REALLY DIG THIS.
By now my bit here is to say “I really like when emotional stuff happens in the goop comics” (a lot like how Ritesh is always saying “Ultraman should be an OGN”), but my repetition doesn’t make the point any less true.
Again, I think this kind of “raw nerve” type stuff is where Donny really shines and it’s nice the event is FINALLY starting to fully lean into this. It only took about four plus issues on top of texture brought over from the crossover tie-ins (which are blissfully recapped quickly in the editorial notes peppered throughout the Clayton Cowles lettering) to get there, but hey, goopers can’t be choosers.
But that’s just a very long way to say, yes, I am into this and I am glad Dylan is finally taking a more active role in the overall proceedings. It is also nice seeing him actively using his powers in a field context as we still don’t REALLY have the strongest sense of what exactly he is capable of beyond a bit of the text we got in “Venom Beyond” but even THAT wasn’t the most solid in terms of his power-set. This is why I miss Fleer Cards. They always made it so ordered and easy to follow on the Fleer Cards.
But you are also right! Cates stumbles into some fun characterization shoe leather around Dylan’s glee at needing to/having an opportunity to hurt back at Knull which also could set him on the path to despotic-ness like we saw in the future last arc. It all adds to the neat drive this issue has and keeps up through it’s pretty heavily telegraphed cliffhanger (which I feel like Cates has done a FEW times now, but we will get there). Again, I am taking the longer road here as I am want to do, but I am genuinely struck at how much I’ve been enjoying the middle section of this event. I feel like we are really cooking now (even despite the weird missteps and repetitions from Cates).
FH: I’ve got an essay or two in me about the successes and failures of this run’s grappling with toxic masculinity, particularly through the lens of father-son relationships, but suffice to say that there’s a lot of layers here both intentionally and unintentionally, and I think the story is richer for it.
Not to be outdone, however, the blonde haired god hero-villain of Fortnite’s most recent season also makes an appearance! Thor is here, which seemed all but guaranteed after Sentry was so handily dismissed by Knull, but that doesn’t mean it’s not interesting! He has as many titles as the Abyss lord himself, anyways.
JP: Everybody has a Thor Moment in them, right?
Cates has been slapping at “epic” for a bit now in his OWN Thor works (themselves sweatily connected to Knull just like the Sentinel of the Spaceways was and is once again here), but I feel like THIS is a much more fun and engaging use of Thor in a event sense.
Thor always, especially in events, needs to function more like a force of nature. A Deus Ex Asgardia, if you will. Meaning, we open with Knull basically having won already, right? He’s got goopified Celestials and the world under the yoke of slime, ALONG WITH basically most of Marvel’s A-List done up in fetish wear. What the hell is going to help turn the tide? Dylan is doing his part for sure. As is Tony’s Iron Dragon that he and Doom killed Santa for (which ruled). But how the hell else do we get into the third act beyond that? Have Thor knock some shit around while saying some insanely goofy stuff, of course!
It is the fun kind of dumb that I love event comics to be, and WHILE AGAIN, I could have used this energy a bit sooner, I am glad we are finally there now. Even if Donny is going to Donny it anyway and have Knull gain the upperhand AGAIN, but whattayagonnado?
FH: The Thor reveal and eventual fallout (which we’ll get into more below) feels very deserved. Before Cates was writing the main Thor title and various Fortnite tie-ins, the god of thunder was integral to Knull’s murderous fascination with Earth. Thor was there in the early days, the first defense against Grendel. That’s not insignificant, and while I hear the argument that using Venom, Thor, and Silver Surfer all to sell the one-dimensional might of your villain is overly indulgent, I don’t think it’s without internal narrative consistency.
Battle of Gods (™)
FH: The second half of the book devolves (or evolves, depending on your perspective I guess) into a no holds barred slug fest as Knull and Thor battle both verbally and physically for godly supremacy, Dylan struggles with the full extent and limitations of his power, and Tony Stark gets a dragon…as if he needed another thing to brag about.
I think it’s a sensible Dragon Ball-esque escalation of stakes and power dynamics, the way Stark has learned to Extremis override Knull’s forces is just a variation on Goku feeling out Hit’s time skip prior to being able to evade it, a combative push and pull that gives both sides equal footing in a more inherently engaging way, OH and another thing about Goku is — sorry I’m getting off track. Justin, how does a variation on the fight scene from the event’s opening salvo hit you?
JP: Oh, man, I would and could listen to you talkin’ Goku forever, but that’s a whole other column, I feel like.
BUT AGAIN, you nailed it. I said above that this is the kinda dumb I can get behind and this whole sequence is just a perfect actualization of that idea. And also like you were saying, even for how insane it truly is and how it really DOESN’T make sense if you even think about it a little (Tony hasn’t had Extremis for years, how is he controlling the dragon and Celestials? CAN the symbiotes even really cascade across multiple technologies? Both terran and cosmic? It’s all…very silly). But at the same time, it operates in the kind of over-the-top, truly nuts logic that event comic stakes can pull off and Cates has the kind of sincere, matter-of-fact style that can sell it here in #3.
I mean, it also doesn’t hurt that Stegman and Martin fuckin’ rule, but our point stands.
FH: I have to say for my part that I’m struggling with the visual elements of this issue a little more than I’d like. Venom has, kind of since its inception, been billed as a collaborative project. Cates has indeed redefined the character, and brought some of its biggest moments to life, but Stegman’s art has been gritty, grimey and visceral anchor to its loftier aspirations – integral to the tone, the oppressiveness, the despair from Eddie’s initial brush with Knull’s darkness to the spine splintering fixations of Absolute Carnage. However and unfortunately, I found this momentously important battle to be really difficult to parse, kind of the worst time for something like this to happen.
To unpack it all, Knull spawns (shoutout Toddfather) All-Black from somewhere to impale Thor, Dylan falls into a mass of revolting Knullified slaves, and Celestials the size of skyscrapers fight which is all theoretically cool, but there’s a really limited sense of scale and space – a kind of visual incomprehensibility that undermines the effort. Is Dylan assuming control over the army or is he getting lost in their masses? Is Thor dying at the Extremis Celestial’s feet? Where’s everyone else? It’s surprisingly, notably muddy compared to the creative team’s usual efforts in a way I struggled with…
…until the debut of Silver Surfer Black and I’m back on board (heh).
JP: Ten Comedy Points.
I think I am a little hotter on the sort of crunchy, album cover tones and visuals that Stegman and Martin are going for here, but I absolutely understand your overall point. Building off it, I also think you are right on the money in comparing the in-your-face, horror inspired visuals of Absolute Carnage to the more wandering scale of this event here.
While horror stuff demands a sort of specific scale and visual point of view, the sort of apocalyptic, more expansive scales of these sequences can get a bit…lost in themselves, can’t they? It also doesn’t really help that Stegman and Martin don’t really give the interiors and more character focused panels and pages of the issue the care and attention they give to the fights and goop based stuff. This causes those expressions and emoting models to get kind of lost in the overall mix of the visuals, in turn making the action feel hollow.
Again, that’s sort of the game when it comes to event comics of this caliber, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating for sure.
FH: While we were writing this week’s Symbiote studies it was revealed that Venom #200 will be the last issue of the run for Cates and Stegman. That makes the next few months very, very interesting in a chaotically unpredictable way. We’ll see you here for Venom in just two weeks and right in time for the month of looooooove.
JP: Oh my God, that’s so sad. Siri, play “I Shall Be Released” by The Band. (I am kidding, of course, but not by much).
Snark aside, the announcement is…interesting. Especially since this was NEVER framed as the “end” of his run, merely just another slimy step in his goal to make Knull the most powerful Poochie in fandom history. It’s a bold move, Forrest, and I am anxious to see if it works out for him and Eddie in the long run.
I mean, it probably won’t for Eddie since he’s deadville, but you get the gist.
Marvelous Musings
- Aside from the visceral element, is there really any reason at all that Knull would bleed? Seems like something below his gothic divinity stature.
- Big Ocarina of Time Wallmaster vibes from the Knullified hand that attacks Dylan early on. The idea of an entire sentient city observing and betraying you is very cool.
- The back-and-forth nature of the event and tie-ins is a risky gambit. If you’re not going to follow up on Flash Thompson’s return immediately, you better have well…a suitably flashy plan in place to introduce him.
- Yeah, super weird we don’t really see Flash that much here, when the last issue of Venom’s whole deal was “WHOA, FLASH IS HERE, SO KEWL, RIGHT?”. Donny gonna Donny for sure.
- Speaking of Donny Donny’ing, man, he suuuure loves that “Unseen Narrator is Revealed as An Incoming Guest-Star” move, huh? Crossover is basically that stretched into a whole book, but I feel like he’s done it with EVERY major work-for-hire title he’s done now. You get double No-Prizes if it’s revealed to be Knull (which he’s also done an…embarassing amount of times).
Forrest is an experimental AI that writes and podcasts about comic books and wrestling coming to your area soon.
