Venom's an All-Star in King in Black #4

Amidst Darkness, The God of Light arrives in King in Black #4 Written by Donny Cates, penciled by Ryan Stegman, colored by Frank Martin, and lettered by Clayton Cowles.

Forrest Hollingsworth: King in Black #4 is the same…but different! For something similarly familiar but different, I’m happy to say we’re tagging in ComicsXF Spec Ops Void and Column Editor and my close personal friend Charlie Davis for an all new, all different, one time only issue of…Goop Troupe!

Charlie Davis: Forrest. Usually I just sit on the sidelines and just watch you and Justin toil through the goo in here, but I am knee deep in it now and man…this is perhaps more wildly mediocre than I thought it would be? It’s like that midcard tag team everyone is just okay with watching…wild that Donny C took us to this place and just gave us a DQ finish.

“It is Time”

FH: Directly following KIB #3 and running parallel to the events of Venom #33 (with some intersections on perpendicular points, as the event has been structured around) we find Dylan Brock embedded in enemy territory – the near heart of Knull’s hive. Here, surrounded by shadows and malicious maws grossly emulating the appearance of his dead father, Dylan is caught between two voices. One a new and unseen ally probing his mind, and the other Knull himself, the visage of death that would be Dylan’s new homicidal father. As if he hasn’t already had enough of it, Dylan has a choice to make between the allies that have long maligned his father and his attempts at reconciliation, and a power so complete it offers him the light death of the universe.

He does so, joining hands with the God of the Abyss…just to turn against him, freeing the imprisoned Avengers and X-Men to fight another day, and setting the stage for what feels like the final desperate moments of Earth’s struggle against the cold clutches of Knull. Penultimate moments which feel, as you indicated Charlie, surprisingly mediocre.

There’s a series of images and words here meant to be really evocative, but they come across more like the comics equivalent of that fence climbing scene with all of the edits from Taken 3. Am I off base?

CD: You’re not off base at all Forrest. I don’t know if this is just me being burnt out on big event comics or that I have somehow become more cynical than I would like, but Knull tempting Dylan and hopeful voices in his head pushing him in another direction just literally feels like every other big superhero big hero moment of the last 10 years. It does nothing new and comes to the same conclusion so many other books have. I don’t think this would bother me as much if it was someone like Tom Taylor coming to this conclusion, but Donny fancies himself an innovator and this is not that. It’s a nice thought, don’t get me wrong and with all the themes at play here about fatherhood and growing up to be something different…I can see why we got to this conclusion I just don’t really like that we did.

Having Dylan rebuff a God that gives him absolute power is akin to the choice Eddie made to accept the Venom symbiote into his life. At least I think that’s what this moment built up with false tension was supposed to do.

FH: Yeah, I don’t disagree. You know how WWE books the same spot like Nia powerbombing Lana through the table every week to get the point across? That’s Dylan resolving to finally bring the fight to Knull each issue of this to date, and it’s followed by a series of disparate images that don’t help contextualize it enough.

CD: Has Dylan just been booked poorly? It seems like it. It also seems like Donny somehow botched the ending here? We’ve built up all these emotional beats for Dylan and even went into the future to try and flesh out his character and build the importance of his role in all this, and just…man I don’t follow the book as well as ya’ll but I cannot imagine not thinking what exactly was all that for? I don’t want to jump ahead or anything, but it also kinda seems like Donny just wasn’t really paying attention to anything else going on in the Marvel Universe when he was preparing this issue? As thematically cool as it is to see hero’s reaching out to Dylan it just falls super flat to me.

FH: Well, I would be remiss to not say that this is merely the second to last issue, and Donny may be holding onto something more significant for the finale? Hopefully, too, something that holds their promises on making Eddie matter more to the center of the Marvel continuity.

Nevertheless, though, and not unlike WWE, it’s just a stunning disrespect to the reader’s time and attention. Textually, I can see why characters like Doctor Strange, Namor, Tony Stark, and the countless others here would feel like Dylan’s coup de grace is a monumental turning in the tide, but taking place across the same settings, plot beats, and pacing as the rest of the event (to say nothing of the tie-ins) it’s hard to feel a significant passage of time, scale, or almost anything else as a reader. What’s the tangible difference between the ocean flooding into the city here, and Tony assuming control of the Extremis-Celestial in the previous issue? What’s the difference between the last time Dylan freed Symbiote slaves and this, for that matter?

In a way, the team accidentally tapped into emulating the void of meaning that Knull represents.

“Let’s See What Makes You Bleed”

FH: While we obviously (and rightfully, don’t @ me) have considerable problems with this issue, I think there’s some good stuff here too. Namely, in the final third or so of the book. A fairly well-written Jean Grey reveals herself as the ally reaching into Dylan’s mind, and in a epiphany-esque moment within the mind of the incensed, near-dead demigod Knull she sees his equal — the God of Light — soon to be revealed as the avatar of the Enigma Force, Captain Universe who has chosen a well, rather central character to use as a means to an end.

First introduced in Micronauts #8 in 1979, and familiar to fans of Spidey and countless others, the Enigma Force is a known quantity, sure, but its infusion into this grander sci-fi mythology that Cates is weaving does seem significant in the kind of way that warrants saying they are changing Eddie’s character forever, at the very least (I’m of the opinion that that’s a totally fine thing to do, of course, and that the nature of iterative storytelling means that the next writer, artist, or Marvel themselves can undo it if they’d like anyways).

As someone who seconds on our Warhammer 40k columns, it’s probably no surprise that I rather like the very primordial feeling theology at play here, and the moment where the Silver Surfer recognizes that the Force isn’t here for him, releasing it with a reticent sadness, feels earned. The image of Knull’s jaw unhinged, melting off of his gothically evocative skull as beams of enraged but fleeting power emerge from the voids where his eyes would be is also

immediately cool.

Charlie, how do you feel about the theological loftiness of the stakes here?

CD: The fact that there is always a light in the profound darkness seems not only really cliche, but also very Zack Snyder in a way I’m not sure is intentional? But certainly seems like it is. I honestly don’t want to seem like im really just dunking on this comic to dunk on it, but when you build the empire of the Venom run on the fact that you’re doing new and innovative things and end up coming back around to being just the same old same old…I guess I don’t know how this doesn’t become just another drop in the Venom Bucket.

I think one of the things that constantly bugs me about Donny, is that he can reach and attain some things greater than the sum of his parts, but so often retreats to something familiar and safe. Knull isn’t particularly scary or unfamiliar and I really think this event lives and dies with the tension it fails to create. The Void is a cool concept, but when I have to say that the whole of Final Fantasy 8 who’s entire conceit revolves around a sorceress who’s obsessed with unexistence plays at the themes better than the villain of a marvel crossover…well.

FH: I think that’s a fair point, especially because the book has frequently touched on topics and visuals that seem beyond its means (as I touched on last issue, toxic masculinity and its complex relationship with fatherhood) or that it at least doesn’t want to make central. It’s fitting, and as you said Snyder-esque that the equal to Knull’s one note boundless evil is a similarly one goodness that has existed in the same kind of vacuum that he was born of. If we were to really narrow in on it, the problem is that this natural balance to the darkness seemingly isn’t found within Eddie or even within Dylan – it’s not about their struggles or their growth, it’s a literal deus ex machina.

To that end, there’s even a direct visual reference to that scene in All Star Superman of Clark fixing the sun that feels, well, unearned. See here with King in Black’s interpretation and then All Star’s:

Obviously there are myriad other things this can be referencing, but within the confines of comics it’s a pretty singular image and reference (especially while Cates is doing similar work with Crossover) and I have…mixed feelings on it to say the least because it doesn’t come across as a homage so much as a co-option.

CD: Listen. He really, really knows what he wants and what he likes and how he’s going to place it on the page. I just wish it wasn’t so openly transparent. Again, I wouldn’t be half as critical of this if Cates wasn’t constantly attempting to blend “rad 90’s” with apparently something transcendent. I don’t think you can’t do both of those things or that those things have to be mutually exclusive, but I’ve always viewed Venom as a somewhat intimate story.

I feel like somewhere inside of King In Black, we’ve lost even those tenuous threads of what it means to be a monster and reckoning with that. What do you deserve if you embrace darkness? Is it love or is it something else? I don’t think we’re even answering those questions anymore. I wish I had more to say. I wish I had more positive things to say. Stegman’s art is good though!

FH: This got a lot heavier than I was expecting, and I kind of miss when Venom was a weird emotionally existential MPREG story, but I digress and we’ll be back in just a few weeks to wrap this up! Thanks Charlie!

Marvelous Musings

Is it really possible that Jean hasn’t encountered the Enigma Force to date? That seems like something she would’ve been familiar with even if just in the abstract of the Phoenix Force. Reed Richards asserts that they do know it, but have been using a different name for it which kind of needlessly confuses the two takes.
The best part of this issue is the preview of Peach Momoko’s Demon Days at the end – whoops!
The image of a deceased, severely bruised and beaten Eddie rising from his hospital confinement while emitting the holy energy of the Enigma Force is cool…at least until they reveal he was dead for exactly three days or something.
RIP