I’m sure this must’ve happened to you at some point, right? You’ve had a tough year. You’re working your way back to the top of the ladder, trying to get back at least a little something of what you used to be—only to find the door to eternal cosmic brightness blocked by that one dude who put your life on the shelf in the first place. And he’s all super ultra mega charged from “goodness,” while you’re a cellar-dwelling cave goblin with a glowing pointy stick and no real personality. Sounds pretty relatable, right? No?
Well, with Knull #4, we get our titular baby boy on his penultimate journey to ascension, having gone from dark to light—but now there’s only one thing standing in his way: an Eddie Brock who’s basically embraced his “goodness” and become Light-Venom. It’s a super-fast issue that goes by in a…flash. But you’re less likely to feel infuriated if you remember that the title character always gets what he wants in this book, usually to comedic effect.
Why Don’t You Lighten Up a Little
Issue #4 picks up with Knull in the Lightforce dimension, confronted by the Illuminated—an Eddie Brock who was able to turn the clock back on his mistakes and eventually achieve cosmic illumination as a guardian of the ultimate Lightforce. Now “Eddie” believes that Knull is here to do the same and deserves a shot at redemption because he’s rejected the darkness and is looking to embrace the light. Eddie offers him a chance to do just that with the kind of feel-good sentiment that would bring your average soap-opera audience to tears. Knull, on the other hand, is more of an American Horror Story kind of guy, so he shows Eddie exactly where he can take his “redemption” and put it—getting the point across very clearly with an All-Light spear to the chest. Naturally, of course, there’s only so much a man can take before he can take no more, and Eddie decides that he’s had enough of this. So let the gratuitous violence commence!
There’s a particularly quick, messy, and brutally satisfying fight where, once again, Knull gets the absolute tar beaten out of him for 90% of the battle. There are punches, stabs, expletives, and some random long-form joke about apples. Sure, he gets a few good licks in, but Eddie pretty much dominates the fight. Until, of course, Knull remembers that this is his book and activates his trap card: THE POWER OF SELF-WORTH! He pretty much disintegrates Eddie, takes his power and that of the Lightforce dimension, and becomes the all-new, all-improved, all-Marvel-approved God of Light—complete with a full-page villain monologue and everything.
With Knull now the shiniest leading lady in all the land, he sets his sights on getting some revenge…if only someone else with a grudge doesn’t get to him first. Because, lo and behold: our OG cantankerously cosmic sad-boi Thanos is back, patched up and ready for round two with the new bright lord!
A Void by Any Other Name…
Al Ewing and Tim Waltz know exactly what this issue is: a melodramatic fight comic that serves to get Knull exactly where he needs to be before the big final blow-off. In that respect, this comic achieves its goals quite effectively, providing readers with just enough context of the players involved to keep the fight interesting enough, even if the outcome is more or less set in stone. Because, come on. This is a book about Knull, after all.
Speaking of the big bad himself: if you’re a fan of the pure, naked, petty malice that comes with the character, you’re in for a treat because Knull, even on his literal journey to embrace the Lightforce, still sticks to his guns about being the evil, Castlevania-reject he’s always been. While this series has focused on some aspects of “character growth” in terms of Knull having to start over from almost zero to build himself back up again, Ewing and Waltz maintain that consistency with his character—especially in the face of having the opportunity to redeem himself and start fresh. Knull literally and figuratively throwing that option in the trash is fun to watch, if less so because all of Knull’s “victories” so far are starting to feel the same: he gets the unholy poop beaten out of him by X cosmic force, then proceeds to pull off a Hail Mary that gets him exactly what he wants. While some would say that matches his sneaky demeanour, I’m personally starting to feel like it’s a little too convenient at this point. That being said, watching Knull pick away at his supposedly “morally superior” opponents by using the same kind of playground-level taunts (oh, you resorted to violence because I attacked you! How superior you must be, hypocrite) gets the kind of guffaw out of me that I wasn’t expecting. That too when he manages to turn one of Eddie’s own puns against him by the end, as cringe as that moment is. In the end, I think there’s some novelty to Knull essentially using either the shadows or light to his advantage as long as he’s benefitting from power; it showcases that neither light nor dark is exclusively a character trait for him. Knull is the void, and whether that void is filled with the darkest of shadows or blinding light, the power he gets from either only matters as long as the silence of the Void that he represents is satisfied in all its maliciously petty glory.
On the other end of this issue’s character drama, we have Al Ewing going for another deep cut with The Illuminated: an Eddie Brock who overcame some nefarious rubbish of his own to become a super enlightened guardian of the All Light. Venom: Original Sin is where you’ll find this entire story, but for now, a quick exposition drop is enough to get everyone up to speed. Considering Knull spent most of the last issue talking about how much he hated Eddie Brock above all his opponents, this kind of serendipity is something that he could probably only dream of. Ewing attempts to contrast these two characters in their current states against each other: Knull at the cusp of change while Eddie is at the peak of it. It’s almost painfully naïve how this version sincerely offers Knull redemption, only to have that slapped aside, but I’m glad there’s at least immediate retaliation on Eddie’s part—showing he still has some of that fire in him. And while the ending is far from ideal for this Eddie’s journey, for the sake of this book, it’s a quick and relatively inoffensive step on the ladder to Knull’s greater ascension. Eddie, like Knull, is less of a character here and more of a conceptual force that Knull has to take apart to achieve his goals.
Knull #4 is kept brisk and clear-cut by design. It does feel rushed, more so than previous issues, but that kind of works for the story they’re trying to tell because there’s only so much you can drag out this particular journey that our emo-Barbie Knull can go on. And while it ends on the promise of another rematch with Thanos (thank the lawd he’s still kicking, even if the fight he lost last time was pure ragebait), the finale to come will determine whether this was really worth it.
An Unexpected Stumble
Throughout the course of this series, Juan Ramirez and Erick Arciniega have created a definitive visual identity for Knull’s journey, and that continues here in excellent fashion as well. This time, they get to play around more with blinding lights and new cosmic horizons than in previous issues, but they rise to the challenge exceptionally well.
Ramirez draws the newly empowered Knull in all his gleeful malice throughout the issue. I don’t think I’ve ever been more vindicated in calling Knull a “Castlevania-reject” than I have in this issue, because Ramirez really does play up the vampiric aspects of the character excellently. Eddie is drawn with a regal, yet notably scruffy design as well, but when the gloves come off—there’s a cool rendition of the Venom suit he dons that really amps that feeling up. Ramirez’s action sequences are fast-paced as ever here, although there is a strangely confusing flub that could leave readers wondering what’s going on in a particular melee sequence of the fight. Beyond that, Knull’s final ascension to the Lightforce’s newest avatar is given a page’s worth of darkly blinding visual majesty, as is the sequence that follows when everyone’s favorite Mad Titan returns to set up the last chapter.
Of course, the best of Ramirez’s linework is only amplified further by the intense color work of Arciniega. With so much light to play around with, literally, he manages to keep the grimy aesthetic of the book while still retaining this new stage in Knull’s evolution. I like how the color work gradually evolves and changes as Knull gains the upper hand, from the yellow light of the All-Bright empowered version to the star-devouring burning white blaze that is Knull at his new Lightforce fueled peak. There’s so much going on here from a color perspective, but it’s all worth checking out in earnest because this is a VERY bright book, in more ways than one.
Schlock & Awe
Knull #4 is the penultimate chapter that puts our primary prima donna on the map with his new status quo, and ready to face his arch-nemesis in Hela. Light vs. Dark. Emo vs. Emo. King vs. Queen. You know the drill. While I’m fairly certain we’re only going to get the big, fat blow-off in its entirety this summer in the Queen in Black event, there’s enough quickly set up here to pretty much put Knull in a position to keep up.
Ultimately, your mileage for this once again depends on how much you like Knull as a “character” (of which he really has none). I appreciate that the writers aren’t trying to rewrite the board with him here in a disingenuous way, and I like that they’re leaning into aspects like his malice, his pettiness, and his thirst for power as almost totemic blocks that cannot be shaken. Knull is only marginally interesting here because he’s so stubbornly dedicated to his goals, even if he has to use some tiny shred of self-belief to get there. And who among us can’t get behind the power of self-love, after all?
Final Verdict: Knull #4 is a brisk yet single-minded exercise in power-scaling our titular dark Disney princess into something far shinier but still pettier than ever before with the art doing the kind of heavy lifting you’d expect from Atlas.