After a recent video from The Film Theorists, it got us thinking. They brought up a pretty viable theory about Knull. Let's dive in a bit. By now, have you sold your 9.8 Eternals #1? Are you wondering what may come next?  It is the very embodiment of darkness, Knull and the King In Black series.

The latest offering from Marvel studios, the Eternals, is certainly generating a mixed bag of critical movie reviews.  I suspect that we will look back on this film and realize that the best thing about it was introducing the Celestials to millions of MCU fans.  The Celestials, the oldest of god-like races in the universe, are responsible for bringing about planets and sentient life forces.  They are giant embodiments of light and energy and they can wield the Infinity Stones (which seem to show up everywhere these days).  We learned a bit about Ego, a self-identified Celestial (played by the immortal Kurt Russell) in the Guardians of the Galaxy 2 movie.

Paint it Black

Knull is the king of the Void, lord of the Abyss, and god of Darkness.  (That must look amazing on a business card.)  Eons ago, the Celestials invaded the Void, showed a bit of light into the darkness, and awakened Knull.  Ever since, Knull has been focused on destroying the Celestials and spreading his darkness over the entire universe.

The recent King In Black series was a wonderful adventure in cross-over storylines.  It was, of course, not without its winners and losers, as I discussed in a previous blog post.  With the Eternals paving the way to more about the Celestials, it only makes sense that the Celestial-hating Knull is likely to return in both movies and books.

Venom Points the Way

Besides being the arch-enemy of the Celestials and having god-like abilities who could actually threaten to destroy them, Knull is a direct tie-in to one of Marvel's most popular storylines - Venom and symbiotes.

Knull discovers that he can manifest symbiotes out of his darkness and the first symbiote is what becomes the All-Black sword.  Knull uses this to decapitate a Celestial and he then continues to draw power from the life force of the dead Celestial (the head of which is also known to us as Knowhere in the Guardians movies.).

It is easy to argue that Venom is one of the best things to come out of the 1980s.  Marvel has done a tremendous job making this little idea of a symbiote suit into something that a fan and collector has to understand and contemplate owning.

Own It

King in Black #1 and portions of that series are still reasonable investments, with current 9.8 books selling for $40-55.  There is also the opportunity to own most of the variant editions for very little premium (except for the Nauck full cover spread edition), so feel free to pick the art you like.

When Knull rears his evil, grinning ugly head the next time, the highest-graded books of this main series are solid bets to see increases in value and sales.  He is too good a character, as the most powerful villain in the Venom and Celestial stories to not see more attention from the creative minds at Marvel.  As with all books that have covers that are often dark, such as the Superlog variant above, be very careful on inspecting raw books.  Dark cover art is notorious for showing minor defects which will impact grade.

Thank you, Jack Kirby, for bringing us the fabulous artwork of the Eternals back in 1976.  I can admit to having a hard time following the original books' stories, the recently published new run of the Eternals, and now have had the pleasure of struggling to follow the movie. I do though, applaud Marvel for continuing to invest in the richness of the great story-telling efforts of the 1970s.  While I will not be buying any issues of the Eternals, it seems obvious that King In Black is worth owning for the future.

*Any perceived investment advice or opinion is that of the freelance author, and does not represent advice on the part of GoCollect.