The sophomore issue of King in Black expands the crossover event’s scope and cast and keeping readers riveted from cover-to-cover.
Marvel Comics’ latest crossover event King in Black continues to pull out all the stops as the core series moves into its second issue, with Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman avoiding the dreaded sophomore slump. This issue manages to go bigger and deeper with its ensemble cast as the scope broadens, weaving in more elements on the expansive Marvel Universe. And in doing so, the creative team has laid fertile ground to seed additional tie-ins to spin out of while keeping sight of the story’s emotional core and taut pacing as Knull continues his terrifying rampage across the Earth in what is already shaping up to be a triumphantly realized follow-up to last year’s Absolute Carnage.
Picking up from the debut issue’s cataclysmic cliffhanger, Knull has indeed arrived on Earth with his armies of ravenous symbiotes, quickly sweeping across New York City and over the heroes’ initial line of defenses. As the characters that escaped the opening salvo regroup and rethink their next strategy to stay alive and turn the tide of battle against the dark god, Eddie Brock has his own brush with fate as Knull tightens his grip on the planet, with desperate alliances forged and unlikely figures rising up to take their last stand in the face of the symbiote-fueled apocalypse.
Cates keeps the momentum going from the first issue’s high-octane pacing, even as he provides quieter moments for the characters to take a bit of a breather in between pulse-pounding action sequences. Cates’ run Venom, from where the seeds of King in Black were first planted, has always been about fathers-and-sons and the constant drive for redemption from the most unlikely sources and those themes are similarly on full display here. Still, while this is very much a Venom-centric event, Cates is able to weave in more elements of the Marvel Universe more effortlessly than he had in Absolute Carnage; this is a story about the heroes facing the end of the world and Cates is extending his reach, drawing in characters that have largely been isolated from concurrent storylines.