The black-suited Spider-Man is making a return in Marvel Comics’ epic King in Black crossover event and fans can look forward to a mini-series (written by Peter David and drawn by Greg Land) King in Black: Symbiote Spider-Man that will see the symbiote-infused suit return to comics. The miniseries will do double duty as a prequel to the main King in Black series, being written by Donny Cates, as well as serving as a sequel to the two previous Symbiote Spider-Man minis.
Since 1984, Spider-Man, and occasionally the wider Marvel Universe, have been threatened by parasitic aliens that exploit organic hosts for their own sustenance, often until they’ve killed them. These villains are a race of symbiotes named the Klyntar who can create bonds of a positive or deadly nature with their hosts, depending on the personality of the symbiote and the host. Peter Parker himself wore the first of these for the majority of the 1984 issues of Amazing Spider-Man and about half of the issues of Peter Parker, Spectacular Spider-Man that same year. The story seemed over with a return to the classic red-and-blue Spider-Man costume but it was from this story that the Kyntar were developed by later Marvel writers. Since last year, new stories written by David and drawn by Land, with some additional art by Iban Coello, are being told from this period of time. Simultaneously, in the solo Venom title, Cates and artist Ryan Stegman introduced and developed a new character named Knull, the God of the Symbiotes, in mid-2018.
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Marvel released the details about the third Symbiote Spider-Man mini-series this week and revealed that it would be a direct tie-in to December’s King in Black event. David and Land will be incorporating Cates’ immortal Knull character into Spider-Man’s past as the crossover featuring the new villain is released. The promotional art teases the use of several characters from the wider cosmic Marvel Universe, including Rocket Raccoon, Kang the Conqueror, and the Black Knight.
These new Symbiote Spider-Man comics fill in gaps left by older books. This soon-to-be-trilogy is part of a long tradition that leads back, at least, to Untold Tales of Spider-Man, a series that began in 1995 and continued until 1997. That series created new material and stories that inserted themselves in and around issues from Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s original Amazing Spider-Man run from 1963 to 1966.
Playful use of the timeline created by the continuous release of comic-books featuring the same characters is among the hallmarks of the superhero genre. But one of the purest expressions of that is in these Untold Tales-style titles and they are at their best when they bring in something created recently to make the whole company’s output from the past to present a more cohesive fictional universe. King in Black: Symbiote Spider-Man will better establish Knull as a terrifying immortal god-like menace in the Marvel Universe, manipulating the heroes from beyond, adding to the threat he poses in his full emergence in our heroes’ present in the main King in Black mini-series currently being written by Donny Cates.
King in Black Symbiote Spider-Man #1 will be in comic-shops in November.