Knull is a curse word in Swedish. What the knull!?
Knull the King in Black is more than just a character. It's the culmination of Marvel's efforts to divorce Venom and the symbiotes from Spider-Man. A few years before the event, Marvel had been trying to make the Symbiotes their own thing, with events such as Venomverse in which multiple heroes got their own symbiote forms, and even Poison forms. They probably realized that Venom is as strong a character and Spider-Man and they could separate them both. Ah, well, it all led to the King in Black event which kinda sucked. The five main event issues were fine, but all the tie ins were a bore, particularly the Captain America and Valkyrie ones. It also doesn't help that the Omnibus places the main five issues first, so you are reading the tie-ins after everything is resolved, which kinda sucks. Ah well.
The thing about Knull is that he is a
relatively new character and has had few appearances outside the King in Black event. That said, between all tie-ins, Knull didn't have the most consistent design out there, some versions even gave him some hair ornaments which I though were kinda neat, but this figure is
missing. All that said, I think this figure captures the most
recognizable elements of Knull: A chest plate with big pauldrons and a red dragon spider-logo, which doesn't reach all the way to his back but I don't remember seeing his back in the comics so it
might be accurate, white hair and red eyes, bandage straps on his arms... and clad in black. So any
inconsistence you might find with the sculpt, well, you'll probably find an artist's version of Knull that has it too. I do love how he came out, he is a very badass looking villain, and he comes with two heads, one with a lipless mouth and spiky teeth, and a more neutral looking face. While he only used the former sporadically, I much
prefer that more demonic look on him. Worth mentioning, considering Hasbro's current output, the plastic quality is
great.
His weapon, the All-Black which he reclaimed from Gorr, is lovely sculpted with all those veiny things on top of it... but
not all of them were painted in red. I don't know if this was a stylistic choice or just
cheapness, because in a few panels his All-Black had more red than black. It still looks pretty cool. It is a bit
gummy, however.
He gets double jointed elbows and knees, with swivels on his biceps, thighs and waist. He has an
unimpressive hinged ab crunch, with not a whole lot of range forward, but worked better when bending him backward. The pauldrons rotate alongside the arm, so no loss on articulation there,
but, his skirt is a bit harder than you'd expect, so he can't kick very high. He is... he is a
surprisingly tall figure. Nothing in the comics made me imagine him this tall, but then again, his height wasn't very consistent either so I
guess it's fine.
Knull is a good figure. He is not a character I particularly like, but I think they did good work with him. The sculpting is good, the plastic quality is good... yeah, he is good.
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