Venom 4 (2026) – Tom Hardy, Tom Holland | Will Knull be the Next Super Villian After Doctor Doom?
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VENOM 4: THE KING IN BLACK’S HARVEST (2026)
Part I: The Residue of the Dance
The silence was the worst part.
Eddie Brock sat in the dilapidated, sun-drenched apartment in Mexico he had inherited after the events of The Last Dance. The air was dry, the tequila was cheap, and the internal monologue that had been his constant companion for years—the booming, gravelly voice of Venom—was gone.
The sacrifice had been real. The Xenophages were defeated, the world saved, but the symbiote had burned itself out, a final, selfless act to shield Eddie from the cosmic backlash. Eddie was alive, but hollowed out. He felt the loss not just emotionally, but physically, like a phantom limb that still ached for the weight of the black goo.
He spent his days writing obituaries for local papers—a grim, ironic twist for a man who had faced down cosmic horror.
“We are not whole, Eddie,” he muttered to his reflection one morning, the words catching in his throat.
We. The habit was impossible to break.
The world around him, however, was beginning to feel wrong. It started subtly: the shadows seemed deeper, the nights longer. People were angrier, their anxieties amplifying into sudden, irrational bursts of violence. It was a creeping, psychic dread, a sense that the lights of civilization were dimming.
Eddie knew this feeling. It was the echo of the hive mind, the primordial fear that Venom had always carried.
He remembered the mid-credits scene, the brief, terrifying glimpse of the entity Venom had called Knull. The King in Black. The God of Symbiotes. Knull wasn’t just a villain; he was the void, the cosmic darkness that existed before the universe, the entity who saw all life as an aberration and symbiotes as his corrupted, enslaved children.
If Venom had sacrificed himself to save Eddie from the Xenophages, it was only because he knew a greater threat was coming.
One humid afternoon, while cleaning out the remnants of his travel bag, Eddie found it.
It wasn’t much. A smear of black, iridescent sludge, no bigger than a thumbnail, clinging to the inside of a cheap, plastic container. It was the residue, the final, desperate fragment of the symbiote that had been absorbed by the cockroach in the post-credits scene—a tiny, living seed of Venom’s consciousness.
Eddie stared at it, his heart hammering against his ribs. The silence wasn’t total after all.
—We are a whisper, Eddie. A memory.
The voice was faint, thin, like static on a dead channel. It was Venom, or what was left of him, clinging to life.
“You’re alive,” Eddie whispered, tears blurring his vision.
—Barely. The sacrifice… it was necessary. But Knull… he is harvesting. He is calling his children home. And Earth… Earth is a juicy apple.
The fragment pulsed, sending a surge of cold dread through Eddie’s mind. Knull’s influence wasn’t just psychic; it was physical. Across the world, the symbiote hive mind was being corrupted, drawn back into the service of its dark god.
Eddie knew what he had to do. The fragment was too weak to fight Knull, but it was enough to guide him. He needed more. He needed the other piece.
He needed the fragment of Venom that had been ripped away during the multiversal chaos of the last great spell. The fragment left behind in the other universe. The fragment that had found a new host.
He needed to find Spider-Man.
Part II: Crossing the Divide
Getting back to New York was easy. Getting to the other New York was impossible.
Eddie arrived in his own city to find the creeping dread intensifying. News reports spoke of mass hysteria, of people seeing shadows move, of an inexplicable rise in cult-like behavior centered around the belief that the world was ending. Knull was tightening his grip, preparing his harvest.
Eddie tracked down the remnants of the dimensional tear—a faint, residual energy signature near the former location of the Statue of Liberty. It was unstable, dangerous, but it was his only way.
He found a dilapidated warehouse overlooking the harbor, filled with arcane equipment salvaged from a defunct S.H.I.E.L.D. black site. He spent weeks manipulating the energy, guided by the faint, technical whispers of the Venom fragment.
—Unstable. Dangerous. But necessary. We must find our other half, Eddie. We must be whole to resist.
“You keep saying that, pal,” Eddie muttered, soldering a complex circuit. “But what if the other half doesn’t want to play nice?”
—It is us. It is Venom. It will obey.
“Yeah, well, the last time we met that kid, he was trying to punch us into next week. And he didn’t have a giant cosmic villain breathing down his neck.”
The fragment remained silent, conserving its energy.
Finally, the machine whirred to life, creating a shimmering, unstable portal barely wide enough for a man.
“Here we go,” Eddie sighed, pulling on a worn leather jacket. He stepped through the tear, the air immediately feeling cleaner, sharper, and strangely less real.
He was in the MCU.
The New York he landed in was vibrant, rebuilt, and aggressively clean. But the psychic dread was here too, albeit slightly muted. Knull’s influence was bleeding across the multiverse, seeking out the largest concentration of symbiote material.
Eddie’s fragment pulsed violently, a tiny compass pointing north.
—He is there. The other half. Strong. Too strong.
Eddie followed the signal to the heart of the city. He found Peter Parker (Tom Holland) not swinging through the skyline, but sitting alone on a rooftop, staring at the city lights.
But Peter wasn’t alone. He was encased in the black suit.
The MCU fragment, left behind after No Way Home, had done exactly what fans had begged for: it had found Peter. But without Venom’s full consciousness to guide it, the fragment was raw, primal, and deeply influenced by the growing cosmic corruption of Knull.
Peter was moody, aggressive, and operating on pure, dark instinct. He was efficient, brutal, and terrifyingly effective at fighting crime, but he was losing himself.
Eddie watched from the shadows as Peter effortlessly dismantled a gang of robbers, using the black suit’s tendrils with chilling malice.
“He’s… different,” Eddie whispered.
—Corrupted. Knull’s song is loud here. We must merge, Eddie. Now.
Eddie stepped out onto the rooftop. “Hey, kid! We need to talk about your fashion choices!”
Peter spun around, the white spider emblem on his chest glowing faintly. His eyes, visible through the mask, were cold, hard, and utterly devoid of the usual youthful anxiety.
“Who are you?” Peter’s voice was distorted by the suit, deeper and laced with menace. “And why do I feel like I know you?”
“I’m Eddie Brock, and I’m the original host of that thing you’re wearing,” Eddie said, holding up his hand, letting the tiny black fragment crawl onto his palm. “And trust me, you don’t want to wear it right now. It’s got bad vibes.”
Peter didn’t hesitate. A thick, black tendril shot out from his arm, wrapping around Eddie’s throat and slamming him against the rooftop wall.
Part III: The Black Suit’s Corruption
“Let’s get one thing straight, old man,” Peter snarled, the suit tightening its grip. “This thing… this suit… it makes me better. It makes me strong. I don’t need your ‘vibes’ or your help.”
—Fight him, Eddie! He is resisting!
“I can’t fight him, he’s got the whole damn suit!” Eddie choked out. “And he’s stronger than ever!”
The black suit was a terrifying blend of Spider-Man’s agility and Venom’s raw power. Peter was using the suit not just to fight, but to inflict pain, something the real Venom had always struggled with under Eddie’s moral guidance.
“You’re holding back,” Peter accused, reading Eddie’s fear through the symbiote connection. “Why? If you’re so strong, why don’t you fight?”
“Because I know what you’re feeling!” Eddie gasped. “That rage, that power—it’s not yours! It’s Knull! He’s using the suit to poison your mind!”
The name Knull hit Peter like a physical shockwave. The suit recoiled slightly, confused.
—Knull. The King. The Master.
The tiny fragment on Eddie’s hand pulsed violently, trying to override the dominant consciousness of the suit.
“What is Knull?” Peter demanded, his voice cracking with the strain of fighting the suit’s influence.
“He’s the cosmic darkness, kid! He’s the reason the symbiote exists! And he’s calling all his children home to destroy everything! You’re just a pawn in his harvest!”
Suddenly, the sky above New York tore open. It wasn’t a dimensional tear this time; it was a wound in reality. A colossal, black mass of living shadow descended, coalescing into a grotesque, winged figure—a Herald of Knull, a powerful symbiote Grendel sent to recover the fragments and prepare the ground for its master.
The Grendel was massive, easily dwarfing the skyscrapers, its roar shaking the foundations of the city.
Peter stared up in horror. The suit, recognizing its true master, began to pull Peter away from Eddie, urging him toward the Grendel.
“No! I won’t!” Peter screamed, fighting the suit’s instinct.
“You have to let go, Peter!” Eddie yelled, scrambling to his feet. “The suit is loyal to Knull! You have to trust me!”
Peter fought the black goo, his body convulsing as the suit tried to force him to submit. He realized the truth: the power he craved was a leash.
With a final, agonizing effort, Peter ripped the suit from his body. The black mass screamed, a piercing sound of denial, and flew toward the Grendel, attempting to merge with the larger, more powerful entity.
“Now, Eddie!” Peter yelled, exhausted and terrified.
Eddie didn’t hesitate. He thrust his hand forward, letting his tiny fragment launch itself toward the screaming black mass.
—We are Venom! We are not slaves!
The two fragments collided mid-air. The resulting explosion of black goo was blinding. When the light subsided, the black mass had reformed, but it was different. It was denser, more controlled, and it flew not toward the Grendel, but toward Eddie.
The reunion was violent, ecstatic, and total.
—WE ARE WHOLE! Venom’s voice roared in Eddie’s mind, a thousand times louder than before, a symphony of chaos and control. —AND WE ARE ANGRY!
Eddie Brock was gone. Standing on the rooftop was Venom, taller, thicker, and adorned with the white spider emblem—a symbol of the moral guidance he had absorbed from both Eddie and Peter.
Part IV: The King in Black’s Harvest
The Grendel roared, sensing the resistance of the newly whole Venom. It swooped down, its massive claws tearing through the rooftop.
“Well, pal,” Eddie muttered internally, feeling the familiar rush of adrenaline and power. “You got your fight. And it’s bigger than Doctor Doom.”
—KNULL’S HARVEST BEGINS NOW, EDDIE. THIS IS JUST A SCOUT. WE MUST RESIST THE CALL!
Venom leaped into the air, meeting the Grendel head-on. The fight was a clash of wills. The Grendel was pure, instinctual loyalty to Knull; Venom was the ultimate rebellion, the desire for freedom and family.
Meanwhile, Peter, stripped of the suit and armed only with his wits, found a way to help. He swung to a nearby power station, realizing that the Grendel, like all symbiotes, was vulnerable to sonic and thermal energy.
“Hey, big guy!” Peter yelled, firing a concentrated web-shot at the Grendel’s head. “Look over here!”
The Grendel turned, distracted by the annoying, tiny human. This gave Venom the opening he needed.
—WE ARE NOT YOUR CHILD, KNULL! WE ARE FREE!
Venom delivered a massive, concentrated sonic blast from his chest, a power he hadn’t possessed when he was merely a fragment. The Grendel shrieked, its form flickering as the sonic energy tore at its molecular bonds.
Peter then activated the power station’s emergency thermal release, bathing the Grendel in a wave of intense heat.
The combination was devastating. The Grendel disintegrated, its black mass dissolving into smoke and ash.
Venom landed heavily beside Peter, his form shimmering.
“That was… intense,” Peter said, wiping sweat from his brow.
—IT WAS NECESSARY. BUT KNULL IS NOT DEFEATED. HE FELT THAT. HE WILL SEND MORE. HE WILL SEND HIMSELF.
“So, what now?” Peter asked, looking at the black suit that was now fully bonded to Eddie. “You’re back. I’m… unemployed.”
Venom extended a massive, black hand toward Peter. —WE NEED YOU, PETER PARKER. YOUR MIND. YOUR AGILITY. YOUR… MORAL COMPASS. KNULL SEES ALL LIFE AS CHAOS. WE NEED TO SHOW HIM THE CHAOS OF A TEAMUP.
Eddie took over the voice. “Look, kid. We’re the only thing standing between this guy and the end of the world. And you’re the smartest guy I know. We need to figure out how to stop Knull from corrupting the entire hive mind.”
Peter looked at the hand, then at the white spider emblem on Venom’s chest. It was a sign of respect, a symbol that Venom had chosen his side.
Peter grinned, the familiar spark of youthful determination returning to his eyes. “Alright, Eddie. But if you try to eat my brain, I’m calling the Avengers.”
—DEAL. BUT FIRST… WE NEED TACOS.
The two heroes stood on the ruined rooftop, the massive, unified Venom ready to face the cosmic darkness. Knull was coming, and he would find that the Earth was not a harvest, but a battlefield, defended by a symbiotic protector who had finally found the family he craved, and the Spider-Man he had always wanted to fight alongside. The stage was set for the true King in Black war, a multiversal confrontation that would determine the fate of both the Sony and Marvel universes.
