Venom: The Last Dance Ending Explained: Every Way Knull Could Still Break Free

Venom: The Last Dance closes with Venom proving himself the lethal protector he always wanted to be, sacrificing himself to save Eddie Brock and the rest of the world by taking an acid shower before absorbing the full force of Strickland's grenade. That sacrifice is a massive blow to Knull, the dark god who needed the codex that Eddie and Venom forged when Eddie died in the first film in order to free himself from his prison on the symbiote homeworld of Klyntar. The instant Venom dies, Knull appears to sink deeper into his symbiote prison, and Eddie makes it to New York to see the Statue of Liberty, assuming the universe is now safe now that this key piece of the Eddie-Venom codex has been destroyed.

But the mid-credit scene that follows undercuts that relief. It is a very quick scene of Knull vowing to make humanity watch as he "kills your world," a line pulled directly from 2020's King in Black number one, the comic where Knull actually arrives on Earth to do exactly that. Knull sounds oddly optimistic for someone who apparently just lost his one and only known key to freedom, and that confidence makes me think the King in Black has some kind of trick up his sleeve.

Venom 3's Post-Credit Scene Hints the Symbiote Survived Inside a Cockroach

One possible answer to how Knull still gets free might already be sitting in the film's post-credit scene. That scene follows Cristo Fernandez's bartender character as the last remaining survivor after the xenophage attack on Area 55. After being terrified by the aftermath of the battle, he runs off, and a cockroach emerges from the wreckage to inspect the broken vial that Dr. Payne cracked open to merge with the agony symbiote earlier in the film.

That moment is a fun nod to Dr. Payne's earlier line about cockroaches surviving anything, but it also very likely teases how Venom himself survived the explosion, sustaining himself by merging with a cockroach before hopping from host to host until he eventually makes his way back to Eddie. That reading gets extra support from the credits themselves, which show images of Venom bonded to various animals we never actually see him bond with in the films.

If the first Venom movie is any indication, this Venom is more resilient to fire than most other symbiotes, since that same symbiote survived being seared by an exploding spaceship while saving Eddie's life. So the odds of Venom, or at least a tiny piece of him, surviving Strickland's grenade are actually quite high. On top of that, don't forget Rex Strickland secured a rogue piece of the Venom symbiote at the bar in Mexico at the start of the film, so if that piece is sitting somewhere in the ruins of Area 55, a cockroach could just as easily bond with that instead.

Knull's Multiversal Reach Could Point Toward Tom Holland's Spider-Man

This Eddie-Venom connection isn't the only way Knull could forge a new codex key. Knull's kingdom is the void of space itself, and that void doesn't just surround one universe but the multiple universes of the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse. The confirmed multiversal symbiote hive mind at the end of Venom 2 points to Knull being a multiversal antagonist, and if that's the case, his next ticket to freedom could come through Tom Holland's black-suited Spider-Man.

That connection was teased hard when Venom left a piece of himself behind on Earth-616 right before disappearing in the No Way Home post-credit scene, a disappearance that was actually retconned in The Last Dance. Instead of glowing yellow and vanishing like we saw happen to Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire's versions, Venom is launched backward through what looks like one of Klyntar's yellow portals back to his own universe. It's a strange thing to change, and maybe Sony simply couldn't use Marvel Studios' Doctor Strange magic in their solo films, but either way, the change is there.

If that leftover piece of the Venom symbiote merges with Peter Parker, all Peter would have to do is die while wearing the black suit to create a new codex key for Knull. So there's a real chance Knull senses that possibility and is simply waiting for a new black symbiote connection to form on Earth-616.

Topher Grace's Spider-Man 3 Venom Could Still Be Alive Because of the No Way Home Spell

There's another possible codex source, and it comes from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3. Topher Grace's Eddie Brock Venom exploded on screen when Spider-Man threw a pumpkin bomb at the symbiote, but the same spell that gave Sony's other past Spider-Man villains a second chance at life in No Way Home could apply here too. Doctor Strange said the spell transferred the souls of everyone who knew Peter Parker was Spider-Man to the MCU's Earth-616 right before they were supposed to die, which is why we saw Sam Raimi's Green Goblin, Doc Ock and Sandman alongside Marc Webb's Lizard and Electro.

We never actually found out what happened to Topher Grace's Eddie Brock, who very likely got pulled into Earth-616 by that same spell alongside the others. If that Venom had his face altered by the spell the way the other villains did, Knull could eventually use that Eddie-Venom connection to forge another codex key. Out of every possibility, this is the one I find myself vibing with most, because it means neither Tom Hardy's Venom nor Tom Holland's Spider-Man has to die for Knull to get free. He could simply pull that codex out of Topher Grace's Venom instead.

Spider-Man 2 on PlayStation 5 Already Showed a Death and Resurrection Knull Could Exploit

There's one more possible route, and it comes from Sony's Spider-Man 2 for the PlayStation 5. In that game, we witness the death and resurrection of Peter Parker when Harry Osborn bonds the Venom symbiote to Spider-Man to save his life, creating conditions that could make a codex. Granted, the Venom symbiote itself ends up destroyed by the end of the game's story, which could keep Knull from being able to use that particular codex.

Even so, Peter still has the anti-venom symbiote inside him, created when Miles Morales and Martin Li purified Peter's system of the remaining Venom symbiote influence. So there's a chance Knull could use that anti-venom symbiote within Peter to extract a codex. Whether Knull can actually pull that off with a purified symbiote hasn't been shown, but given his immense powers in the comics, I can't imagine that feat being beyond his capabilities.

The game does a fair amount of work teasing Knull's arrival on its own terms. At one point Peter Parker looks over notes from Dr. Kurt Connors about the symbiote meteorite that crash landed on the planet, and among those notes is Connors trying to figure out a spiral insignia branded on the meteorite, theorizing it could be an ancient celestial language or a form of interplanetary communication. Readers of the Venom comics know that symbol as Knull's own sigil, the one that appears on the faces of symbiotes directly under his influence. Given that this game already connects with Sony's Spider-Verse films through the Delilah scene and PS5 Peter watching over Miguel's anomalies, this could be Sony's way of setting up Knull's army of xenophage monsters arriving in the PlayStation universe to collect his codex.

Who Knull Actually Is in the Comics, and How He Became King in Black

Before the Big Bang, there were no stars or sources of light in the universe, just cold darkness, and this primordial void already had its own god. Knull was living peacefully in that void until the Big Bang filled the universe with light, and with that light came the celestials, extra-dimensional colonizers who saw the darkness as free real estate to expand their multiverse of light on behalf of the cosmic entities Infinity and Eternity. Knull, none too pleased about his home being disturbed, made a crude sword out of his own shadow and used it to slice the head clean off one of these celestial colonizers. The celestials responded by banishing Knull deep into the void.

Rather than sulk, Knull used the severed celestial head to his advantage, hopping inside its skull and turning it into a forge powered by leftover celestial energy. Using that forge, he empowered his shadow blade with cosmic power, creating the Necrosword, known as All-Black, which is regarded as the very first symbiote in the Marvel universe because it granted its wielder incredible power so long as it kept devouring souls. That violent origin left a lasting mark on the symbiote race that would follow, giving all symbiotes a weakness to sound and fire, which is part of why Spider-Man has been able to use church bells or plain fire against Venom in the comics. The severed celestial head Knull left behind eventually became known as Knowhere, a cosmic space station used by various alien races, with Cosmo the space dog once in charge of it; in the MCU, that same head was instead claimed by the Collector's Taneleer Tivan organization to extract its godly potential for profit.

Gorr the God Butcher, Thor's Lightning, and the Symbiote Mutiny That Caged Knull

After centuries of Knull butchering gods of light with All-Black, he was eventually stabbed in the mouth by one of those gods while stabbing him back, and their bodies crash landed on a barren planet. There they were found by an alien named Gorr, enraged that the gods of light had let his family die from his planet's harsh conditions. Gorr pulled All-Black from the light god's torso and used it to finish him off, becoming Gorr the God Butcher and leaving Knull's body to heal in the crater.

When Knull woke up furious at losing his weapon, he discovered he could bond a piece of his own primordial darkness with a living host, extracting their life force and memories. He used this power across the entirety of Gorr's home planet, converting it into a new race of beings he called symbiotes, and sat himself on a symbiote throne as the King in Black. His symbiote army, including symbiote dragons, searched the cosmos hunting gods of light until Knull detected a god on a sixth century Earth, not realizing it was Thor Odinson. Thor sent a surge of lightning into one of Knull's symbiote dragons, and the shock traveled across the hive mind Knull had built, severing his connection to every symbiote he had made and letting them think for themselves for the first time.

Those newly free symbiotes went on to bond with other living beings and, exposed to their hosts' light-based ideals like nobility and honor, used their new perspective to mutiny against Knull. A horde of symbiotes used their own bodies to trap him in a planet-sized prison, naming it Klyntar, the symbiote word for cage, a prison that would come to be known as the symbiote homeworld despite secretly being Knull's cell.

How Knull Escaped in the Comics, and What the King in Black Title Actually Means

Centuries later, in 2019's Absolute Carnage number five, Knull was freed by Eddie Brock after Cletus Kasady and the Carnage symbiote gave Eddie a choice between the death of his son Dylan or releasing the King in Black from Klyntar. Freed, Knull led his symbiote horde to attack Earth in 2020's King in Black number one, since Earth's Guardians were responsible for his original imprisonment. The Avengers were largely powerless against him, and even Sentry was easily defeated, split in half, with Knull consuming the Void entity inside him because that Void was made of the same primordial darkness Knull commands. He then covered Earth in darkness until Eddie Brock and Venom were gifted the nigh omnipotent powers of Captain Universe by the gods of light, using them to kill Knull by flying him into the center of the sun. Eddie was then crowned the new King in Black.

As for what that title actually means, it turns out the celestials originally approached Knull right after the Big Bang not to ruin his existence but to offer him the job of cosmic King in Black, an entity meant to safeguard the multiverse through mastery of darkness. Before they could explain that, Knull attacked them, so they banished him instead. After Knull's death, Eddie Brock leaned into the King in Black role, spending months protecting the universe with an unlimited army of symbiotes.

What Knull Crossing Into the Wider Marvel Cinematic Universe Could Mean

Since Knull is the current King in Black in the live-action Marvel universe, he holds absolute control over all symbiotic dark matter beings. If he manages to cross into Marvel Studios' proper continuity, that could put Peter Parker's Venom symbiote, the Black Knight's Ebony Blade, the Void within Sentry, and possibly even Scarlet Witch's powers in service of his conquest, though whether Marvel Studios is actually involved in Sony's Knull plans hasn't been confirmed.

If that ends up being the case, it's fortunate that Thanos destroyed the Ether reality stone, since that stone is directly tied to primordial darkness in the same way All-Black was, having been forged into a weapon by Malekith. Technically, Knull could probably create his own version of the Ether by forging more darkness into another dark infinity stone, though it's probably best not to give him any more ideas given how powerful he already is.

Which of these paths do you think Sony is actually building toward for Knull's escape?