With Marvel Comics' summer event Empyre now wrapped, a new cosmic threat looms on the horizon - Knull, the dark god of the symbiotes, who arrives in the event series and crossover 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:King in Black.

Bridging the gap between the two series is the one-shot by writer Clay McLeod Chapman and artist Guiu Villanova꧅, in which a group of galactic heroes will take on the forces of Knull as he heads toward Earth.

Newsarama spoke to Chapman ahead of Web of Venom: Empyre's End's November 4 release to find out how Knull's arrival ties into his pr💫evious work on the symbiote stories and , and what it all means for the dark times ahead.

Newsarama: Clay, Web of Venom: Empyre’s End bridges the gap between Empyre and King in Black. What can you tell us about that?

Clay McLeod Chapman: First off, just to say it... Thanks so much for having me on to chat about Web of Venom: Empyre's End. I'm dying to share it with folks and I really
appreciate Newsarama helping spread the word.

As far as that gap you mentioned - I personally like to think of it as a cosmic gap, a span of outer space where the fine folks at Marvel realized there was an
opportunity to tell a story.

My editors reached out to me and asked if I'd be interested in filling that extraterrestrial expanse with a story and I totally leaped at it. I don't want to give too much away, but ⛄there was an opportunity for me to bring one story to an explosive, terrifying conclusion and kickstart another story with a cosmic bang. 

Who wouldn't jump at that?

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Web of Venom: Empyre’s End #1 preview

Nrama: You first got into the world of the symbiotes during Absolute
Carnage, and you wrote . What’s it like now working on the arrival of Knull?

Chapman: I think of Knull as if I've been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. I have been feeling the early onset of Knull for a year or so now, and the symptoms have only gotten worse... and now, after finally visiting the𒊎 doctor and getting my x-ray, oh... I've come to learn I have only a few months to live.

In fact, I should've come in for a checkup a lot earlier because, as the ol' symbiotes like to say: God is coming... and now he's here and there's no comic-chemo that's going to🥂 eradicate this scourge from my body.

Nrama: Speaking of which, what can you tell us about the titular King in Black and his part in this one-shot?

Chapman: I don't want to sound flippan▨t about terminal illnesses here, but when it came to Knull, I did often think of him as a form of cancer.

The King in Black is something of an all-pervading force, an entity that is so corrosive, it consumes absolutely everything in his path... He feels unstoppa🀅ble. The characters in play within this one-shot are left with a sense of hopelessness when 🌄they first realize he's coming, that they're doomed - but then they rally and fight back. That's all they have at the end of the day - to fight back.

Even when the odds are against us, you fight. Knull to me is that relentless illness that will cons💟ume every last living cell if - if - you let it. Because that's all anyone can do at the end of the day, right? Fight.

Nrama: What threads might we see picked up from your Absolute Carnage stories?

Chapman: I feel extremely fortunate that Marvel has let me play with so many different symbiotes... Scream. The Life Foundation fam. These fellas won't make their way into this particular story, 🔯but in the vein of "Goonies never say die," I'll say you can never keep a good symbiote down.

Nrama: What makes artist Guiu Villanova the perfect collaborator for this story?

Chapman: Guiu has such a handle on action, it's downright absurd. A writer - or maybe I should just cop to it and say myse🅰lf - never knows how outlandish their action sequences🎉 are until the artist articulates them.

Guiu has the uncanny knack to boil my doggerel down to a finite gesture, distilling the narrative to its absolute essence... 🥀and making it look balletic.

This is an action-he🎐avy story and he turned it into a symbiꦇotic Swan Lake. I love it.

Nrama: What are your goals when you set out to write a tie-in like this? What are the challenges versus a standalone story?

Chapman: I was given a particular cast of characters to play with on this tie-in, so it felt like an ensemble story fro▨m the get-go. I knew it would be set in a cosmic environment, so those two elements – large ensemble, outer space setting - sent my imagination adrift in Ridley Scott-terrain.

I'm suc🦩h a sucker for Alien, that I felt like this would be a fun opportunity to serve up an homage to that film while exploring certain themes: The fight for survival, the will to live during times of hopelessness, banding together to overcome a faceless foe.

As far as challenges go - that gap you mentioned at the beginning - I knew I had a small narrative canvas to fill and make my own. The A to B were essentially in place, so I had to figure out how best to conn🐼ect them together and make it feel like it was mine.

And terrifying. I wanted it to be scary.

Nrama: On that note, what’s it like collaborating on this King in Black
event? Can we expect more symbiote stories from you down the road?

Chapman: For me, I alway𝕴s like to tell storie☂s that feel intimate and personal... King in Black is a massive event, but Empyre's End is a small corner of this expansive storyline.

I got to focus on this one particular moment in time, one that could have been potentially overlooked by more grander-scaled stories, and tell the tale of this
fated crew who just-so-happened to be in the way of the apocalyp♑se. And as far as what to expect down the road? Wel𝓡l, all I'll say is...

Never scream never.

Nrama: Bottom line, what do fans need to know going into King In Black:
Empyre’s End?

Chapman: Bottom line? Let's have fun... We're all gonna die. Didn't you hear? ๊Knull is on his way! So let's pop in Galaxy of Ter🔴ror and warm ourselves up to the end of times.

King in Black is imminent - here's everything we know about the King in Black crossover.