The story starts in deep space. Knull, the ancient God of the Void who nearly encased Earth in living darkness, is back but with a twist. Incinerated by light during his last defeat, he’s absorbed that divine energy, mutating into a being of pure light.
Instead of being cleansed, Knull embraces the agony. He can now manipulate all forms of electromagnetic light to sculpt brand-new “symbiotes”. Hard-light constructs completely devoid of morality, free will, or the capacity to rebel. Calling himself the “King in Bright,” Knull sets a course to the Sol System, intending to use light to destroy creation.
Meanwhile, up in Asgard, Tyr tries to monitor Knull using a scrying orb. But Hela, the Goddess of Death, shuts down his small-scale planning. Hela has taken over the Onyx Throne with full control of Knull’s dark symbiote legions.
Calling herself the “Queen in Black,” she decides that Earth will be her ultimate weapon and plots a full-scale invasion.
Tense Briefings and Magical Scrying
Back on Earth, the Avengers Mansion serves as the war room. Tony Stark (Iron Man) is brought up to date with everything symbiote-related. Mary Jane “MJ” Watson is permanently bonded with the Venom symbiote after he parted ways with Eddie Brock. MJ makes it clear this wasn’t by choice and while they’re stuck together to stay alive, they have reached an understanding.
Tony Stark isn’t happy about any of this and expresses his concerns that Venom could corrupt MJ. Flash Thompson points out that he was able to get along with his symbiote to operate as Agent Anti-Venom and join the Avengers. Tony counters that Flash was a good influence on the symbiote, not the other way around. With MJ being a talented actress and a good person overall, Venom could only be pretending to play nice. Spider-Man (Peter Parker), who knows exactly where Tony is coming from due to his own experiences with the symbiote, swears he’s keeping an eye on Venom. When Tony asks about Eddie’s son Dylan Brock, Dylan reveals himself to be operating as Toxin (or “Captain Spider”) and is on the front lines. Tony “benches” Dylan but does agree it’s better for the kid to stay bonded to Toxin since the goo acts as armor.
To figure out where Knull is hiding, Scarlet Witch, the current Sorcerer Supreme, uses the Eye of Agamotto to locate the Onyx Throne and see who’s in charge. Tapping into MJ/Venom’s residual connection to Knull’s symbiote hive mind as magical insulation, Wanda is surprised to see Hela instead of Knull. Hela immediately senses the scrying spell and hurls a massive magical counter-attack, knocking the heroes off their feet.
With confirmation that Earth is facing a brand-new threat, the heroes try to figure out who Hela is and what her connection to Knull is. They don’t remember that Hela is an Asgardian as memories of the existence of the Norse Gods have been erased from this reality. The only one who still remembers is Beta Ray Bill, who also has the powers of the late Thor Odinson.
Beta Ray Bill rallies the room, calling on the Avengers, X-Men, and Fantastic Four to assemble against Hela’s forces. But Captain America (Steve Rogers) and Captain Alliance wonder if Knull, now imbued with light-based powers, is even more dangerous than ever before.
Nova’s Sacrifice
Out near the edge of the solar system, Nova (Richard Rider) tries to put an end to Knull before he reaches Earth. Supercharged by the Nova Force Worldmind to 300% capacity, Nova channels everything he has into a direct hit.
It does absolutely nothing. Knull simply laughs as he reminds Nova that all electromagnetic energy, Including the Nova Force, is just a wavelength of light. You can’t destroy someone who is the light. Knull responds with a casual beam of hard light, vaporizing Nova instantly and leaving him for dead.
A Global Invasion
With Knull closing in, Hela launches her global assault. Tyr commands specialized drop pods across the globe, sending distinct alien-symbiote hybrid legions to target major landmarks. Rigellian terraformers are in Egypt, Skrull infiltrators materialize in Italy, Mentelleronite destroyers in Japan, Chitauri coordinators in the UK, and Kree shock troops in New York.
The heroes scramble to cover the globe. At the Pyramids of Giza, Wanda Maximoff uses her hex magic to short-circuit a Rigellian terraforming shield. That gives Vision the opening he needs to drop from the upper atmosphere like a kinetic weapon, increasing his density past tungsten to obliterate the alien machinery in one hit.
During a quick comms check, Reed Richards drops a bombshell on Tony Stark: Nova survived. Right before Knull’s blast hit him, Richard opened a micro-wormhole behind the Moon and limped back to the Baxter Building. With his power levels down to 27%, Nova reveals to Reed and Tony that Knull is now the King in Bright who plans to use his power over light to destroy Earth. And he’s roughly half an hour out from Pluto. Richard is then horrified to learn that Hela is the new Queen in Black and is trying to take over the planet.
Down on the streets of New York, Spider-Man, Venom, Toxin, Captain Alliance, and Black Cat hold the line against the Kree symbiote troops. Cable suddenly bodyslides into the fray wielding massive heavy ordnance, instantly blowing up an incoming pod. Cable reveals that Tony Stark is forming a specialized cosmic strike team called the Defenders, and he forcibly drafts Flash Thompson to join the fight in space.
The Rise of the Symbiote Intelligence
Just as the remaining heroes start to catch their breath in New York, a new wave of purple drop pods slams into the asphalt. Spidey’s Spider-Sense goes wild right before the trap springs. That’s because the pods don’t open from the top, but from the bottom.
The Purple Legion, composed of Skrull-symbiote hybrids, tunnel their way out of the ground from under their feet. Utilizing their shapeshifting abilities, some Skrulls expand into massive hulks to ground Captain Alliance, while others shrink down to fly-sized pests to bypass Spider-Man’s webbing.
The tactical distraction works perfectly. A Skrull soldier reaches a Kree All-Purpose Power Tool, activating the device so it begins consuming nearby Skrull-symbiote matter as raw biological building blocks.
Before the team can defuse it, the machine synthesizes the ultimate fusion of Klyntar symbiotes and Kree bio-technology. The issue ends with the birth of The Symbiote Intelligence. It’s a towering, corrupted, green-visaged floating head in a glass containment tank.
With Knull approaching from deep space, Hela commanding the symbiote armies, and monstrous symbiote hybrids taking over New York, Queen in Black #1 sets the stage for a terrifying war of cosmic proportions.
