Venom Meets New Kings in Black, And The One Above Them All
Warning! Spoilers ahead for Venom #5
In the latest issue of Marvel Comics' Venom, Eddie Brock discovers that he's not the only King in Black, meeting his successors in the Marvel Universe. After detaching himself from his physical body and time itself, Eddie is now existing within the symbiote hivemind he rules over, eventually finding himself in a garden containing his fellow King in Blacks. This includes Meridius, a secret rival to Eddie who may end up being worse than Knull, the King in Black before Brock.
In previous issues of Venom, Eddie allowed his body to be destroyed by the Life Foundation, though his mind and consciousness remained intact within the symbiote hivemind. While this is quite an impressive power, it's one the new ruler is still trying to get a handle on as he's able to witness the sum experiences of the hivemind from symbiotes existing in the past, present, and future. In this way, Eddie Brock's King in Black might one day become Marvel's version of Doctor Manhattan from DC's Watchmen universe, existing at every point of his timeline simultaneously.
However, it seems as though there are other King in Blacks that already have a greater grasp of this power as revealed in Venom #5 from writer Al Ewing and artist Bryan Hitch. Finding himself in a garden made entirely of symbiotic material created by this new King in Black named Meridius, Eddie's fellow symbiote god introduces him to the King in Blacks who will rise to power after Eddie. However, it seems as though Meridius sees himself as greater than his fellow Kings, existing above them with some higher purpose and understanding.
While Meridius introduces Eddie to Wilde and Tyro (both of whom hold very different personalities), Brock also encounters the distressed Finnegan as well as the monstrous and rage-filled Bedlam, all of whom have collectively "unshackled their minds" from time who've ended up in Meridius' garden. While it's revealed that this seemingly higher King in Black has been teaching his fellow Kings to navigate the timestream, he's also harboring some secret yet intense hate for Brock that has yet to be explained, working against the current King and in Black and his son Dylan who's become the new Venom in the present.
Just as Ewing created 'The One Below All" during his Immortal Hulk series, it seems as though the new Venom writer is setting up a new symbiotic version of "The One Above Them All" with Meridius' advanced abilities to navigate the timestream making him an extremely dangerous threat. Likewise, his influence over the other symbiote gods and desire to bond with Venom can't be good either. As such, it's going to be interesting to see who he really is and what he has planned for Eddie Brock's King in Black in the issues ahead.