Queen in Black
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"Queen in Black" is an upcoming 2026 Marvel Comics crossover event. The storyline runs across a five-issue limited series written by Al Ewing and drawn by Iban Coello, supported by several tie-in books. It spins directly out of Ewing's runs on Venom and the Knull (2026) limited series, co-written with Tom Waltz. The story centers on Hela, the Asgardian goddess of death, who has imprisoned the symbiote god Knull and taken his title as the Queen in Black, then invades Earth with an army of alien species bonded to symbiotes. Knull, having escaped and claimed new power from the Lightforce Dimension, wages a simultaneous counter-offensive.[1]
The event's premise was established in Venom #250, a issue published in late 2025, written by Al Ewing and Charles Soule with art by Terry Dodson, Carlos Gómez, and Todd Nauck. Despite the issue's cover depicting Knull looming over Venom, the story revealed him already imprisoned. The final pages showed Hela using ancient magic to cage the weakened god, then donning a costume of black ichor and declaring herself the Queen in Black.[2]
Marvel announced the event at New York Comic Con 2025 during the Spider-Man and His Venomous Friends panel, confirming that the conflict between Hela and Knull would form the basis of a summer 2026 crossover.[3] At ComicsPRO in February 2026, Marvel confirmed Queen in Black #1 for July 1, 2026.[4]
Ewing attributed the event's origin to the interaction of two separate ongoing storylines: "The two books have very different plotlines, but sometimes the plot of one book provides the opportunity to ramp things up in another one."[5] The ongoing Thor (2025) storyline, in which Thor is dead and mortals have no living memory of the Norse gods, removed the divine opposition that would ordinarily check Hela's ambitions on Earth. Her seizure of Knull's symbiote power, Ewing noted, then fed directly into Venom.[6]
Issue #1 ships as a 56-page debut at $7.99. A prelude story appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #1000/Queen in Black #1 CGD 2026, distributed as a Comics Giveaway Day special on May 2, 2026, written by Joe Kelly, Ewing, and Phillip Kennedy Johnson with art by John Romita Jr., Iban Coello, and Nic Klein.[7]
Ryan Stegman, who co-created Knull with writer Donny Cates in Venom #3 (2018), drew the main cover for every issue. He also produced two homage covers for issue #1 based on his original Knull cover: one available at retail, one exclusive to Marvel's True Believers Blind Bags.[8]