Reviews

King in Black by Donny Cates

ddillon154's review against another edition

4.0

Strong opening and a compelling story throughout, but the sudden resolution fell flat for me.

brandonadaniels's review against another edition

4.0

It’s a little compressed, but it sticks the landing well enough. There’s some fun surprises, and the tie ins do help make it feel bigger and less compressed. Cates’s Venom tie ins are essential and make the book twice as long. The art is great.

gruso's review against another edition

4.0

As a fan of Venom, I loved it. All hail the king in Black!

surfmonkey01's review against another edition

4.0

Basically the end of Cates’ Venom run, with only one issue left to go. It’s funny that this came out around the same time as DC’s Death Metal, as they both had a heavy metal motif. I thought this was a little more coherent than DM, even while it was kind of a letdown from the hype. Curious to see where the next writer goes with everything Cates has set up

cassie_grace's review against another edition

4.0

I read this and the main King in Black book alternating issues, and they both lose a star for not being able to stand on their own. It should have been one oversized trade. I don't think Venom makes much sense on its own without the main story happening, and the main event is really Venom's story, so it'd be a shame to miss out on his important bits. In particular, Venom #35 is the denouement for both three years of Venom comics and the event as a whole, finishing Eddie Brock's journey for the moment and giving Dylan a great starting point. It's not quite perfect, but it's a close thing.

wesleyboy's review against another edition

2.0

EDIT : After reading Venom (2018) by Donny Cates, I realized THAT was what I thought THIS would be.
Go read Cates’ run on Venom, it’s way way better.

I’m torn.
On the one hand, this is an overstuffed mess where an apocalypse is basically averted in what feels like an afternoon.
On the other, it’s not very long so at least it’s fast.
It kinda feels like they just put together an outline of what they want to eventually bring into the MCU, but had to draw it first to make it official.
It’s fine. Not bad. But not great or exciting.

vernip's review against another edition

adventurous dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

 Who would've thought Spidey needing an extra costume in the first Secret Wars would spiral this far into bonkers-bananas territory?
Not only is there a whole planet of Venoms and other affiliated goo aliens, but they have their own god...and he wants to bring the Upside-Down to Earth.
Funnily enough every plan the heroes have? DOA. Ineffective. After picking up the remnants and dusting themselves off and a backup plan is in place? Still. Nada.
The only thing they got that works is a deus-ex-machina child, and a mysterious glowy ball o'light that fuses with Eddy Brock to make him a Hyper-Knuckles version of Venom that can

FUSE MJOLNIR AND THE SILVER SURFER'S BOARD INTO A CRAZY COOL AXE

So...yeah. Aesthetic is pretty dang metal but I just can't get over Knull's cartoonishly huge teeth sometimes. 

siena_j_p's review against another edition

adventurous dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This is another one I have honestly no feelings about. I found it chaotic and confusing to actually read, and the color palette made the images a bit difficult to follow. There was also very little characterization at all; all the story really did was follow the big cumulative battle against Knull. Admittedly, that’s probably partially because the prior comics did a lot of the character legwork, and I was just missing out on that. But regardless, I still sort of felt like the emotional core of this one was missing, and it was sort of a slog to get through. I found what I read of King in Black: Wiccan and Hulkling much more compelling.

angelfoodcakes's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

So I spent the past two weeks reading every comic from the King in Black event and no matter how good the writing or art in other comics were none of them held a candle to Cates’s comics. I spent the entire time looking forward to reading another issue from King in Black or Venom (2018), maybe that’s just because those are the only comics where the main plot happens but I like to think it’s just because I love his writing. On top of that, Stegman’s art is genuinely stunning, with some truly incredible two-page spreads in this comic.

The only downside of this event to me is the ending feels slightly rushed. I’m sure it’s because Marvel has been trying to pump out event after event with no end in sight (the main Venom run was intersected by three events for fucks sake!) so this comic was limited to 5 issues. It’s the same with War of the Realms I think. Really the best way to go about such massive potentially world-ending events is to draw them out at least a little bit more than 5 issues.

john0824's review

adventurous dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25